Raising support to sustain a life of missions can be overwhelming. It can be a major obstacle that keeps people from ever obeying God's call on their life. We know God controls every resource in the world, but do we truly believe He can provide in this way for our life? We've put together a series of support raising stories from people in different stages and viewpoints of life as a way to remind you that God is at work and He loves to show off in this way.
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My wife and I have been on support since October of 2012. At that time it was just the two of us. Currently we are raising support as a family of five. In our 5.5 years of support raising we’ve lived on three continents and pioneered a new location in South Asia. All of these transitions and roles required an increased budget. Back in 2012, we were some of the first to participate in a support raising training conference led by Steve Shadrach. We absolutely loved learning the Biblical basis for support raising, and left the conference pretty positive.
It wasn’t long however that discouragement began to creep in. I remember it climaxing with a support meeting that was actually successful in terms of giving, but unsuccessful in terms internal tensions. We had known this family for years, and for some reason we were presenting a rehearsed sales pitch instead of sharing the vision of our calling in God.
We left that meeting discouraged and even sickened with ourselves.
That night we surrendered our support raising in prayer and came out of that time with the thought, “If God knows our needs before we even ask Him, why are we so focused on asking others?”
We made it our ambition to make our needs known to God, and only to man if they directly asked. Within three months, we were fully funded. We saw God provide time and time again.
Flash-forward to 2015. We left North Africa, and accepted a job in South Asia. But when we left North Africa, we lost a good deal of support. In fact, within 24 hours we lost $700 a month in partnerships. We had an 8 month old, and a long-term vision for South Asia.
The pressure to “provide” was palpable.
So I went into support raising mode. I made phone calls, sent emails, and unsuccessfully tried to set up meetings with potential supporters. After a few weeks of answering machines, I was convicted with the same truth from 2012. I repented of my self-sufficiency, my lack of trust, and re-submitted our finances to God in prayer.
At that time we needed $700 a month, and $10,000-15,000 in one-time gifts. Within 24 hours of prayer, I received a phone call from our accountant. She said, “I’m just calling to confirm you were expecting a big check.” To which I replied, “No, who is it?” She gave me the name, but honestly I didn’t have a clue to who she was referencing.
Suddenly I remembered a young girl my wife had been discipling. A few weeks prior she mentioned her parents wanting to give. Well, they did. It was $25,000. It covered our one time needs, and put a substantial dent in our monthly needs for two years.
God is good. He knows our needs.
Go to God in prayer, before you go to man in financial requests.
