Monday, July 26, 2010
You Have Our Hearts!
Monday, July 19, 2010
Our Favorite Thing
As we travel and itinerate one of our prayers is that we will minister to the churches that we go to. More than just raise funds from them, we want to bless them. Raising support is a necessary part of what we do. We have to gather the cash budget to get us to the field and monthly pledges to keep us there. It is not a dread to us or burden to us to raise money. I don’t know that I would call it a joy yet, but it is what it is.
I guess, offering people the opportunity to give and partner with us financially is ministry. I’m not sure there is any greater discipline for the heart than the obedient investment of our finances. Jesus did say that where we invest our money reveals the position of our heart. I have always found it funny that Jesus had so much to say about money, but if a minister does these days he’s considered a crook.
Nonetheless, raising money is fine and we embrace it as a part of what we do, but we love to be a blessing to people in other ways. To leave something with them that encourages and strengthens them really is our aim. We are noticing a couple of very interesting things though. God is taking care of the finances. As we simply share the need without violating our conscience by being obnoxious or pushy, He’s speaking to people. We are also noticing that God is using these churches to minister to us way beyond money!
Our favorite thing about itinerating so far is that at the end of almost every service, the church gathers around us and prays. Oh, it is so awesome! They pray these amazing faith filled prayers for our ministry. They pray these powerful prayers of protection. THEY BLESS OUR CHILDREN! As I’m sitting here with tears on my cheek, I’m reflecting on the things that have been spoken over my children and their ministry to Swaziland. Dez and I are not in this alone, our kids are a part of this team. We knew that, but we are so thankful that others know that to.
Your financial support is such an encouragement to us. We can’t get there and stay without it. However, your prayer support is our favorite thing!
RF
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Our most asked question....and the answer. :)
Imagine all of the expenses related to running your household, not any extras just the basic things. Then add to that the cost of education for your children because that is not free in Swaziland. When you’re thinking of the basics don’t forget everything from health insurance to toilet paper. Think of everything. Once you have that in mind, think of the expenses related to running the daily operations of your office, a ministry, or nonprofit organization. Things like office supplies and gasoline to get to places of ministry.
There are the one-time expenses like flights to the field and flights home three years later (there are six of us- btw). The cost of setting up a home and shipping stuff to the field is also included in our budget. There are deposits, visa fees, etc. The mission we are a part of is so helpful and gives such great assistance. WE ARE SO THANKFUL FOR THE TEAM WE ARE A PART OF! They have our back and we know that. They help us keep our costs down, but even with their help our monthly budget is substantial. The cash budget is also substantial.
We have to raise all of this before we go to the field and for our first term we go for three years. So we have to find people who are willing to partner with us monthly for 3 years and how ever long it takes us to raise the budget. This can be hard because for some folks a monthly commitment for that long is hard to imagine. The quicker we get people to come on board as monthly supporters and get the cash budget raised the sooner we get to the field. The benefit of that is that less money is wasted itinerating and less time wasted before we get feet on the ground meeting the need.
So people often ask next what our greatest need is. My answer is daily prayer warriors and monthly partners. We need people who will come along side us and through our Missions organization support us monthly starting now. We need people who will hold us up in prayer daily.
I hope this answers the question and I would be happy to discuss it further with you if you have any more questions.
Randy Freeman (follow me)
www.lifeforswaziland.com
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Home Sweet Home
The next three weeks, for Randy and I, were filled with cultural studies, dental visits, forums, dinners, area director meetings, educational specialist meetings, U.S. relations meetings, church services, a class on how to fill out an IR, choir practice, and the list goes on and on. The kids' three weeks consisted of physical exams, dental visits, swimming, cultural studies, bowling, camping for Hudson, going to the zoo, barn swinging, Silver Dollar City, a Branson show, making crafts, and meeting lots of other missionary candidates' kids. They had a little more fun than we did, but really, we greatly enjoyed getting to spend time with all of the other candidates, veteran missionaries, and our area directors. We love the people that we are working with in the region of Africa, and the people in the South Africa area are just icing on the cake! God has blessed us with so many new friendships....we are overwhelmed! In a good way. :)
Thursday night we had our official commissioning service. It was beautiful to see all of the missionaries as their names were called to serve in places all over the globe. So many of them had become dear friends over the 3 weeks we were at PFO. It was hard to say good bye to some of them...as we know we may never be with them on the same continent again. Fortunately, we live in a day and time when Facebook can keep us close....cyberly speaking of course.
Thank you so much for praying for us over the last month. We have been so blessed in so many ways...we stand in awe of our Lord. He is good and He is faithful. We are honored that He loves and takes such good care of us.