Maybe in Our Next Career?

Well, it's half way through January and here we are. Things are going really well on the fundraising side of this new adventure...now to get the rest of our lives ready for the big move. It's actually debatable which one is more challenging at this point. I told Randy we should be at least 80% finished with getting rid of our stuff if we are 80% finished with raising our budget. He smiled...and eventually we went through our closet donating everything we aren't taking with us. WHOO HOO for progress.

So far in January we have been staying here in the great state of Texas. The first Sunday we were in Corsicana. Corsicana is special, because during the second week of school, when Randy and I were at Southwestern, Randy asked me if I wanted to go to Corsicana with him on a Wednesday night for church. He was interviewing for a youth pastor position. I thought sure, why not?.... So I went with him. As I was getting in his car, it occurred to me that I didn't know this guy...and I didn't know where Corsicana was. I thought to myself, I must never tell my mother about this. I'm sure I probably did tell her....eventually. Randy got the job, a year later we got married, and the rest is history. Ministering there was nice, it was so good to see the people we knew all those years ago.

Today we were in Bryan, TX. It was a longer drive, so we stayed the night last night. Ella was in rare form. She and Griffin refused to take their nap on the way down...even though it was their exact nap time. They finally fell asleep about 20 minutes before we got to the hotel. Of course. Ella also decided she needed no sleep last night. It's almost as if she is completely oblivious to our need for rest.....especially on Saturday nights. Once we got up and got going, our day was so fantastic. It was one of those churches that you felt like you were at home from the moment you walked in. I really cannot say enough about how friendly the pastor and the people were in this church. Another really great thing, was there were many people in the church from Africa. We met people from Zimbabwe and Kenya. It was really good visiting with them. Honestly, it made us even more excited about our upcoming move.

Bryan is located right next to College Station. Which of course is home to Texas A&M. So we drove around a little before dinner last night. WOW! That's a big school! We enjoyed the town...it had such a great feel to it. As we were driving home this afternoon, I told Randy maybe when we come home from Africa, years down the road, we could buy some land and farm oil down there in the Brazos Valley. Or maybe grow natural gas or something. I've heard natural gas is where it's at these days! But then I remembered my above average fear of fire. It's quite possible I would drive myself crazy always thinking I smelt gas. I remembered the one time I had a gas stove...I hardly slept that year.... I'm not all together sure of how the whole natural gas farming thing works. :) Maybe we should start with something less flammable...

A Note for Donors

Many of you have made pledges for us over the last few months or plan to do so in the very near future to help support our missionary effort in Swaziland. We are so grateful, but we are aware that sometimes the system can be a bit confusing and may even feel a little awkward if you are used to operating in an electronic economy. We apologize for this and want you to know that as team members with a pretty large missions organization we are sure there are many people doing the best they can. I want to go over a couple of commonly asked questions and hopefully help with some of the road blocks we are experiencing.

1. I made a pledge but haven't heard anything.

When you make a pledge it takes a little time for the Missions Organization to process the pledge and assign an account number to you as a donor, etc. This means that it could be a little while before you get anything in the mail from them acknowledging your pledge. I am attempting to send something from me directly when I get acknowledgement of your pledge, but as you might imagine this can delayed as well. I am so sorry for the delay.

2. Where do I send the money? I haven't gotten an envelope.

The first thing to note here is that the address to send the money is:

Assemblies of God World Missions

ATTN: ACCT# 2545895

1445 North Boonville Avenue

Springfield, MO 65802-1894

Secondly, one quirk in the system is that you do not get a envelope and statement UNLESS you have sent in a donation. So your first donation, you will have to provide the envelope (although I try to send that out to you, once I receive notice of your pledge). If for whatever reason you miss a month or misplace your statement and return envelope you will not get another one until you have sent in another donation. They do no automatically come each month. I am exploring an automated service for my newsletters once I leave for the field that will included an envelope, but I just have to figure out a way to keep costs down. If you need extra envelopes please let me know and I will be happy to send them you. I would also be happy to set up an email reminder if you like each month to send in the donation.

3. Why can't I just give online?

Ahhhhh, why indeed. I am sorry I can't answer why to many questions, but I can tell you what is available. You can send in a donation by debit or credit card online by following this link:

https://secure1.ag.org/contributions/detail.cfm?LedgerID=d92bb7ae-6928-4a76-ac48-a8143ecd99f4

If you like to pay each month this way, just follow the link and make a contribution. Again, if you would like an email reminder, I can send you one each month with the contribution link attached.

4. What about automatic giving?

AT this time the system is not set up to directly debit your checking account each month. If you have auto bill pay with your bank you can set that up with them. What you can do is fill out the Credit Card Authorization form and fax or mail it in. By doing so it will automatically charge your credit/debit crd each month. Think of it as auto bill pay. For those of us who are comfortable living in an electronic economy, and don't have the automatic bill pay option with our bank this is my recommended method. *****You make a pledge and then send in this form.***** The web address of the form is here:

http://ag.org/contributorservices_PDF/CRCDAUTH.pdf

I hope this helps with a few issues we are having. I really hope to get all of these things ironed out before leaving for the field. As you might imagine, the fear of getting to the field and budgeted donations not coming in is a real concern for us. We are a missions organization, not a financial institution, so our systems can be little frustrating at times. I hate that, but again please know as many people as possible are working as hard as they can to offer administrative support. Thank you for your patients and please email me at any time if you have any questions.

Randy Freeman