Since our adventure to be missionaries with Chi Alpha has begun we
have been studying a lot of different materials
on how to successfully raise funds to support our ministry. We have learned so
much but most importantly, our studying has caused us to have a healthy view on
asking for support. We have learned supporting missionaries is a biblical
practice and something we should not be ashamed of. It has also caused us to
use our faith muscles and allow God to show himself to be faithful. We have
learned to look vertically to God for our finical support and not horizontally to humans. There is nothing better than being in the center of God's will and
allowing him to show himself faithful.
One
book we read on support raising gave the advice to start with the people in our
lives who we feel the most comfortable with and
who we know already support us in all that we do. We began to make a list of
such people in our lives and we were overwhelmed with the quality
of people we already feel supported by. So last weekend we went on a road
trip to meet with each of these "giants of faith" to talk to them
about our call to Chi Alpha and see what advice we could get from them. We would
like to share a few of their stories.
The first people that we chose to share our presentation with were Becky
and Larry Lang. Becky and Larry were Brandon's jr high and senior high youth
pastors. They were the ones who taught Brandon how to lead worship and
encouraged him to follow in his gifting’s towards
being in full time ministry. Becky has some interesting stories of Brandon as a
kid, and let’s just say that Brandon was not an easy teenager, but Becky saw
something in him and never gave up. Becky and Larry also did our premarital
counseling and I remember Becky looking at Brandon during one of our meetings
and saying “I always knew God was preparing you for a partner in ministry and
it is so good to finally meet her.” Becky and Larry live in San Diego so it has
been a major blessing to reconnect with them since moving here and continue to
glean from their wisdom. They still work as youth pastors in San Diego and
continue to raise up worship and ministry leaders. A few Sundays ago we went to
church with them and as we were introducing ourselves to their pastor, Brandon
shared that we knew Becky and Larry because they were his youth pastors, the
pastor said "It seems like almost everyone I meet had Becky and Larry as their youth pastors" Just goes to show how
many kids lives they have touched over the years. How blessed we are to be
among the many who have been changed because of them.
Our next stop was to Indio to meet with Ed
and Julie Tyler. Ed and Julie were the pastors who hired us to be the youth and
worship pastors at Christian Life Center in Santa Cruz. Brandon will tell you
that working with Ed in the church office for three years he grew under Ed's
leadership in the area of prayer. Whenever he would go to Ed with concerns for
his ministry at CLC, Ed would always tell him to go to prayer first. Brandon
and Ed would often meet in the mornings to pray together and this made a huge
impact on Brandon and how he does ministry today. Over the last year Ed and
Julie have been through some tough times as they have transitioned from Santa
Cruz to Indio and are looking at starting a church in a very tough area, but
their faith has never wavered. We
had such a wonderful time with them (as we always do) as they glow with the
Love of Jesus. No one would ever know the trials they have endured because their
faith goes before them. They are a true testimony of what a beautiful life can
look like when putting God first.
From Indio we drove to Highland to meet with Dave
and Sue Robson. Dave and Sue were the pastors who hired us for our first
full-time ministry job as worship and youth directors. We will be forever
grateful for them for taking a chance on us because at the time we had very
little experience and we were very young and immature. We grew so much
under their leadership and still to this day view them
as mentors. Our time at Highland Hills church will forever be monumental to our
ministry as our faith, our marriage and our relationships grew stronger under
their leadership. We learned from them that being a pastor
means being a servant as they have dedicated their lives to serving others and desire to
see people in a healthy place. I will never forget talking with Sue one morning
during one of her surprise pop in visits to my living room (oh how I miss those
visits) She said to me with tears in her eyes that she believes that Brandon
and I are destined to do BIG things in our lifetime for the kingdom of God
and our time at Highland Hills is training ground for the future. How thankful
we are to this couple for seeing something in us and being willing to train us
for our future in ministry.
Our
last stop, among the 10 others we made that busy weekend was with Rick and Sue Clark. Rick and Sue have over 30
years of experience as missionaries. Over the years we have learned from this
couple to dream big when it comes to reaching people for the kingdom of God.
They currently run their own mission organization called
TEAM international whose purpose is to train up leaders to start churches in unreached
people groups around the world. Their mission is to start 100 churches in 100 different cities
and they are well on their way to achieving their
goal. Needless to say they know a lot about raising support. Brandon actually lived in a room in their garage during his college years
as he was helping Rick with the beginnings of TEAM. This couple is the ultimate
in hospitality their
home is truly a sanctuary to so many. They always have at
least two
or more people living with them from all over the World. They have adopted so
many international students and call them family. We are just one of many who
have benefited from their love and wisdom. We were excited to meet with them to
tell them about Chi Alpha and we left with a page full of notes to guide us through
our first steps in this ministry.
We are humbled that ALL of these“giants of faith”have committed to
be on our prayer and financial team with Chi Alpha. With these mentors behind us we feel equipped to
be successful in
all that we do. As we met with each of them we were beyond blessed by their
excitement for us and our ministry and we came away with great ideas of how to
make it even better. God has been so good to us that as we continue to say“yes”to him he continues to surround us with people who encourage and uplift us to
be all that we can be.
Just for a quick update on our support raising we are humbled and
amazed at what God is doing. Currently EVERY person we have met with has committed to
partnering with us financially. We are currently 25% to our monthly goal and we
have only just begun. Continue to pray for favor in this area. We feel so
encouraged that we are exactly were God wants us to be.
