Last week we took a call from a missionary family working on building their support team that asked us if we'd consider being a part of their monthly support. We love what they're doing and catching up with our friend, and promised to pray about whether God would lead us to start supporting them.
Yesterday Gabe and I sat down for our weekly "detail day" prayer time - a time when we try to just make a space to listen to God together about whatever he wants to talk about, but specifically anything we've put on our list of things we need to hear God about for direction.
When we got to asking about supporting this family, I was curious to see what God would say.
We set aside a percentage of every dollar we receive to go into an account we've labeled our "Missionary Support Fund." We use that money to support missionaries each month - some of whom we've been in relationship with for years. It's always been awesome to see how God provides what we need and, in turn, for others through that fund.
Currently, we spend every cent of what we put in to that fund each month, plus a little bit more fulfilling our commitments of support. From a logical standpoint, it would seem like we don't have the money to take on another missionary, but Gabe and I wanted to make sure we were hearing God on that issue and not making a decision based on our own logic.
So, we prayed.
Gabe felt like the Lord impressed on him the verse in Isaiah (chapter 54) about the barren woman enlarging her tent pegs - basically, before something has come to pass, acting in obedience to what God has told you.
I felt like the Lord gave me a verse from Joshua 18 about casting lots for answers.
We shared back with each other about what we felt God was saying and decided we'd flip a coin for confirmation, but we were pretty sure God was leading us to start supporting this family. So we grabbed a gold coin like the one pictured above, and decided heads was a yes, tails was a no, and we flipped it:
Heads.
So then we prayed about how much to support them each month (one of the things we've learned about hearing God and following his direction is to definitely pray about the details and not just run ahead with our own opinions!). I felt like God gave me a certain number in USD. Gabe also got a number, but he felt like it was in NZD. We plugged the amount in NZD into our handy google converter, and the equivalent in USD was the same as the amount in NZD.
I fired off an email letting the family know we would start supporting them for the amount we felt God specified.
And then I told Gabe, "I guess we need to pray to ask God for more money so we can fulfill this support each month!" So while I was getting porridge for Mara and Gabe was cleaning up breakfast prep, I just simply said aloud, "OK, Father - can you give us more money so we can give more away?"
I checked my email a few minutes later, and last Friday I'd had an email come in from our friend Carrie - currently one of our monthly supporters - that I'd briefly seen was in the inbox, but I hadn't taken time to look at it in detail. When I opened it up and read through it, she was writing to ask for information on how she could submit our ministry work to the company she works for to see if she could get her monthly gift matched by her company. Whoa! That's cool!!
I told Gabe and we were both encouraged that God was, indeed, speaking to us when we'd prayed and that he was going to take care of the details.
Then this morning, I opened up my FB messenger app and I had received a message from a student that was a part of our DTS a few months ago who, himself, has been doing missions work, and he asked if we had a PayPal account because he'd like to send us a financial gift.
WHOA!!! That's COOL!!
I told Gabe and we were even MORE encouraged!!
Sometimes I have moments of looking at myself and our life, almost from a distance or an alternative perspective, and I think, "Are we crazy? Like, this is really an odd way of living life, making decisions, and just being. I mean, this is not a normal way of life - our priorities, our finances, our decisions about where we live, what we live without, everything is just a little bit odd."
But then I have these kinds of moments - where Gabe and I together get to experience and interact with the Creator of the Universe who loves us and cares for us and is more conscientious of detail-management and working behind the scenes than I could ever be, and I'm just so, so thankful that our life - the one life we get to spend - is laced with these kinds of stories and adventures.
