So as I’m sure if you are reading this blog, you know and love me, and you know this fundraising experience has not been that fun.
It’s been hard.
It’s hard risking your heart in asking for finances you don’t have.
It requires vulnerability.
It requires strength in accepting no or not right now.
It requires patience.
It requires love.
As I approach my next deadline with barely any funds for this mission, I admit I’m a bit discouraged. I’m a little disappointed. I’m frustrated. I’m confused. I’m still holy. I’m still hurting. I’m still trying. I’m still His.
Between my family’s battle with sickness as of late and lack of church support financially, I was left to consider again if this is where Jesus has me for the next year. I was thinking maybe some of my relationships needed time to heal over events in the last year in order for this money to come in. Or maybe God really is waiting until the last minute to show Himself in doing a miracle, in having me trust and depend on Him even more.
And as I cry out to Jesus over this and asking “what do we do?,” I’m finding myself so discontent. I’m dissatisfied and I think it’s a gift.
I’m hurt because I expected so much more from people around me.
I really thought that as I saw a need when I was in Ethiopia this past year that as I blogged about it, the money would just roll in and I’m finding that very little to nothing happened because of it. Granted some things happened and praise Him, but not everything.
It’s left me struggling with feelings of being invisible or as the saying goes painfully visible yet absolutely ignored. And it wasn’t just me but them.
I don’t want that to happen with this trip.
If I come across a needy family and I know God’s word and His heart for the poor (as I do), I want the finances to be there to help them. I want to be able to use this past experience in somehow teaching those around me the importance of sacrifice and somehow I’m finding I need a new approach because what I’ve been doing hasn’t been working. It’s not been effective.
Why do we not see them? Where is our heart? Why are our actions not about helping them? Why am I left to feel invisible? Of all the things we spend our money on, are not people God’s most prized “commodity?”
Do we get to rethink our budgets? Do we get to try even if it’s not in our budget? What is our next step in honoring God with His heart for the poor, the orphan, the widow, the person next door, the person we’ve never met overseas?
When we choose to not support the individual, we are choosing not to support other individuals, and our ripple from that matters.
Regardless, I want people to see Jesus in me. I want them to see Him in America. I want them to see Him in Costa Rica. In Nicaragua. In Honduras. In Bolivia. In Chile. In the Balkans. In Greece. In Romania. In Ethiopia. In Rwanda. In Uganda. In wherever He may have me. I want to be healed in the places that hurt and I want to be used of Him, by Him, for Him.
Missions is not a once in a lifetime opportunity. Missions is life. This is my life.
And I’m here to live it.
