Preface: Dear readers I am so sorry this is so long! i just have a lot to say on the subject 🙂
'What are you doing?!'
This simple phrase has been directed toward me many times by my best friend in the last couple of weeks. The question unfortunately enough is always asked in reference to my support raising.
Let me explain.
I have realized something over the last couple of weeks, I apparently Hate asking people for money, and making them feel obligated to donate to me and my cause. I was unaware up until recently that i had an issue in this area, and now that I have realized it, it becomes more and more apparent how big of an issue it really is.
I was at one of my friends houses the other day, and we were talking about The World Race. We were talking about all the challenges I am going to face on my journey, and about the how I sometimes get discouraged about the amount I have to raise. "If you think about it" I said trying to make the amount seem more manageable " I really only need to find 25 people who are willing to give 50$ a month, and i would be completely funded!' At this point my friends husband walked into the room laughing and saying 'here comes the spiel!' turning red i quickly explained that 'no no, I'm not trying to get YOU to support me, just everyone else!' Ironically enough I was actually hoping that they would end up supporting me, but instead found myself trying to tell them that i wasn't looking for their support!
A couple days later me and my best friend were at her family's house for a family dinner and i found myself talking to her older sister about, you guessed it, The World Race! Now my best friends sister is a strong supporter of my upcoming trip and has complete faith in me, but for some reason I found myself, right in the middle of talking to her saying 'now, I'm not tying to get you to give me money or anything, I'm just telling you about my trip" I was discouraging her from supporting me before she had even had a chance to think about it! At this point My best friend who was sitting right next to me looks at me and asked me the million dollar question 'What are you doing?!" It was her question that made me stop and think; what am i doing?!
I'm afraid of asking for money. I'm afraid of making people feel obligated to fund me because we are friends. I'm worried about peoples opinion of me droping when I ask for money, I am afraid of rejection, I am so conscious of the economy and feel selfish asking for the little that people have. Sometimes I feel like I am begging for money so that I can go on 'vacation'. Asking for help is a very hard thing for me, and asking for money is even more difficult. Because of all my fears i have realized, I find myself practically discouraging people from supporting me.
With a lot of prayer, thought and discussion about my fund raising I have come to a couple conclusions, ones that i have to keep reminding my self of every day.
I am NOT a beggar!
- God calls each and everyone of us to help the least of these, and God has put it on my heart to leave the comfortable life i am living to do so! I believe that he calls each and every one of us to do this, although it is some what unprobable for some. People have children, or carriers, or house payments, and can't get away. I completely understand this, i believe that by supporting me i am giving those people a way to help those around the world just as much as i am, the only difference is that they don't physically have to go! All my supporters are partnering with me to do Gods will around the world. I am giving those who can not physically go, a way to follow Gods command!
I am NOT going on vacation!
- This trip I feel obligated to inform you all is Not going to be an easy one. I am not going to 11 different countries to lay on the beach and play with little kids all day long. Although I am sure I will be blessed enough do both of those things at one time or another, the reality of the trip looks much different. Kat Davis says it best in one of her blogs when she says:
"I make a two-mile walk to the township of Capricorn every day. It’s a small community living in third world conditions; an impoverished land trapped amidst a country on its’ way to becoming a first-world nation. We’re warned constantly of the danger of doing ministry there – white people are often mugged or beaten on the streets.
And so we go in broad daylight, walk in groups, and carry nothing with us. As we walk towards the township, we ask for protection from the God who desperately loves the people of Capricorn. And then we head for the library, where we listen to the children read, have dance parties, and attempt to give all the love we possibly can to children whose only existence has ever been in a slum.
Because if we don’t go, who will?
My friends at home are getting dressed up and going to weddings. They’re eating out at fun restaurants and getting free-refills on soda. They’re getting engaged and having babies.
And I’m here, in one of the poorest beach-towns in South Africa, living with 30 other people in a small hostel and eating on $2.38 a day.
My intention is in no way to trivialize the lives of my friends at home or say that their lives back in the States are wrong – not at all. My intention, instead, is to say this: “I want to be living that life.”
But I’m not. Instead, I was called here, on the World Race. "
read the rest of her blog Here
In other words this is not a vacation! This trip is not going to always be fun or easy in a lot of ways. Its going to be really hard, but me and 61 other crazy people are going anyways. We read blogs like Kat's every day and we still want to go! That in itself makes us crazy! we are not going because we want to, we are going because we have to! we are going because God has told us to, and I for one can't ignore his call.
I think that it is important for me to remember that God is calling me to this Mission trip, and that he is going to put it on the hearts of those around me to support the amazing things that are going on in my life. I just need to stop getting in his way!
