“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
Ephesians 3:14-20
I can’t tell you how many times I have prayed this verse; believed this verse; and seen this verse come into fruition in my own life. This has become my prayer, my mantra, thus far on the World Race journey. I earnestly yearn for you, yes YOU, to be strengthened in Christ, to be rooted and grounded in love, to KNOW the love of Jesus, and filled with the fullness of God. I yearn this for every single person I come in contact with in this next year.
When we signed up for the World Race I knew that thirty-some-odd-THOUSAND dollars was a lot of money. I knew that it was more than I could imagine anyone donating to us, it was more money than I had ever had contact with, and it was more money than we paid for our HOUSE. (yeah, for real.) It was also more than we wanted to ask for, (but we didn’t have a choice). As soon as you accept the call to the World Race (by donating $150 each to your support account) you are required to take an online fundraising course, specifically designed to help teach you how to raise funds for a mission trip. The first step is writing a letter, and mailing it to over 200 people. Then we had to start doing fundraisers, and literally asking people we met to support us. THEN when people started giving us money, we started to feel a little awkward, and one of the initial reactions was “thank you, but really you don’t have to” (inside thinking, OMAN we need that $20 SO BADLY).
Fast Forward 7 months, $21,205 later…that’s something no one can understand or explain. No one can explain how in the WORLD He provided almost $22,000 in 7 months (that’s a little over $3k a month average).
AND HE’S NOT EVEN DONE!
I can’t tell you how many times I have very specifically spoken this phrase “I don’t know how to believe that God can raise enough money for us to leave on the World Race fully funded” ($32,484 now that we have our supplies). And now here I sit, 10 days and exactly $9,791 away from our trip being fully funded – ABSOLUTELY believing that God can do so much more than we can even think. And I really think we can leave for this journey fully funded; but we can’t do it without your help. Maybe you already support a missionary, that’s ok. Maybe you feel God calling you to give to a different cause, that’s ok. Maybe you can’t afford to give, that’s ok. IF though, you feel even the slightest urge, calling, or nudge to support us, I PRAY that you will. I pray that God will shower you with His richest blessings because of your obedience, and trust us, we KNOW that His blessings are EXCEEDINGLY ABUNDANTLY MORE than we can imagine! So I challenge you to dig deep down, to do the uncomfortable, and to see what God will do with your obedience. I also promise that your support will not return void, I promise that lives will be changed all across the world, and I know that we can’t do it without you.
