Merry Christmas!

The lioness.

This photo is from www.douglas-hamilton.com and comes from a special on Animal Planet called "Heart of a Lioness" that I watched today with my sister. This lioness was alone, had somehow ended up without a lion pride and adopted a baby oryx because she wanted something to take care of. She went without eating for 16 days well she had the baby. She wouldn't even eat the slabs of meat that the park decided to try feeding her to make sure she lived. In the documentary the people said that this lion would become a legend and were saying that God had come. There was the lion lying down with the lamb. It was really an amazing thing to watch this lion who should normally be eating something like the little calf instead trying to get it back when it tried running off with an oryx herd. She called for it like she was calling for a cub. It ended tragically when a male lion managed to get to the calf before the lioness realized it was in danger. Over the next year she tried adopting 5 other calves.

It was sad to see this lioness wanting to be with something so badly that she would bond with another species and refuse to eat while she was taking care of this baby. She was completely out of her element and needed something so badly she was willing to die rather than be left alone. She was willing to go against everything in her nature to have something to take care of.

I laughed.

What I've been waiting for since August finally happened today: a pastor at a church I contacted about potentially supporting me for Vienna told me that he didn't think the church would because I wasn't an actual missionary and if they pledged to me they would be taking money away from an actual missionary. It made me laugh.

I was in such a state a month ago that if he had told me that I would have cried, today I'm able to laugh because I'm completely unafraid. Whether he sees me as worthy of the churches money is his business but I am more than worthy of my call in God's eyes and that's all I care about. I know the money will come eventually and I'm a good person, people like me and I'm doing what I'm supposed to do by going to Vienna. It will take me a little longer to get there if pastors keep taking that line of thinking, but if I have to sell 10,000 boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts to get to Vienna I'll get there eventually.


I will be contacting the other 140 churches in my district thanks to a former pastor giving me his permission to use him as my reference. He's been in the district over 20 years and has met about every pastor there is. It's a lot more work and a lot more of my time to send out another batch of letters and make all those calls but I'm up to it. Hopefully the churches I call are ready for me!

40%

Well, yeah... I'm forty percent of the way to Vienna. A women's ministry at a church I've never been to, a family of friends, and a wonderful lady have just upped the amount of monthly commitments raised. My cash budget is standing at 50% raised but I'm not worried, I've got a new year comming!

Pastor Tom Manning, the missionary I'll be working with at Vienna Christian Center set a tentative date for my departure to Vienna. He'd prefer I wait until early summer (I'm saying late May to make myself feel better) to come. That would be easier on the church since that's when they start their new year and it would make my transition easier. This is fine with me because it allows me plenty of time to raise my budget and will also allow me to go get a second job so I'm not so broke all the time. I'm thinking about becoming a substitute teacher... I will have no control over those classes...

Oh the fun of it!

Much to my amazement I have no idea what I'm doing! No, it doesn't really amaze me because 90% of the time I look like I have a handle on things better than I actually do. This past week I had $5 given to me toward my cash budget and received a call from a church I spoke at whose Missionettes are going to sponsor me for $10 a month. Since I've been sitting on my hands for a couple of weeks I got so excited about this. Who knew that $10 a month and $5 in pocket could make you so happy?

On other fronts I found out last night that the youth group at my church ran 74 on average for the month of November. I am so thankful to God for this for a couple of reasons. I have worked with the youth at my church for the past four years and have been part of three different youth pastor's vision for the group. They all brought very different things to the ministry table. One year ago the new youth pastors came in and it was obvious that they loved teenagers and were called to youth ministry specifically. When they started the group ran 15 on a good night. The kids weren't passionate and they had lost interest in being there. Now these same kids are excited to come to church and are excited to bring their friends. They are really proud of their youth group, their proud of their Christianity and they are proud of their God. It's amazing what kind of change can happen in a year. The majority of the kids that are faithful attenders now are not part of the "main church" and many come from broken homes, but they've found a place where they are accepted and offered hope and that makes people want to know about what's being offered. The youth pastor isn't shy about calling it like he sees it and these kids are presented the Gospel week-after-week, they're discipled and they are growing in their Christianity. They've even started taking it into their schools. I am amazed!

!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Turn around...

Things in the fundraising world are back on track. I had two services this past week and ended up with $1,050. That's a good chunk of change! So now I have $735 of my $2,077 in monthly pledges raised and $3,175 of the $7,519 for my cash budget. Yeah!
I have several pledges unaccounted for, people have told me they would pledge on a monthly basis but I don't know how much they were planning on.
I did do one major fundraising faux pas at the church I was at Sunday morning, I had no pledge forms on me. I've given them all away and forgot to print more, I had a few people ask me for them and I had to tell them to email me. Don't know what my chances are of them contacting me, it's easy to forget when something is out of sight. My mistake, it will never happen again.
On Wednesday I did a short devotional along with my 3 minute presentation and was blinded by the stage lights. It was at my friends church and they are working on fixing the problem, they can't adjust the brightness currently.

I also got to go to the Indianapolis Zoo with my friends and their kids and a couple of missionaries who do Chi Alpha and are the son and daughter-in-law of my pastor. It's a small, small world. But the zoo was fun and the kids were all little, 3 and under (4 of them total) so when they got excited there was no volume control. I love being around little kids when they're excited because they don't care if everyone else knows it or not, they are just excited!

Anyway it was a very good week and hopefully I can keep up the momentum, but everything in God's time.

An interesting dilemma...

So, I'm not sure who actually reads this but I figure it might come in handy to have some day (the blog as a whole, not this particular blog). Anyway, my fundraising is sort of stuck. No more churches have been scheduled, I need to send letters to a few, but over all I'm just sort of drifting in the waters. I don't know if I should keep contacting places that haven't returned my calls or if I should sit back and wait for them. I have to say, very honestly, I hate fundraising.

Not because it's hard, or because it can be tedious, just because I hate having to ask over and over for money. I don't really care much about money and so now it's a major focus in my life and it seems very strange. I'm raising the money to do the work God is calling me to in Vienna, but I don't like this part of the job.

I do have some funny stories I've picked up while trying to raise the budget (like driving for 4 hours the day after I got home from Africa to attend a church's missions banquet. I get to the town, find the hotel, which the church graciously paid for, and check-in. I haul all my stuff up to my room and open the door and there's no bed in the room. The hotel is remodeling and I've been given a room that is still under construction. So I have to haul all my junk down to the main floor and ask for a different room. I'm starting to feel the jet-lag and the junk I'm carrying around. The problem was fixed quickly but I thought it was very funny I got put in a room with no bed) and I have experienced the goodness of God's provision and the willingness of Christians and non-Christians to give, but man is it hard to do this day after day and not get weary...

I want to do my part and put the work in to raise this money, but I have no ideas for fundraisers, I have to start asking family and friends personally to sponsor me. The response has been great from my friends and family so far, but they have literally just been offering their support. Now I have to seriously look at contacting all these people I know and ask them for money. I don't want to do it. I'm scared, and I couldn't really tell you why.

That's what I'm thinking and feeling right now. I'll try to make my next story a bit funnier, and it might be if I wait a couple of weeks. I'm scheduled for a service at a church pastored by former missionaries. I heard from a friend who remembers them being at her church itenerating that the wife does a bird-whistle-song native to the country in Africa they were missionaries in. I'm thinking about asking her if she still remembers it...

The return.

I'm back from Benin and what an amazing experience. We did so much in 5 days time that every day felt like two. The men put the roof on the new dorm and cemented the walls inside and out and started laying down the sand and cement for the floors. Everything had to be done by hand, there were no power tools.
The ladies on the team taught the girls crochet, jewelry making, accounting and health and hygiene. It's amazing how quickly you can bond with people. I only knew those girls for 5 days but I cried when I had to leave them.
Everything was better than we thought it would be. The temperature was in the low 80s most of the time. A lot of humidity but they are in their winter so it was almost pleasant out a few days. The travel time from Paris to Cotonou was shorter than what I had been told. The plane had empty seats going and coming so we were able to stretch out and sleep. We rode around in Benin in Speed the Light SUVs that had AIR-CONDITIONING. We stayed at another denominations mission compound while we worked at the women's center. We had running water, western style toilets and mosquito netting. In Cotonou we stayed in the Romans home, which was formerly an AG missions house where each missionary couple had their own room, but the Romans are the only missionaries from the AG in Benin currently so the large house is theirs. They had air-conditioning units in the rooms so sleeping was actually very pleasant.
Voodoo is still very prevalent in Benin and we saw several huts and fetishes dedicated to voodoo. We also went to a stilt village where many witchdoctors were congregating and we heard voodoo drums and passed a hut where there was something going on, I wasn't too curious to find out exactly what it was.
We also visited an orphanage for a morning while we were there. Over 60 kids and no bathroom, but my church paid to have ten latrines dug the week after we were there. They have a problem with cleanliness and less than a year ago they lost three babies within a month of each other because of a sickness that spread through the group. The kids were all just like any other kids though and they wanted very much to be touched and noticed and to have someone to play with.
We also got to spend a little leisure time in Benin because of having to wait for flights out of the country, they run three planes out to Paris a week. We got to go to the beach at a resort and see the ocean. You can't swim in it because of the undertow but we did get wet collecting shells from the surf.
I had to stick close to Brenda Roman, the missionary we worked with, when we were out in public. She became a little worried about me ending up in the human trafficking ring. Being out in crowds became a headache, I felt like I was about 10 years old.
Then we stayed overnight in France waiting for the team from the Congo to get to Paris so we could all head home together. We got a fast-track tour of the Normandy province in France. We stayed at a chateau owned by a church in Roeun. We saw Arromanches, the port for D-day and the American cemetery. We got to go to a French church service and my pastor preached. They fed us but unfortunately my belly was a little shaky and one of the other women had amoebic dysentery. Lots of fun for her to travel! I felt so bad for her.
The chateau was very cool. It had been occupied by the Nazis during WWII and is currently having some work done in it's bathroom to update it a little. Built in the late 1600s and was a very cool place to get to stay. It was also a very cold place to get to stay and I ended up under three wool blankets to make it through the night.

I'm still on my malaria medication and will be until the end of the month. It's a pain remembering to take it.

On the fundraising side I had three pledges from team members in Benin taking my current total for my monthly budget over $700, which means I have a third of that raised. I've also done two church services in the week I've been home so I have $1,125 towards my cash budget. Yeah! Things keep moving along.

Benin is fast approaching! I am so excited! I am working on my mad crochet skills so that they are in top form for the women at the center we are working at. There will be about nine of them that I teach to crochet and an interpreter. I have never worked with an interpreter so I'm a little nervous about that.
I've managed to get all my clothes, shampoo, and yarn into one suitcase. It's kind of strange having a suitcase half filled with skeins of yarn but we have to bring all our own supplies for the ladies we will be working with (there's no Walmart near by). We are actually allowed two suitcases, but the missionaries we are working with (my pastor's daughter and son-in-law) would really like us to bring a couple of hams and turkeys for their Thanksgiving meal so I'm trying to not use both pieces of luggage to ensure we get those birds over there. Plus my carry on still has nothing in it so I'm set to go.

On the budget raising front I have a few churches who have offered me services. Both are contacting me this week to set up a date. I'm supposed to go to my friends church in November. I will be speaking at a missions convention the day after I get back from Benin and though it doesn't guarantee the church will support me I'm hoping they find it in their budget after they meet me.
I had another pastor call me back and say that he had gone to Bible school with the missionaries I will be working with and he is going to see what his church can do (I also found out that my church ministries director has known this pastor for twenty-some years and said I should bring up his name if I talk to the pastor again.)

I'm still making lots of phone calls, usually three days a week. I have had several more friends who have offered to pledge and one of my father's co-workers want to make a donation so all-in-all, it's going really well.

It goes, it goes.

I sent out my first 10 letters to pastors I do not know. All my fundraising so far has been churches I am acquainted with or family. I'm sending out a letter tomorrow to some friends of mine who have said they will support me. I'm at about 20% of my monthly pledges and 5% of my cash budget. Vienna feels a long way away (but Benin is just a month and a half away!).

A little bit about me.

My name is Becca. I'm a Missionary Associate with the Assemblies of God on my way to Vienna, Austria. I've just started my fundraising and hope to get to Vienna as soon as possible. I'll be working with Pastor Tom and Candace Manning at Vienna Christian Center in their children and youth department. I'll also be helping with their Master's Commission program.