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...