Ka chow!

I now have 100% of my cash budget raised! Plus, I have three more services scheduled. One actually guarantees no money but it's an inner-city church and I'm interested to see what they do. Both of the other churches are smaller. I am not sure how missionaries actually get into the larger churches because I haven't had any luck so far. All of the really large churches in Indiana that I have called are all in building projects or set their budget six months ago.

But that's not the point, I have faith the smaller churches of Indiana can get me to Vienna just the same as the larger ones could.

My monthly pledges are unchanging but everything could be very different in a couple of weeks if several people and churches that have said they would pledge send in their forms. It could seriously be a $200 swing and that would put me over half way...

43 cents

Shazam! I want more unofferings. My church pulled through for me and the congregation gave $2,975.43. Don't know where the 43 cents came from but I kind of like it.

I have done two days of ASL, once with the 3s, once with the 4s. It seems like it will go pretty well. The classes will have to be tailored for each age group but generally I can keep it the same and that makes preparation simpler and my life a little easier.

The Midwest is being blanketed by a winter wonderland. The drifts are ridiculous and everything around my house closed early today. I still have to work tomorrow, maybe, if it stops snowing. It wouldn't be so bad but the plows seem to have disappeared?

splattered canvases

I had a bad week, as far as phone calls and potential supporters go. I called, no response from a lot of the churches. A few nos, and I found out that a pastor who had been interested in helping me is no longer pastoring the church I was in contact with. I also found out from my senior pastor that though I'm doing a three minute presentation on Sunday there will be no offering taken up for me. After I called and talked to him he did decide to give people the opportunity to contribute to my getting to Vienna but no official offering. I'm meeting with the missions committee next week and that has something to do with them taking up an offering. I'm really confused and have no idea what is actually going on. I'm just going to smile and do my best and pray that God works things out.

I'm starting my new job teaching ASL at the daycare on Monday. I'm really excited but a little nervous. This also takes away Tuesday and Thursday mornings to make calls and when I start at the doctor's office my time will seriously be minimal for making phone calls. I know it will all come out right, but it's looking like a bit of a mess. I wonder if this is how Jackson Pollock felt?

Batting .016.

I got another church service today. Yeah! And as a bonus it is local so there are no long drives, no worries about being out in February. So the last two weeks in February I have two services, it's pretty awesome to see that things are swinging again.

I also secured another job. I will be teaching American Sign Language at a daycare three mornings a week to three different classes. I'm really excited! I like working with kids, I like ASL and the pay is really good. AND it leaves afternoons open those three days for me to continue trying to raise support and be able to volunteer locally. I think if I'm going to give two years to Vienna I should give a few months to Northwest Indiana.

All right!

So, I've hit the phone circuit hard this week and called 120 churches in the past five days. Ok, technically I only attempted to call 120 churches because several of the phone numbers I had were incorrect. But overall it didn't go horribly. I booked a service for the end of February. I had several pastors tell me to call back in a couple of weeks after they had figured out with their board whether they could do something or not. I'm really hopeful.

Earlier this week I posted a blog on Myspace that covers the first half of the week's calls. It's here for your enjoyment.

here's how the numbers breakdown:

33- Number of churches where I did not get to talk to a living person and had to just leave a message at the beep.

9- Number of pastors I actually got to talk to. This is where it's always the most interesting.
There were a couple of the general, "No, sorry, we're all maxed out."
One pastor was in the middle of something, promised to call me back, but hasn't yet...
But I had a couple of really awesome conversations. Both pastors said there was basically nothing they could do for me. One asked me my age, how long until I needed to be over there, rank, serial number... Ok, it wasn't that out there but it was pretty funny. He just kept chatting away. The other was really encouraging and actually knew who I was and had read the letter I sent him! He didn't think they could do anything but he seemed like he might try and he told me to call back if I still needed support in few months.
One pastor answered the phone and sounded like he was baking a cake. Seriously sounded like pots and pans were banging in the background.
I asked one gentleman if the pastor had received the letter and he says, "Oh, yes, he has." Then tells me he's the pastor. A little unusual.
One phone call ended up with me a little red in the face because the pastor that is now there was not the one I sent the letter to. The other had resigned and the new senior pastor was the one who took my call. He was very nice though and said he thought they probably did have the letter and he would ask his secretary about it.
Another pastor said he had to meet with the board and it didn't look good for me because they preferred to meet new missionaries and they were booked through October.
Number 420 for the day told me the chances of their being able to support me were, and I quote here, "Slim-to-none."

6- Number of secretaries I talked to. One, promised to check and call me back, I'm still sitting by the phone...

4- Number of phones that rang with no answer. Invest the money, buy a $10 machine.

3- Number of phones that went to fax machine. Although I'm not sure one was the fax because instead of the dulcet screes of the fax machine it was this funny three tone beeping.

3- Number of phone numbers that were wrong. 2 were just disconnected, "we're sorry but the number you are dialing no longer exists," kind of calls. One though was awesome... curmudgeonly... old... man. Yeah! It was pretty great!

1- Number of pastor's wives I talked to who handle missions giving who sounded hopeful and then had to call me back today and tell me there was nothing the church could do right now.

1- Number of times I got called Becky!

CH-CH-CH- CHANGES!

I decided to dye my hair for the first time! Well, really my younger sister decided to dye my hair ;) It's very different and I'm still getting used to it but it's a good color. I just hope it holds up.

That's a lot of stamps!

Well, Happy New Year! I know I'm a little late but I've been a little lazy about my blogs so far in 2007.

I am excited about the 120 letters I've sent out in the past two weeks. I'm praying I have some positive response from the churches that I'll be calling next week and the week after. It's a lot of my least favorite thing- talking on the phone, but it's entirely necessary and I'm resigned to the fact that I must do it if I ever want to get to Vienna.

I've been really excited about going to Vienna the past couple of weeks. Ever since I got the time frame for potential departure it's really boosted my desire to get my butt in gear and get out of the country. Plus, I really miss being involved in active ministry. Right now I'm helping with the youth group at my church but I sit around and make sure kids don't kill each other, break things or make babies. I miss teaching the children's classes that I had been involved with before I started itinerating and since the youth pastor couldn't depend on my being there every week I am not getting to teach a small group with the youth like I did in the past.

I'm also really excited about an opportunity I've been given to make money to put toward Vienna. The daycare director at my church found out I knew American Sign Language and offered me an opportunity to come in as a consultant for the daycare and teach their teachers how to sign so that they could use it on a daily basis in their lessons with the kids. This is an amazing opportunity and I'll get to do something I love to make money for Vienna.

I'm also looking at becoming a substitute teacher in a local high school because I really need the cash to try and finish paying off my credit cards. Plus I have way too much time on my hands and find myself being lazy and lackluster about most of what I do. Subbing would be convenient because I could decline the work if I already have something scheduled for that day. The downside is if you do that too many times they stop calling you and I'm fairly sure any class I was in charge of would find me less than intimidating.

Finally, I'm thinking about volunteering one day a week either with a local food bank or something. I'm not really sure but I do know I need to do something here since I'm willing to give the next two years of my life somewhere else.

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.