{"id":5200,"date":"2018-12-13T12:02:46","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T16:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/?p=5200"},"modified":"2018-12-13T12:02:46","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T16:02:46","slug":"i-got-a-brick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/2018\/12\/13\/i-got-a-brick\/","title":{"rendered":"I got a brick!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Brick\"<\/a>
The infamous brick, right. Garlic chives on left.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last week at church, we had a white elephant gift exchange. When my turn came, I chose to take my chances with an unopened gift. Digging through the weighty box, I uncovered an envelope of scratch-off lottery tickets \u2026 and a brick.<\/p>\n

Strategically wheeling and dealing, I also left church that night with an envelope of scratch-off lottery tickets \u2026 and a brick.<\/p>\n

Which exposed my naivete. How exactly do scratch-off lottery tickets work? I had no idea. I asked around the office and discovered that my fellow missionaries have never played the lottery either. Who\u2019da thunk it? So I googled it.<\/p>\n

The first response I found was, in essence, \u201cLook, if you\u2019re too stupid to figure out how to work a scratch-off lottery ticket, maybe you\u2019re too dumb to buy them.\u201d<\/p>\n

To which someone responded, \u201cNo, stupid people are the target audience for scratch-off tickets.\u201d<\/p>\n

While I did find that amusing, it wasn\u2019t particularly helpful.<\/p>\n

Finally I found my answer: \u201cScratch it all off.\u201d OK. There you go. I scratch off everything.<\/p>\n

But not just yet.<\/p>\n

Shouldn\u2019t I tell God how they work, too? I don\u2019t imagine He\u2019s ever bought a scratch-off lottery ticket either. And while I\u2019m at it, of course, I could suggest to Him that this could be a great way to fund our ministry. Wouldn\u2019t want Him to miss that opportunity, right?<\/p>\n

Then I set to scratchin\u2019.<\/p>\n

Suffice it to say, the brick was the most valuable thing in the box.<\/p>\n

I got a brick.<\/p>\n

And that was fine with me because of a choice I made before I ever opened the box. A choice to be content. Satisfied not in \u201cstuff,\u201d but in God. In his book In the Grip of Grace, <\/em>Max Lucado defines contentment as \u201ca state of heart in which you would be at peace if God gave you nothing more than He already has.\u201d<\/p>\n

But hold on a minute.<\/p>\n

If I\u2019m content, why have I been telling you about our needs, and encouraging you to give?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s for your good.<\/p>\n

You see, for something like ten years, our costs have been greater than our income, and God made up the difference. Don\u2019t ask me how, but month after month we spent more than we took in and ended each month in the black.<\/p>\n

And then we saw a dramatic drop in our income, and we began to accumulate debt. Julie and I sought God\u2019s direction. Should we stay in this work? Was God directing us elsewhere? What did He want us to do?<\/p>\n

God\u2019s response was clear: Stay the course, but serve your partners better. He directed me to give you clearer and simpler opportunities to fund our work. Not because God isn\u2019t capable of taking care of the whole thing Himself, but because His plan spelled out in His Word is that His people will meet the needs of missionaries. And if He tells us to do something, it\u2019s for our own good.<\/p>\n

So here you go.<\/p>\n

Your gifts cut our outstanding need to $1,300 last month. Thank you! This month, I estimate our income will be $900 below our costs, so our December outstanding needs are $2,200.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to give to our ministry, you can send a check, with a note that it is for the ministry of Ian and Julie Fallis, to Ethnos360, 312 W. First St., Sanford, FL 32771. Or you can make a secure gift online.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week at church, we had a white elephant gift exchange. When my turn came, I chose to take my chances with an unopened gift. Digging through the weighty box, I uncovered an envelope of scratch-off lottery tickets \u2026 and a brick. Strategically wheeling and dealing, I also left church that night with an envelope […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[112230],"class_list":{"0":"post-5200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ministry","7":"tag-ethnos360","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}