We have a regular post about ready to publish with details on how Joel\u2019s recent trips have been as well as life on the home-front, but we\u2019ve got to bring something more urgent to your attention today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Long story short, we are facing a funding emergency. Here is where we\u2019re at and how we need your prayers.*<\/em> The other challenge which is more pressing and emergent is that we\u2019ve lost monthly individual supporters as well as one supporting church. Here\u2019s where I make the story short: we\u2019re not receiving anywhere near enough to meet our budget on a monthly basis. And, while we ask the Lord to \u201cpause\u201d the trials coming at us, that\u2019s not happened. For several years in a row now, we\u2019ve faced unexpected, un-budgetable expenses (health, taxes, home repairs, and vehicles) and we\u2019re to the point where this month and likely, next month, we\u2019re having to resort to using a credit card for monthly essentials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Friends, we simply aren\u2019t making ends meet in this way of life that being a self-supported missionary requires us live.* We don\u2019t have the ability to work outside jobs when our ministry and family requires 100% of our time and energy. We tried it last year when Bethany took on 25+ hours a week of house-cleaning work and we believe that in part led to the extreme sickness she experienced as she was hospitalized with pneumonia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, we\u2019re asking you to pray for two things and consider the third thing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the course of the last few years, when we look at the whole year, we can see that we received a livable amount of support. But that often happens because we receive generous and unpredictable one-time gifts. The nature of those gifts makes them challenging to budget for as we simply can\u2019t build a budget based on the probability or not of receiving them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n