Our Turn to Go Down Into the Well
There is a great quote from Paul Washer of HeartCry Missionary Society in his sermon titled The Great Privilege where he says:
"Missions is very simple. There are only two ministries in missions. You’re either called to go down into the well or you’re called to hold the rope for those that go down. Either way, there should be scars on your hands. Where are your scars? What has it cost you to be a Christian?"
For years I couldn't have cared less about missions or the people helped by it. For years I couldn't have cared less about God's call for Christians to be on mission. For years I couldn't have cared less about God. What wasted years those were. Since that time, for reasons unknown to me, God has graciously called me into His saving grace. I thankfully am a new creature and the One who began a good work in me is bringing it to completion. God removed my heart of stone and gave me a heart of flesh. Where I once hated God, I now love and worship Him. Where I once mocked the idea of Christian missions, I now desire to spend the rest of my days working the missions field and die unknown. Where I once laughed at the souls helped by missions, I now feel as Amy Carmichael felt when she penned, "Does it not stir up our hearts, to go forth and help them, does it not make us long to leave our luxury, our exceeding abundant light, and go to them that sit in darkness?"
For years now our family has been privileged by God to get to hold the rope for others who have gone into the well. Now, God calls us to go in. We need some folks who are willing to hold the rope for us. Here are some thoughts from Steph:
Stephanie in the flesh hates this part, I'm not a fan of asking others for money. At the same time I know we are called to give to God. I've bought t-shirts, donated money, bought cookies and lemonade and even loaves of banana bread from the random guy in the Walmart parking lot and never thought twice about it. But now I'm sitting "behind the counter" so to speak and it is a little different. In all of the fundraising we will do over the next several months we aren't asking you to feed our family, clothe our kids or buy us new shoes. However, we are asking you to come along side us and help us feed, clothe and put shoes on children who don't currently have those material things. In addition to those material things we will be able to teach them about Jesus and show them love.
Has He moved your heart to partner with us? Will you help by sharing our fundraisers with your friends and family? I promise you that we aren't asking/expecting for everyone else to pay our way, we will be selling/donating most everything we own so we can start over in Kenya. We have a house in underwriting right now and once it is sold all profits will go straight to getting us to Kenya. But we are asking for you to prayerfully consider if God would have you be part of changing their story. Is he asking you to purchase shoes? Is He asking you to purchase a plane ticket or 9? Is he asking you to partner with us monthly? We can't do this without support. The money from our house will only get us so far. We will have recurring monthly needs for the orphanage. Right now we (David, President of AFM, came up with this estimate) are estimating the need to be $1300 a month. That might sound like a big number but when you are talking about supporting 80ish people it isn't that much. For less than $17 a month per person lives can and will be changed. So far we have 2 families who have decided to partner with us on a monthly basis. If there are 13 families that can commit $100/month to this work, or 26 families that can commit $50/month we will be at our goal. We will be able to ensure the physical and spiritual needs of many orphans and even a few widows are met.
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