Monthly Budget Rent $700, Misc Housing $150, Clothes $50, School $50, Food $700, Auto $250, Healthcare $600, Dental-Optical $150, Taxes $250, Life Insurance $50, Tithes & Offerings $450 = $3400.

 

Each month we also have special fund needs of Newer Vehicle $250, Retirement $350, Children's college $250, Emergency fund $50, Appliance & Furniture replacement $100, furlough $100 = Special needs funds $1100.

Explanation and overview of our support over the years: A word about why we are not planning on returning to the US to raise more support. I basically have had about 4 furloughs in my 20 years of being a missionary. I left for the field in 1985 under a mission board after 1.5 years of deputation, and they set my support level at $550. I was single at the time, and I have a lot of problems with raising support. I had estimated I needed $1650 a month from correspondence with a half dozen missionaries in Mexico at the time. When I got to Mexico most missionary families here were making around $3000. I went with $550 (two months that that much had come in before I left the states). In 1990 I returned single for furlough. I was under a mission board, and "debated" with them about my actual needs, according to me i needed a minimum of $1200/month and more if I was supposed to be taking out retirement, emergency fund, etc. That was based on my assessment of actual prices after 4 years on the field. They raised my support level to $900 a month, and I had $1050 a month coming in, $500 of which was from my parents. They prohibited me from raising more support because I was at 116%?!?!?! In 1994 we got married, and I came back to raise more support and returned with around $2400 monthly support. In 1998 my dad died and we lost his support, and we returned for another year of furlough. In 1999 we had about $2200 monthly support coming in when we had to return to the field after our year furlough.

 

In the end of 1999, through several turn of events and disagreements about our ministry with that mission board, we decided it would be better to go out under our home church. We knew that our conviction of being represented by what we feel is the only biblical representation for missions, an independent missionary out under a local church, would cost us dearly. We lost about half of our support and in April 2000 had to again abandon our work and return to the states to once again raise support. It was extremely difficult to raise our support without a mission board to rubber stamp an approval upon us. In December of 2002 we returned to the field with about $2571 monthly support. Whereas many missionaries have literally hundreds of supporting churches and $10,000 or more coming in monthly, we labor on for the Lord with essentially our same support as what we had 12 years ago. (We receive no raises in 12 years even though inflation has eaten away at that support base horribly. Prices are in some cases double or more what they were before.) This is not because of laziness on our part, but we feel because of Satan attacking our ministry at every turn, trying to keep us off the field of labor and in the US raising funds.

 

Because of these things we feel that it is our highest priority to stay on the field as much as possible, suffer through as best as we can, and pray that God meets our needs. We just cannot continue to return every 3-4 years for a year or two to raise more support. Our work suffers if we do this, and in the end, we are not effective in raising a local church here. I note that the last times we were in the US on deputation that pastors are booking meetings up to 3 years in advance (the immediate year always booked), and that because of ministries in the US that present themselves as missions, and missionaries that fly back to the states 6 months out of every year to do more deputation, the competition is tremendous. To even get an opportunity to present our work is simply extremely difficult, and most of the churches that we can get into have no funds to give us even if they wanted to, and others put us on waiting lists that with time when money becomes available, they prefer to give to some missionary who recently came and made a splashy show.

 

But our goal is to stay on the foreign field and work, not run around the US trying to chase $25 dollar a month donations from churches, and I feel this is God's will for our lives, and we are determined do what it takes to accomplish God's will for our lives. We are not professional fund raisers, and perhaps we are not as showy, savvy, or "professional" as some missionary fund raisers, but our heart is in serving the Lord through evangelism, discipleship, and church planting, and "professional fund raising" as important as it is to modern missions, just is not our calling nor strength, nor is it our desire to dedicate our life to raising money in the states to just pay somebody's salary on the field. Many missionaries do no "hands on" missionary work other than to pay salaries of others to do everything. Some I have seen supposedly started 5 churches in their first 4 years on the field (Vietnam). When I questioned them about it, they still don't speak the language, and got another missionary with a Bible Institute to recommend preacher boys, and they meet once a month to give them their salaries. They have to pay a secular woman translator to do even this. They have services in their home with only their family in English, and other than that, the only other ministries they could tell me about was giving out tracts when they go to town, and raising funds in the US for all of this. Our ministry is not like that. I am a pastor and preacher at heart, first before a missionary. I preach normally 3 times a week, go out witnessing several times a week door to door, actually talking and explaining the gospel door to door with our people. I write books and tracts. We have started a CD sermon box in our church in September of last year and have around 40 sermons just from me. (We do let some of our men occasionally preach.)