Giving to Missionaries Should Not Be Capricious

January 29th, 2013

giving-to-missionaries

I don’t understand why people are capricious in their giving to missionaries. God prompts them to give to a certain missionary, and then they yank their support on a whim. A missionary would have to do something terrible for me to stop supporting him because if God prompted me to give, it would be disobedient for me to withdraw the funds. It is God whom I serve.

I hated the whole song and dance for people to throw a penny in the hat routine that I had to endure every time we went on furlough to the States. We visited one church after another, trying to prove that they should support us. My dad was an outstanding seminary professor, teaching Greek and New Testament theology to Spanish-speaking pastors all over the world. If we had to prove something, why didn’t the seminary students send recommendation letters about my dad? They could have easily done so, and I wouldn’t have felt like I was on display as a little girl, standing in front of churches.

One time while visiting a church in Canada on furlough, my dad spoke about all that was happening in Guatemala, and why the church should support us. After the service, my cousin’s daughter (who didn’t know that I was the daughter of the man who preached) said that my dad seemed like he was selling something.

Yes, that is what missionaries are reduced to: having to sell what they do. It’s stupid. Look, if God doesn’t prompt you to support a missionary, don’t support him. If God does prompt you, don’t be disobedient and bratty to pull away your support for no reason, just because you want more money in your pocket. All of our money belongs to God. It’s not ours. Many missionaries have had to leave the mission field because of capricious givers who disobey God.

On the other hand, missionaries do need to be making a difference in people’s lives. We should see God working. If God is not working at all, it seems like God wouldn’t have prompted us to give in the first place, though. In the Czech Republic, it sometimes takes 10 years of witnessing and hard work for one person to be converted. Even though God is working, there might be no conversions for years. But now, 12 years later, we see lots of soft hearts toward God that were not there a decade ago. God is definitely working.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that if God initially prompts you to support a missionary every month, it is God that you are obeying. I think it would be easier if fewer churches who really know the missionaries could support with bigger amounts, so that the missionaries don’t have to drag their children on display to 30 churches that we had to visit every furlough to “peddle our wares” or prove that God wanted my dad to continue to serve at the seminary that he loved so much. Give to God and be faithful to follow through to support the missionaries that He wants you to support, and don’t forget to pray for them.

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Posted in Christian Living, Growing Up as a Missionary Kid | 5 Comments »

Praying with a Friend

January 28th, 2013

Praying-with-a-Friend-2

I just returned from a wonderful visit with a friend from my childhood. During the time that I was with her, we prayed and talked and spurred each other onward in our walk with Christ. We went to a coffee shop almost every day and prayed for most of the morning. Praying with a friend is so fulfilling. My burden for prayer was lifted and shared, so that it was more than twice the joy. Most of the time when I pray by myself, it’s a mind struggle because my kids interrupt me, or I think of an urgent chore that needs to get started. I have to force myself to set everything else aside to spend time with Him.

Well, this past week was heavenly as far as prayer was concerned. My friend and I have similar people that we pray for, although I have people from the Czech Republic and other pastors and missionaries that I pray for as well. My friend prayed for Christians all over the world who are being martyred for their faith, and for the specific ministries that she is supporting.

Because my private prayer life never gets heard by anyone but God, I didn’t notice that I pray some of the same sanctification issues for many people. “It seems like you could just combine those people so that you don’t have to pray for the marriages of each couple, for example, one by one.” She freed up my prayer time to be more led by the Spirit because I wasn’t saying the same things over and over for each person. Since I had more time than usual with no distractions, it was so much easier to have refreshing new prayers.

By the way, praying with a friend will help you to know if you are praying something contrary to Scripture. You need to run your prayers through a friend occasionally to make sure you want the will of God rather than seeking your own pleasure. Often people pray the wrong things. A more mature believer will pray that a circumstance would cause you to draw closer to Christ rather than constantly praying for ease in your own life.

When you pray with a friend, you can go back and forth if you think of something to add. I loved this! I didn’t mind at all being interrupted when I paused, because my heart was already lifting that person up to God, and I was able to expand the prayer for that person. My friend thought of things to pray for my sister that I hadn’t even thought of. When both people are praying in the Spirit, there is a fervency and depth that is difficult to equal when alone, especially if it isn’t a prayer request about your own life. We often prayed with tears, begging God for a dear friend to repent, or for the healing of deep pain in the destroyed lives of those around us.

I felt so full of the Spirit after praying with my friend that I wanted to get up and start leading people to Christ in the coffee shop. My friend asked several people how we could pray for them, and it meant a lot to a man who was returning to his family, after having spent time in jail and a rehab program. He was nervous to see his wife and kids, because he was now a broken and changed man through the power of Christ. We prayed for him fervently, and I could see in his watery eyes how much it meant to him that we cared enough to pray.

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Posted in Prayer | 2 Comments »

Homeschooling Reluctant Writers #4: Puppet Show

January 25th, 2013

Homeschooling Reluctant Writers
(A series of 10 fun writing assignments given by a pirate)

Aaaaarggh! This is Dread Pirate Susan Evans, here to give you ideas for homeschooling reluctant writers.

Writing Idea #4: Puppet Show

  • homeschooling-reluctant-writers-8First you need to find yourself some puppets. If you do not have puppets, you can make some puppets with paper sacks. You can make them luxurious with suede and all kinds of fun stuff. If you need help making super cool puppets, you can look at my website SusanEvans.org, under Art, under Paper Bag Puppets. What else would it be? (Note: This great article, along with hundreds of my best articles, are now locked inside my Unit Study Treasure Vault, the best place on earth for homeschoolers.)
  • Look at what puppets you have to see what characters you have to write into your puppet show.
  • Grab a sheet of paper, and write the names of the people. You write the name in capital letters, you put a colon, then you put what they say.
  • Put stage directions in brackets or parentheses. Then you have the character say whatever he says. And so you write your puppet show and make it as wonderful as you can.
  • Now comes the fun part. Get onto your computer. If you have a camera attached to your computer, which most people have nowadays, you can record your puppet show. Yes, you don’t even need anybody to record you because it’s right there. So you act it out with your puppets, and you’ll have a fabulous show.
  • Watch the fun “Around the World” puppet show. Notice that it includes backgrounds that were drawn on construction paper. Feel free to make the scenes more elaborate and colorful.

Now wasn’t that fun? This is Dread Pirate Susan Evans, signing off. Aaaaaarrrrggh!

Calling all homeschooled kids! I dare you to make a video response to this pirate video on YouTube:

  • Write a full one-page puppet show.
  • Perform your puppet show into a video camera and upload it to YouTube.
  • Go to the above video on YouTube, and press “video response.”
  • I am automatically notified when someone posts a video response. After watching it, I will embed it right here on this page!

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Posted in Writing | 2 Comments »

Controlling Paper Clutter

January 24th, 2013

controlling-paper-clutterIs paper clutter taking over your entire house? Are there piles of bills every week that you have no time to keep up with? Controlling paper clutter is one habit that you can begin so that you have more control over your life. You will feel caught up and fresh and light. It’s worth doing.

Here are my secrets to how I stay on top of paper clutter:

  • Get a filing cabinet or a copy paper box if you have no money for a file. (You can cover the copy paper box with lovely fabric to match your decor if you’re into that sort of thing.) Put dividers into your filing cabinet, with a label for each kind of bill.
  • Sort all your stacks of papers into piles on the floor in front of you. All the telephone bills go in one pile, all the Visa bills in another, dentist stuff in another.
  • Catch up on all your filing.
  • Now every time a new paper comes through the door, deal with it right away. Throw it in the trash, pay the bill, or file the paper. Since there are only a few, if you get into the habit of doing it immediately, you will always stay on top of it.
  • If you have no money to pay a bill, clip it to your bulletin board and pay it as soon as you can. If you have a paper that is the schedule for your children’s basketball games, clip that to the bulletin board or post it on your fridge. It helps to transfer the dates onto your calendar so you don’t miss the practices and games.
  • If you have no time to sort mail when you bring it inside, put the mail in one pile and deal with it as soon as you can, like right after dinner. If there is a designated time to deal with it, it will get done. I just remember back when I was a teacher, I would come home and need to lie down for a few minutes before I could do anything else. So just deal with the pile as soon as you get some rest and food in your stomach. You could even set out a basket for incoming mail on your counter so that the stack doesn’t look so hideous until you can deal with it.

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Posted in Organization | 4 Comments »

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