Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Preparing the Way
We are working hard on making the preparations necessary for our mission trip!
Today we finalized the rough draft of our budget. It will probably change many times yet as ticket prices fluctuate and other expenses are nailed down or eliminated, but it is better to have a plan and adjust it than not to have planned at all!
One of the key principles we've been learning at school about fundraising is that its not really about raising the money (if God can speak daylight into existence, a a thousand or couple thousand dollars per person should be a walk in the park), but more importantly about creating opportunities for other people to share in the blessings in heaven that come from the fruit of the ministry we'll be doing. So in other words, other people will get rewards in heaven for the work we do simply by praying for us, making financial contributions, equipping us to do ministry, or by contributing labor to make the fruit-sharing opportunities possible. So for this reason, we don't call it "fundraising" we call it "fruit-sharing".
This last weekend we teamed up with Team Africa and Team Philippines to organize several fruit-sharing opportunities in different parts of town, primarily car-washes and yard-sales. The majority of Team Australia supported the Point Loma carwashing effort. Walgreens (right at the busy intersection of Rosecrans and Midway) blessed us by donating the use of their water and parking lot for the afternoon, and we brought the hoses and soap and all the labor and signs to advertise. We really appreciated how HSE1 was working hard on gaining some heavenly rewards by contributing extra labor so that we could attract more business and wash more cars in the same amount of time. We had a lot of business including a limo and a short bus. It also gave us a great opportunity to share with people why we're going to Australia!
But this weekend was hardly the last of our fruitsharing opportunities. We are going to be doing more carwashes, but also prayer dinners, silent auctions, swap meets, and other creative ideas as we think of them. We've also been spending a lot of time in prayer, meeting before school every day to pray, as well as taking some of our mission trip preparation time in class for prayer (most of the rest of it has gone to planning and preparations!) rather than trips to Carl's Junior or other unproductive uses of our time. We've been asking for God's oversight over our trip and planning, for God's blessing of those helping to make our ministry possible, financial provision, and that we would stay attuned to what God wants us to do in Australia, among other things.
We've also been working on drafting up our first prayer letter, and have that almost done, and are really excited about it and can't wait to share it with everyone. As soon as we fix a few last typos and adjust the margins, we'll get the stamp of approval from one of the team members to go ahead and begin distribution of them to our friends, families, and home-fellowships.
Today we finalized the rough draft of our budget. It will probably change many times yet as ticket prices fluctuate and other expenses are nailed down or eliminated, but it is better to have a plan and adjust it than not to have planned at all!
One of the key principles we've been learning at school about fundraising is that its not really about raising the money (if God can speak daylight into existence, a a thousand or couple thousand dollars per person should be a walk in the park), but more importantly about creating opportunities for other people to share in the blessings in heaven that come from the fruit of the ministry we'll be doing. So in other words, other people will get rewards in heaven for the work we do simply by praying for us, making financial contributions, equipping us to do ministry, or by contributing labor to make the fruit-sharing opportunities possible. So for this reason, we don't call it "fundraising" we call it "fruit-sharing".
This last weekend we teamed up with Team Africa and Team Philippines to organize several fruit-sharing opportunities in different parts of town, primarily car-washes and yard-sales. The majority of Team Australia supported the Point Loma carwashing effort. Walgreens (right at the busy intersection of Rosecrans and Midway) blessed us by donating the use of their water and parking lot for the afternoon, and we brought the hoses and soap and all the labor and signs to advertise. We really appreciated how HSE1 was working hard on gaining some heavenly rewards by contributing extra labor so that we could attract more business and wash more cars in the same amount of time. We had a lot of business including a limo and a short bus. It also gave us a great opportunity to share with people why we're going to Australia!
But this weekend was hardly the last of our fruitsharing opportunities. We are going to be doing more carwashes, but also prayer dinners, silent auctions, swap meets, and other creative ideas as we think of them. We've also been spending a lot of time in prayer, meeting before school every day to pray, as well as taking some of our mission trip preparation time in class for prayer (most of the rest of it has gone to planning and preparations!) rather than trips to Carl's Junior or other unproductive uses of our time. We've been asking for God's oversight over our trip and planning, for God's blessing of those helping to make our ministry possible, financial provision, and that we would stay attuned to what God wants us to do in Australia, among other things.
We've also been working on drafting up our first prayer letter, and have that almost done, and are really excited about it and can't wait to share it with everyone. As soon as we fix a few last typos and adjust the margins, we'll get the stamp of approval from one of the team members to go ahead and begin distribution of them to our friends, families, and home-fellowships.
