Cont'd from 6/10...
Yeah, I know, it's been a week now. A rather crazy week around our house.
So back to fundraising -- the daunting task...
We have felt all along that God was in this. It was apparent in the way things just happened without our planning or striving. But now, this is (to use an over used cliche) where the rubber meets the road. We were told that the average time of appointment (the time between orientation and going to the field) was 2 years. We thought we could easily accomplish our goal in much less than two years. Yeah, right.
Fundraising could easily be a full time job. In fact, many appointees start living off partial support as they near the last of their fundraising and spend that time concentrating solely on getting the final pledges needed.
Taking into account that we were both teaching music lessons and I was doing carpentry, computer work and other odds and ends to make a living, plus the time spent in family matters, the hours left over in a typical week to actually do fundraising (a.k.a. Ministry Partner Development or MPD) were few and it remains that way today.
There were some remarkable things that began to occur as we contacted those on our list, or as we would run into people in public. As we would share what was going on with us and how God was calling us to Ireland, we heard time and again, "How can we be involved?" or "Where can we send a check to support what you're doing?" We even had one individual say, "I want a piece of that!"
We quickly realized that there were many who counted it a privilege and not a burden to financially partner with us. When we contacted a man (who had expressed an interest when we saw him out somewhere) and gave him particulars as to how to go about supporting us, he said, "Thanks for taking me at my word." Gee, people really wanted to give their money for God's Kingdom! Go figure!
At the same time, we were beginning to feel a bit dry in regard to ministry. At Calvary Chapel, because we had been in such a highly visible role for such a long time, there was no practical ministry role for us there. We had been in contact with a friend, Robert Pooley, who had planted Coast Community Church in Gulf Breeze 7 years earlier and was still the pastor. Since it's beginning, Pastor Robert had led the worship as well, but was at a place where he felt that it was time for a change. Not wanting to throw ourselves into such a position, we did volunteer to help him out in any way that was practical. So we began playing on their worship team and have had somewhat of an "advisory" role in the worship, while at the same time I am working with a couple on the team who are up and coming worship leaders themselves. It has been almost like pre-field training for us in that these are some of the types of things in which we will be involved in Ireland. We also have opportunities to lead worship at Coast from time-to-time.
But the best thing about us being at Coast we hadn't yet discovered.
To be continued...
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