It seems like another life in which my fundraising season was closing a year ago. After ten weeks of appointments, coffee dates, and church presentations, God once again showed ample grace in my life by providing every penny needed to have me trained, sent, and sustained. Having grown up in a Southern Baptist community of faith, it was incredibly uncommon for an aspiring young overseas worker to need to gather support personally. Yet, despite all my preconceived notions on how missions should work, God was asking for a different kind of faith to be fostered in our relationship. With every act of obedience, He provided the courage, connections, and often the words needed to ask both those closest to me and strangers to sacrifice by funding the work God called me to in Africa.
I recall that for some time, I feared asking as if I was intruding in a sacred place in other's lives. God quickly revealed that this fear was not coming from other's reactions but my own relationship with money. I viewed my ask to others as a burden, something they, by chance, would begrudgingly do. Yet the truth was and is so different. The ask, while from my lips, was and is from God. Not to give out of what any person has but what God has through the people around me. I got to experience the joy of others saying yes to this sacrifice, watching strangers display pride and honor in supporting the advancement of the gospel, and witnessing friends in a newly established service with the confidence that while they stay behind, they still serve faithfully. As it turns out, it was never the supporters God placed in my life who needed to believe the sacrifice was worth it; it was me.
Somewhere in this life, I had forgotten how the body of Christ is called to function and, in doing so, almost missed a blessing from God. I praise Him for the lesson He taught me and the funds He brought forth from others. Because of His grace, these last nine months of on-field service have been exceedingly blessed. I can only wonder what He has for the next fifteen.