Missions is hard. Many people think that missionaries are actually just traveling the world on other people’s funds. A lot of locals do not understand why you are in their village/community and it’s not all that easy to report back to people back home when you are 7-10 hours ahead of their schedule. No, missions is HARD!
But…missions is also one of the best things ever! It’s such a joy being able to be the front runner and bringing the Kingdom to those I meet. I have been teaching English for a few months now in Daneasa, and it’s been so wonderful watching vocabularies grow.
I mention this to say that it’s worth the cost. Sure, living on support is HARD. It’s not easy to ask someone if they can support me at $25/month for 2+ years. It’s not easy to ask for help. I’ve always tried to be an independent woman and while support is something that “comes with the job,” I still struggle with it. In fact, anything to do with money…I simply do not like it. However, God has shown me something different. Did you know that Paul was supported? It’s really interesting to me, when I don’t ask and need something, it’s a lack of trust and in a sense, selfishness. God has used so many people to bless this ministry and when I don’t present the need, two things happen…1) They don’t have an opportunity to be part of the ministry and 2) I become more selfish. Support definitely makes you dependent on the Lord.
So by now, you might be asking “Rachel, why is God a show-off?” You see, a couple days ago, I was going through emails when I realized one of my loans was defaulted. What?! How could this possibly be? I thought. I started to make phone calls and each place that I called referred me to another company. Finally, I called the school I went to, in who then referred me to the lender. Friends, I was shocked what I heard. “Rachel, it says that your loan was paid in full when you consolidated your loan.” WHAT?!!!!! See, the thing is if I had even paid anything on this loan, then I would have paid the bare minimum. This loan wasn’t something like $500 either….let’s multiply it by 10. We serve a good God!
Lessons Learned Through This
1. We serve a high and holy God.
2. We really need to ask for what we need. We will receive what we need. (Matthew 7:7)
3. Money is the Lord’s.
I pray that this really encourages you to see that God really does take care of our needs and likes to bless us in some really BIG ways sometimes.
