Last night, we finished our time with our ministry hosts this month. It was, without question, my favorite month thus far on the Race. While a blog about my top 11 moments of Cambodia is in the works, I wanted to talk about one of the things that our hosts prayed over us. They asked for continued provision for us on our journey for the rest of the Race. This comment pushed me past my hesitance in writing this post. I decided that sometimes people want to help but are unaware of the need, so let’s give it a shot.
As many of you who have followed along in my journey are aware, as a World Racer, I was required to raise roughly $16,300 for the trip. God showed up in so many ways to remind me that He is indeed faithful when it comes to finances. Now that I am done with Month 8 of the Race and am faced with a much more definitive ending to this adventure, the Lord has once again prompted me to trust Him in the financial realm.
What I mean by all of this is that the $16,300 goes towards our travel, lodging, food (roughly $4 a day), ministry-related transportation and the bare minimum of living supplies like shampoo. Anything that may be done recreationally or above and beyond the team budget for each month (laundry, local transportation, tickets to see sites, supplemental food, souvenirs, mailing things home, etc) comes out of our pockets or we do not participate. My approach to the Race was that I had worked for a year and would set a monthly budget for myself so that I could maintain some of my savings for when I returned home. As is true with many parts of the Race, unexpected things come up. Small trips to unique sites in each country are available which are incredible opportunities that will likely never be available again. While I have been diligent in keeping record of my spending, sometimes going above my monthly budget has been unavoidable so I increased it to a more realistic amount but even that became a challenge.
So, let me be straight with you as my readers and supporters: yes, I am requesting additional funds for personal spending money. Let’s just put that out there. Now, I want to make you aware of a few things related to that request.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned about myself is my need to work on generosity. I’m a logical person and saving money is always on my mind but it can leave me pretty tight-fisted. As I’ve walked through this journey, I’ve fought to become a more generous individual by buying snacks for teammates or tipping the tuk tuk driver extra because I know his child is in the hospital. I wanted to continue doing all of those things because the money we receive really is never exclusively ours. God calls us to be generous with joyful hearts.
All that to say, I would like to continue to work on my generosity as well as bless the ministries that I’ve been partnered with. Here’s my deal:
Half of whatever money I receive will be used with the generosity concept in mind. I’m willing to work with you so that half of your donation goes towards a cause of interest (within reason because the rest of my Race will be in Africa). Some examples would be giving the money directly to my ministry hosts, tips at restaurants, treating my teammates to something nice, you name it. One of my favorite moments of ministry this month was taking the university students we worked with to see a movie in the theater for the first time IN THEIR LIVES. That was only made possible through the financial generosity that one of my teammates received. I would love to continue this for the next 3 months.
In addition to learning that generosity is not my top strength, asking for financial help would follow soon after, especially when it comes to personal spending. I’m guessing that is why the Lord is prompting me to put my request out there. I will need time to get my feet on the ground when I return to the States (re-entry is supposed to be quite the challenge) and one way to ensure that I have the space I need is to not return with a heavy weight of financial stress because all of my savings are gone.
Sometimes people want to help and either haven’t been asked specifically or simply do not know how. Well, here is an opportunity if you are one of those people. You can help fund my personal spending for the duration of the Race. One idea I had would be to think of it as a tithe but rather than giving to a church, you’re giving to a missionary. I do not want to set an amount here because I want to let the Lord work in whatever way He chooses.
To help simplify the process, I have a paypal account set up.
1. Go to www.paypal.com
2. Log in to your account or create an account
3. Choose the “send money to friends and family” option
4. Enter my email address ([email protected])
5. Enter the amount of money you wish to give
6. Complete the transaction by following the promptings of the website
7. If you have a specific request for how half of your donation is used, please include it in the message that accompanies the donation or send me an email! We can continue to communicate through that, especially if I can send you a picture of how your money was used.
Thank you for considering helping me in this way. The Race has given me more opportunities than expected which is a wonderful thing but can be difficult financially. Your prayers, as always, are a huge blessing to me.
