Thanks to Supporters!

Recently I reached an incredibly important milestone in my Mission Year journey: I met my fundraising goal of $12,000! There are many components to my experience this year, as I hope my blog reflects, and this is one that can be easy to forget about while I'm busy with all the others. So it's important to me that I take a moment to recognize this element of my journey that you are most directly involved with--financial support. 

Honestly, it has never been something that I have worried too much about. I have fundraised this way before, and I have seen God's faithfulness to provide in such situations. But I have never seen such a large outpouring of support so quickly. I met this goal much quicker than I expected, and each month people continue to make gifts after I've met my goal, fulfilling commitments to give all the way through the year. 

Fundraising has helped me to see even more that God desires to equip those he calls. And when he calls us to something longer-term (and therefore more expensive), he still equips us.

It is also encouraging each week when my fundraising totals go up a little bit. When I see it I know that I have people who trust me, who believe in me, and who love me. And more importantly, it excites me that God has given them a little bit of the same vision that he has given me: to to love God and love people. It's one thing for a friend to tell me that they are excited about what I'm doing in Mission Year. It's another for them to show me their excitement by supporting me financially. So thank you!

Meeting my fundraising goal does indeed demonstrate that God is faithful to those he calls. But I would be distorting reality if I didn't recognize that, in some ways, it also highlights my privilege. Several factors contribute to my ability to fundraise $12,000 this early in my year: how much time I've had (several months more than most), how much I could personally contribute, the timing of my graduation (and the cultural value of giving large financial gifts upon the completion of a degree), having a large network of people from several middle-class churches, attending a university that sent my friends straight into well-paying jobs...there are probably more, but you get the picture.

Imagine if someone from my neighborhood was called to Mission Year. S/he wouldn't have those privileges. Only one small church with few middle-class congregants. Fewer graduation gifts. No friends with well-paying jobs. 

...If they struggled to raise funds would that mean that God didn't want to equip them like he has equipped me? I don't think so. I think it reflects more the privilege that they don't have.

But I believe that God would still equip them, regardless of their privilege or networks or degrees. And I believe he would probably use people like me with those privileges and connections to help make it happen.

The truth is, there are people like that in Mission Year right now! Not all Mission Year team members have the same privileges at their disposal to reach their fundraising goal, but you can help to equip them to do what God has called them to do just as you did for me. I challenge you to keep giving to support not just me but also my team and everyone who is doing Mission Year. For a few ideas of who to give to, use these links:
Sophilia Hubbarb
Nicole Roberts
Walter-Levi Wawra
Bella Fout

In the meantime, there are some special folks to whom I would like to extend more thanks. The following people have made three or more donations to my Mission Year fund. These 11 supporters have given 61 times over the past year, some giving 12 times! Their contributions alone have accounted for 46% of the funds I've raised so far. Extra thanks go to:

John Carter
Sherry Cauthen
Valentin Lazar
Densie Kootin-Sanwu
Haji Nishikori
Karen Im
Peter Habib
Ashleigh and Jeffrey Watterworth
Chip and Rosemarie Green
Fred and Susan Worthy
Ote Beshears

And the top prizes for care packages and letters go to:

Marilyn and Dorrell Benefield

Carol and Marty Hogue

Lawrence Wilson

Thanks also to friends at First Baptist Church Ravenel for supplying my team with kids' books and art supplies!

Finally, I got so excited about reaching my goal that I made this nifty info graphic! 

Thanksgiving

As we approach Thanksgiving, I offer some thanks for these experiences I (probably) would not have had were it not for Mission Year:

• I’ll start with the obvious: I moved to Philadelphia and took up residence in a row house with six other people I didn't know.
• Raised $10,000+! (If part of it came from you, then thanks!)
• Volunteered over 250 hours.
• Hand-washed laundry for the first time because I had waited a month and ran out of clean underwear.
• Became an urban biker, turning my 30-minute (one-way) trolley ride into a 30-minute workout!
• Fasted from technology for 8 weeks and simplified my use of technology thereafter. (Read more here.)
• Tried water ice, a Philadelphia frozen treat.
• Had the thought, “In this setting, I’m the only white man,” about once a day.
• Went without a shower for three days for lack of heat or hot water on a cold winter weekend.
• Wrote out a covenant with my teammates. (Read it here.)
• Got a library card at the Free Library of Philadelphia…and paid $3.00 in overdue fines. That’s 5% of my monthly stipend!
• Earned back one of those dollars by eating a whole onion, raw and covered in chocolate. (Don’t ask.)
• Saw seven of my neighbors join my church, Grace Christian Fellowship. (Read more here.)
• Developed enough cooking skills to look into the fridge and come up with a decently tasty dish with what I found there.
• Worked through conflict with a teammate derived from a game of Monopoly.
• Spent a day on the streets with new homeless friends. (Read more here.)
• Embraced regular solitude, silence, and new prayer practices. (Read more here.)
• Mastered SEPTA, or Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.

I am thankful for all of these experiences, and they are just the tip of the iceberg. They don’t begin to explain the spiritual experiences for which I am so much more grateful. It’s only been a couple of months, but I already have much for which to be thankful.

I am also thankful for you, who follow my blog and support these experiences and others through prayer, letters, financial gifts, phone calls, and other encouragement. Keep it coming, and offer a prayer of Thanksgiving for what the Lord is doing in Southwest Philly this year.

Gratitude and Humility

After this week, I am ever so close to finishing my fundraising for Mission Year! A couple of events pushed me so close that I can taste it! One was last Sunday when my family and I hosted several friends, many of whom have already supported my Mission Year financially, for a graduation and send-off party. We intended it to be a time for me to connect with friends in Charleston before I leave in a couple of weeks, and to thank the many people who have supported me so far.

The first guests arrived promptly at 3:00, the starting time of my drop-in. For some reason, I was surprised when they handed me an envelope. Now I realize that it is customary to bring a gift to a party celebrating a momentous life occasion such as graduating from college. But for some reason I didn't expect that this time. As more and more guests piled into our somewhat cramped home, most of them presented envelopes upon arrival, and suddenly I had a large stack piling into a chair near the front door, the impromptu gift depository. At one point I had a couple of minutes in between conversations to consider that each envelope probably had a check inside (also customary for a graduation party). I felt tears well up that I quickly suppressed. I know it was my party, but I didn't want to cry.

The tears were of gratitude, something that I have felt over and over throughout my fundraising process. And that is a rather different reaction from four years ago when I graduated from high school. My family hosted a party then, too, but at that party I was counting the number of envelopes as they piled up. I couldn't wait to open them and total up the money I had “earned” by graduating from high school.

That old sense of entitlement seeped into my Mission Year fundraising at first. I have raised thousands of dollars of support for several different endeavors, so committing to Mission Year and $12,000 of fundraising wasn’t overwhelming to me, even though it is by far the largest sum I’ve attempted to raise. I have been a part of many churches that taught me by example the meaning of generosity. So I had complete expectation that they would teach me again how the Lord equips those He calls. But the faith the Lord has given me is not always seasoned with humility or gratitude.

That’s where the (almost) tears came from. Raising $12,000 offers a lot of opportunity for humility and gratitude. Here are a few of them:

One of the very first people to make a donation was a friend from freshman year that I had not kept up with as much as I always wished I did. Even though we hadn’t spoken in months, he promptly made a donation online when I first announced my commitment to MY. I might expect that from a Christian friend who shared my same passion for justice (one such acquaintance from church made a $200 donation). This friend does not fit that description. I was humbled by the gift coming out of the blue toward a mission that didn’t match the giver.

Several students still in college have given $50, $100, and even $200! Granted, I went to a private school where most students have wealthy families, but it’s still humbling to have peers--college students--give that much!

Even more humbling is to hear the story of a friend and financial supporter whose life has been marked by tragedy and, in its wake, financial hardship. After sharing about how the Lord has shown His faithfulness through the provision of others, she handed me an envelope with $100 inside. In the midst of hardship, she had learned the importance of generosity. Let me tell you, it’s humbling to receive from the humbled.

Other college friends gave out of their hard-earned summer paychecks, some with large, one-time gifts and others with smaller gifts out of each paycheck over the course of the summer. Knowing how precious that cash can be, I was humbled.

Also humbling are the gifts of family friends whose love is rooted in memories of me as a child. Their support has always been there, and only now do I appreciate it.

It is really those that give on a regular basis that draw out the most gratitude. Several dear friends and family members have been giving for several months now, becoming my largest financial supporters. Although I am tempted to feel entitled to those monthly gifts, they also hold the greatest potential for humbling me because they came once…and then again. And again. And again! And they continue to come. Each gift is more humbling.

And finally I’ll share the second event that pushed me very close to finishing fundraising. On Wednesday night, my church home for this summer, First Baptist Church of Ravenel, voted to give $1,200 toward MY expenses! What an unexpected blessing, another humbling experience.

And that’s where I am now. I’ve been hit with generosity so many times that I couldn’t handle the sight of the envelopes sitting in that chair by the door last Sunday. In fact, I delayed opening them for a bit to keep from facing it. But gratitude and humility are not to be staved off. Thank you to all of my supporters, from the $5 one-time giver to the $100 monthly giver, for so many opportunities for gratitude.

Stay tuned for another post about all of the fun details I’ve recently learned about what I’ll be doing during my year in Philadelphia!

Halfway There!

This blog is timely because I have just reached two milestones in my journey toward Philadelphia! First, I am roughly half-way through the waiting period between December, when I was accepted into the program, and I when I move to Philly in September. In that period of time, I attained a second milestone: I have raised half of the support I will need for my Mission Year! For that, I thank you!

Many of you that have donated thus far are adults with stable (and often sizable) incomes. I extend my deepest gratitude for your generosity over the past six months. Some of you have even committed to give monthly! Thank you! In addition to your financial contributions, you have given me many potential stories to share about how the Lord has provided. I’d like to share a conversation with the friend that helped me break the halfway mark. The dollar that pushed me over that line came not from a “grown-up” with a “real job,” but from one of my peers, a college student.

This friend was not willing to blindly give to an organization he knew little about. Although he trusts me and knows my calling to see communities transformed, he wanted to know more. He invited me to dinner and respectfully inquired into the “Mission” of Mission Year: What will you be doing? How will this impact you? The community? Why should I give?

I shared my vision to see the social, economic, and—most importantly—spiritual revitalization of urban neighborhoods that have long been neglected by society and by the Church. I shared why I chose Mission Year over other programs: it balances evangelism with justice, partners across denominations, and is intentional about multi-ethnicity and racial reconciliation. I shared my hope to gain experience in a non-profit that will propel me into a career in community development. I shared my trust in the leaders to teach me well what it means to be a white, middle-class, college-educated guy from the suburbs working in a poor, underprivileged, minority, urban community. My friend, now sharing more fully in my calling, handed me his donation.

I am learning many things through the support-raising process: humility, faith, patience. But as I raise support, I must share my vision and calling with others like I did today with my inquiring friend. I share this story out of gratitude, not just for his contribution, but for his questions. As I wait until September, I am grateful to have the opportunities to rehearse that calling again and again as I raise support, building expectation and reminding me regularly of what the Lord wants for me.

So thank you for your support. I need your financial gifts and your prayer, but as I wait with anticipation, I also need you as an outlet to share my excitement about what God will do in my Mission Year in Philadelphia.