$10.67

$10.67

That was the balance when I opened my bank account last week. Fortunately, I checked it before filling my car with gas. Unfortunately, I checked it at work and cried in front of all my coworkers.

It was a jarring moment. Along with the lowest balance my bank account has ever seen, I was facing $750 in upcoming and unexpected medical expenses, a bridesmaid dress to order, and 3 days until a paycheck. 

And instantly, I believed the lie that because I said “Yes,” to being a missionary, I deserved this. Because I “gave up” my teaching career, this was the trade off. People don’t support missionaries when they live in America, and I was choosing to work for a missions organization in Georgia. So I should struggle. I should live paycheck to paycheck, bill to bill. Right?

Then I started to question – What does it mean to say yes to being a missionary?

I was recently talking with a friend and fellow missionary about this very question. With most careers, you know what a yes means. When I said yes to teaching, I had a pretty good idea about what life was going to look like – teaching for several years in my own classroom, getting my masters and continuing education, perhaps moving into a special field or administration. In saying “Yes” to being a missionary, it could mean anything – any job, any country, any person, any task. You just say “Yes” blindly and trust God knows you and the desires of your heart and is faithful to His promises. It’s not a bigger or better yes, it’s just different.

Being a missionary in America (or anywhere) is challenging. And one of those biggest challenges is in the area of finances. 

I left the World Race in 2014 with this “Yes.” I told God I would live my life in direct ministry and missions and go wherever and whenever He said.

What did that Yes mean?

For me, it meant something unexpected – moving to Georgia in August 2015 and working for Adventures in Missions as a mobilizer. This was difficult to say yes to.

When I thought about my life as a missionary, I thought of the same things most people do – this:

a dirt hut in Africa or an orphanage in central America, teaching English in southeast Asia or planting churches in Eastern Europe (all things I have done).

What I never thought of when I said “Yes” to being a missionary was this:

God sending me to northern Georgia, to live and work in a community of similar missionaries, and to train and prepare future groups of Kingdom builders. But being a missionary in the United States was still being a missionary, right?

With this “Yes,” though, came some of the things I did expect of a missions career. I support raise $6,000 a year in order to offset the cost of my salary. I took a big paycut – and that is saying something since I was a teacher. I have a strict budget, 3 roommates, and live on a missions salary in a 1st world country.

I’m not complaining. Though there are hard days and many tears, days of trusting Jehovah Jireh and days where I anxiously demand that He prove Himself faithful, I know I am blessed that I don’t have to raise my entire salary. I am blessed that I have a roof over my head. I am blessed to be doing the job that I am doing, even if no one else understands why I have chosen it. 

I also know that this is not the end of my overseas opportunities. There WILL come a day when God will say GO (again). I cannot tell you when that will be or where He will send me, but when I said Yes to being a missionary, I said “Yes,” to that day – whenever it comes.

When that day does come, I want to be able to go with nothing holding me back. But there is at least one major obstacle standing in my way – $24,000 in student loan debt.

Something that God made clear to me was that I need to pay off my student loans, but that He wanted to do it. It seemed unlikely that He would, because a 30% pay decrease does not generally mean that you are able to cover your loan debt, your car payment, your rent, your daily living costs, and let’s be honest, the occasional coffee or two. Up until now, I have budgeted and scraped by, making ends meet on my own but claiming that was the Lord providing, because I was too scared to do what I knew He was telling me to do – ask. I have looked into every repayment program and grant option, and nothing fits. I have poured over every verse about God’s provision. I have asked Abba, over and over, and He keeps pointing me back to you – to the people who have trained me, loved me, and supported me.

“Ask them,” He says, “That is how I will provide.”

Two and a half years ago, while praying at a picnic table in El Salvador, was the first time He told me to ask you. And it was the first of many times I would try to get out of it. I would drop a line in a blog or a newsletter, hoping for an anonymous $25,000 check to show up in the mail. But that day never came and the Lord has continued to say, “Ask. Ask directly. Ask personally.”

Then come the lies again – everyone has student debt, so no one will help. This is poverty mentality. If I do this, I am locked in – I have to find a place to go right now. People will think I am asking for charity. If people support me this way, I will have no support when I DO go overseas. I will be judged. I will lose my friends. I can’t be that person.

But I have a God who desires for us to prosper, who has called us to community, and who has called me to missions. My God is Jehovah Jireh. He wants me to be able to use my resources to build the kingdom and He wants to prove himself faithful through those around me. He wants to show me what generosity and giving and blessing can truly look like in today’s church. I have a God who has been telling me for 2 and half years to ask:

Would you, my family and friends and prayer warriors, consider supporting me and my career as a missionary? Would you allow the Lord to provide for my student loans through you?

If your answer is yes, or it isn’t immediately no, I would love to take the time to tell you more about my journey with the Lord these last years, Adventures in Missions, and my life as a missionary here in Georgia. I would love to sit down with you and talk about what this can look like.

The donation wouldn’t be tax-deductible or going directly to a ministry organization. It would go directly from me to my lender. You would be supporting a missionary who is struggling to live on a missions salary. You would be supporting Kingdom building. You would be supporting the discipleship of high school students and the next generation of the church. You would be the hands and feet and generosity of Jesus. You would allow me to go when God says “Now.”