While we are here, working with Partners and living in this community, we live on support–the generosity of so many people, giving month after month, year after year.
I have a love-hate relationship with this.
I’ll start on the negative side of things. I hate being the one to always be attaching strings. I hate that in having a conversation about our lives over coffee, people know there will probably be a request at the end. I hate that the joy of a Christmas card is–well, it feels like to me, tainted–with an update on if we have enough money to get through the next year, and sometimes a request for help. I hate that I feel annoying, repetitive, and needy; I hate that it challenges my pride.
But I love that every month I receive a list of the people that have given to us, again. Have you seen the Friends episode where Chandler gives all of the little foosball men high-fives? Sometimes I feel like that when I read through this list–like I can give every name a high-five, telling them thank you. Thank you for purified water! Thank you for keeping my refrigerator on! Thank you for a night out to that restaurant so I didn’t have to cook! Thank you for my running shoes; that run really made my day! Thank you for data on my phone so I can text my sisters from the hospital!
I love that I can tangibly see what people are giving toward: This couple provided for us to have air conditioning in our bedroom this month, and that is more of a gift than we could ever say. We are well-rested because of you! Or you paid our rent–you literally put a roof over our heads every day! You provided the floor for the kids to play on and pee on. Thank you! It’s as though we have the privilege of seeing the first ripple lead to the second or third or fourth. And as members of race where we are only seeing and knowing in part what we will someday know fully (1 Corinthians 13:12)–a glimpse into a few ripples is a significant privilege.
Sometimes it comes with pressure. These are sacrificial amounts of money, given as a gift–not only to us, but to the Kingdom. It’s like we’re living out of the treasury, or like we’re David and his friends eating the consecrated bread of the Presence (1 Samuel 21). If you’re going to eat consecrated bread or live off holy money, there is a pressure to spend it well! To cherish each moment, each baht.
We try to. We try to see the generosity of people as well as the provision of God. We try to be wise with each dollar or baht, to be aware of the sacrifices made. We try to be thankful.
By the time this Christmas rolled around, we were low in our support. We had money for our day-to-day living because we were still receiving the same salary each month, but our account within Partners was draining faster than it was filling. We had been watching it do this for around a year, praying through when to ask and how. What does trust look like in this? We are still new on this road.
{Really, at our age, all the roads are new to us.}
We had also been contemplating a car for sometime. While we can currently borrow one from Partners often, it isn’t easy. I feel like a burden to borrow a car more often for the community than for my actual work with Partners. Sometimes it is enough of an emergency we take the motorbike; or does the community feel like a burden to ask for us to get the truck? Is the motorbike safe? How many people can safely ride across town on a motorbike? What age? {And if I’m driving, is it ever really safe?} We decided to mention this at Christmastime, too–see what God had in store. We mentioned that an older model that would run dependably and has the capacity to take the mountains and potholes would cost around $6,000.
It is mind-boggling to see God provide. It was then, when we saw the money come in, and is now as I still wrap my head around it. To see people give incredibly huge, generous amounts of money that I can even wrap my mind around. And then see people give smaller amounts that I know drastically change their budget; providing us with {fill in the blank}, leaving them without {fill in the blank}.
This year at Christmas, we were given so many gifts of beautiful, consecrated bread. I’m still giving out high-fives, because each day I’m reminded that we now have the capacity to stay longer. And not only that, we have the absurd capacity to purchase a vehicle–a whole car donated to us! A whole car out of the treasury! A whole car to high-five for!
I’m still processing it weeks later, giving thanks after thanks. We’ve been processing what this means and what decisions have to be made. How do we go about this?
For two newbies-at-this that aren’t very decisive, we thought this could be a process. We started poking around at our research, but thought it’d take awhile. We knew we needed to purchase it in a bigger city–Chiang Mai, Bangkok–and that it would be hard to look at there ahead of time, plus get advice on how its running. We knew we had to simply get this large amount of money into this country from a US bank account. All of this required some processing of the trips involved to go look at cars, who we’d ask for help, which systems to utilize.
I thought it was going to be awhile.
And then a friend came across an ad in the classifieds–a car we had mentioned looking at. She texted us, we emailed him. And before we knew it, we were here: on our way to Chiang Mai to have the car inspected by a trusted mechanic, making a decision, and potentially driving a car home.
{Potentially driving a car home!}
We’ll keep you posted.