hooray for progress!

This past Sunday in our worship service we commissioned Jarett & Mary Carole Hall to serve in Monterrey, Mexico with MTW. I was particularly excited to see them heading to their field of service, because they and I started raising our prayer and financial support at the same time.

I just found out one of my supporting churches increased their monthly support by 60%, retroactively from the beginning of 2012! God’s working through your prayers, their generosity, and the giving of lots of others, too!

I’ve received 76% of my monthly support, and only need $933 per month in new pledges to be fully funded. God is providing, and I trust that I’ll be moving to Kiev this August!

Thank God with me, and keep praying for his provision of my remaining support.

105% one-time support

Praise God with me: through your giving and prayers, He’s provided 105% of my one-time support. That extra 5% is about $1,200, or the equivalent of a two-year $50/month pledge.  My primary financial need is still monthly support pledges, but if a one-time gift is what God enables you to give, MTW can apply your gift toward my monthly support.

Monthly support is still at 62.5%, so I still need $690/month in new pledges to reach 80% before April 15th to register for training.

Kiev is a city God can use for global impact: its a capitol city at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, a borderland of sorts. One of my non-Christian friends from my first visit to Ukraine recently finished his studies in Ukraine and returned to his home country. Though I can still pray for him, I’ve missed the opportunity to catch up with him and commend Christ to him again in person, but there are other students like him in Kiev. Pray with me for the Ukrainian church’s witness to students like him. Ask God to supply my need so I can help our brothers and sisters in Ukraine grow in Christ and bear witness to the nations in Kiev, through their country, and to the world. Thanks!

19 days

Just a quick update, friends: I only need $685 in new monthly support to reach 80% monthly by April 15th. Thanks to a new anonymous donor who’s pledged $40/month, and a quarterly donor who increased his or her pledge by 33%.

Praise God with me for 62.5% of my monthly support and 98.4% of my one-time support! Another $1,467 in monthly pledges and I’ll be 100% supported.  Aiming for August!

Pray that as I reach out to churches the Chattanooga area and the Tennessee Valley Presbytery, God would connect me with key individuals and families, and would move their hearts to partner in sending me to Kiev.

Thanks for your prayers and generosity!

21 day countdown

I had my bi-weekly talk with my MTW coach today.  I thought I needed 80% overall support, and since I have 69% overall, I told you in my last post I only needed $500/month and some additional one-time gifts.  I was wrong.

To register for training this July, I must have 80% of my monthly support by April 15th. Can you help provide part of the $735/month I lack to register for training?

The blue bar in the graph on the left has to reach 80% in 21 days!

Email partnerservices@mtw.org with your monthly pledge to my support account, #17138.

You don’t have to start giving until I go to the field, and I’m asking you for a two-year pledge starting when I head to Ukraine. My goal is to finish fundraising this summer and move to Kiev in August.

If you’ve been thinking, “Oh, I’m gonna support Joel,” but you haven’t pledged yet, please pledge monthly support now, $300, $150, $90, $60, $30 per month, or whatever you are able.

As the Apostle Paul reminded the Corinthians when he urged them to give as they’d intended,

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written,
“He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.”           – 2 Corinthians 9:6-9 ESV

See http://swansonmission.com/give for details and links to download the electronic giving form, but please email MTW with your pledge to record it sooner.  Let me know if you have questions.

step of faith

Perhaps I have it a little bit easier than Abraham. When God called him to leave his country, and follow God to a land the Lord would show him, Abraham went, having never seen Canaan before (Genesis 12). In contrast, I’ve been to Ukraine three times, seen some of the needs and spiritual darkness in Kiev, and been called to serve there. However, I feel that I’m taking a huge step of faith, in that I will soon be leaving my civil engineering work to focus full-time on raising my support this spring.

I’m aiming to wrap up my engineering responsibilities within the next three to five weeks.  My last day is a little bit of a moving target: I’ve told my supervisor when I hope to quit, I’m trying to flex as much as possible if the firm doesn’t have my replacement in place, and yet I have to walk in obedience to God’s call toward Kiev.  Pray that the Lord provides a good employee to take over my projects.  Pray that I finish my work with diligence and grace, that I continue to be a blessing in the engineering work were I’ve served 10+ years.

Pray for me as I’m faced with my first round of goodbyes–sure, I’m not moving away from Chattanooga to Kiev immediately, but I won’t see my colleagues daily as I have these past years.  Thank the Lord for his goodness in providing my job, for his goodness in the delightful people I’ve worked alongside, and for his goodness in providing the savings I will be living off of while finishing my support raising.

Finally, pray for me as I step into full time work building my team of financial and prayer partners.  What will I be doing? you may wonder.  Assuming that 10% or so of people will be able to give, and needing 30 to 35 new monthly partners to meet my remaining $1,600 per month support need, I’ve got to present my Ukraine ministry to 300 to 350 new people, and its best to meet in small groups or individually.  That means I’ll be calling churches, small groups, youth groups, and individuals, finding contacts, scheduling meetings, meeting with people to tell them how God is working in Kiev and how they can join in sending me, and following up with those people.  All the while I’ll be sending out thank you notes and my Ukraine prayer updates.

When?  I need to have 80% of my monthly support by April 15, so I can register for MTW’s pre-field training in July. Lord willing I’ll be moving to Ukraine in early August.  So pray for $800/month in new support by April 15th, and the other $800/month by the summer.

Thanks for your crucial role praying and giving: I can’t go unless you help to send me in a manner worthy of Jesus’ name. (3 John 6,7)

depending on God in prayer

In my last prayer letter, I asked my readers if anyone would like to join an Intercessor’s prayer team. I know God works through our prayers, delights to answer them, and I don’t want to go to Ukraine without solid prayer support. I’m thankful for my many friends and family who pray for me regularly, some even daily.

There haven’t been as many responses to my request as I’d hoped, which I find disappointing. However, it opened my eyes to another area were my tendency is to walk in my own strength: I assumed that God would give me a group intercessors–and quickly, too, rather than asking him about it and waiting for him to act, in his time. I’m growing in my dependence on God in prayer. Will you grow with me?

Will you pray with me for a meeting this Wednesday? I’ve applied to a local church’s missions committee for Ukraine support, and they will be considering my application at their meeting this Wednesday. As many churches do (including my home congregation), they place a high priority on supporting their own members missions work first, then regular attenders, then non-attending non-members like myself. However, I’m in the same presbytery and am seeking as much support as possible within our presbytery. Ask God to give me favor in their eyes, that they may decide to partner in sending me.

new numbers, faithful God.

Shortly after posting my monthly support at 57% due to the 2012 monthly support budget, I found two additional pledges totally $75/month in new monthly giving, and another $950 in one-time gifts!  So, as things now stand, I’ve received:

• 59% of my monthly pledged support
• 87% of my one-time support

In other words, I’ll be fully supported with $1,600 in new monthly pledges and $3,300 in one-time giving.  God is working through your prayers and giving, and my overall support is right at two-thirds: thanks!

More importantly though, God is building his kingdom in Ukraine, and his providence in my own life keeps pointing that direction.  Financial giving is only one of the tools God is using to build my trust in him and send me to Kiev.  At the truthXchange conference last week, and at the L’Abri conference, I met a number of people who offered contacts they have in Kiev, or sources for Ukrainian language and Russian language evangelistic and discipleship tools.  One friend recommended I connect with his friend, who I didn’t find a the conference, but ran into two days later in Terminal G of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

see the vision, pray with vigilance

Hi friends, would you pray for me this evening as I’m writing an update to my email prayer list? Pray that the vision of seeing Ukrainians grow in their knowledge of Jesus will excite me, pray with vigilance that I’ll write with focus and clarity, so that my writing encourages and builds you up in the grace of God.

If you haven’t seen my team’s video over on the video tab, or if its been a while since you last watched it, here’s the big picture of what my team’s up to in Kiev:

Exciting things continue to happen there: students have graduated from the seminary, a pastor has been ordained, and ordinary Ukrainian believers are growing in grace and becoming more like Jesus.

If your holiday schedule is anything like mine and my friends, you’d understand that I haven’t been trying to schedule Ukraine meetings this close to Christmas. Pray that I’ll work steadily on behind-the-scenes support raising stuff like praying, thank-you notes, Christmas cards, scheduling for January, and developing a few tools to use in the new year.

Pray with vigilance for me as I work, that God would establish the work of my hands and provide my support. The two major times my monthly pledged support moved forward were 17% to 34% in March/April and 36% to 56% in October/November, and the only thing I did differently in those months was specifically and consistently asking and reminding you to pray. So THANKS for your vigilance in prayer!

shifting schedule

Tuesday I met a friend for lunch to tell him a bit more about my calling to serve in Ukraine. He and his wife are interested in praying for me, holding me before our Father’s throne. I was encouraged by his enthusiasm for cross-cultural missions as I heard about his early exposure to missions, his wife’s almost serving overseas herself before they married, and their commitment to give and to pray. I need conversations like that, for encouragement and for the joy and excitement of telling others how God is working in Kiev.

Summer is a busy time – another friend and I had to reschedule the Ukraine dessert and coffee she was going to host for me last night, because a number of people who expressed interested in coming couldn’t make it last night. Too often this seems to be the case: people are interested but busy. Please ask God to enable me to schedule meetings with friends and new contacts who would like to hear about Ukraine, and who may participate by praying and/or giving to send me.

I’m excited to go, but still need 68% of my monthly support, or $2,455/month. Sounds like a lot, but it could break down to 25 people giving $50/month and 50 people giving $25/month.  My schedule’s shifted: I need 100% of my funding by November of this year, so if you’re been intending to give but haven’t, please do.  Check out the give tab for details how you can give.

So pray that I can schedule meetings. Pray also that I’ll remain driven by the culture-crossing gospel of Jesus. Thanks!

calm calendar

So I’m sending out emails, mail, and making calls to schedule meetings to tell you about Ukraine.  Why am I going?  What’s the need?  How is God working?  He’s building his kingdom, but what does that mean?

I’d love to sit down with you and tell you about a friend I met in Ukraine who wanted to know why God doesn’t do something about all the bad in the world, if God really is compassionate and powerful as we see him in Jesus feeding of the 5,000 people.  I could describe sitting at a cafe on Red Army Street listening to a young elder share his and his wife’s passion to help strengthen marriages in Kiev and through-out Ukraine.

I’ve seen glimmers of God’s kingdom being built in Kiev, and I’d love to share those stories with you.  Would you like to listen?  Let me know.

Have you already heard?  Pray that I’ll see fruit from my labors, that I’ll be able to schedule calls and meetings with people.  Pray that I’m able to point out the dynamic gospel and grace of Jesus that’s transforming people and places in Ukraine and around the world.  Thanks!