Holiday Principle

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The holiday season is a pretty good time to step back and look at what truly matters. What is the driving, master principle behind what I am doing? What is the belief that pushes me forward? Why am I doing what I am doing?

My driving principle is this: That Jesus Christ has been sent to us after humanity’s failing to remain faithful to God’s law in order to take the blame for our wrongdoings and to give us the ability to do good things He saw that we could not succeed with the Law written on tablets of stone so He took the initiative to write it on out hearts and in our minds. He bought my badness in order to offer His goodness, a goodness that naturally pours out to others when it’s given to me.

So, for me, the thing to remember during this holiday season when everything gets busy (and, more significantly for me, when I am unable to meet with many people to raise support because they are busy) is that in the end all I do I do because of what Christ has done and has made me able to do.

I am thankful to God for all of you (whether you support me or not), and I hope that your holidays are very enjoyable as well as worshipful.

Joshua

Productivity

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The past two weeks have been the most productive since I started raising support! The difference has been mostly in the references that I have been making. Because of this I now have a constantly renewable pool of people that I can speak to. What has also helped is that I have been much more diligent in going to the office at Eastside Baptist to work instead of doing it from home. Giving myself set hours in a set place has a definite positive effect on my overall work ethic. My goal is to have five to seven appointments every week (I’m averaging about three right now). If I can do this then I will certainly have all the money I need and more in a very short while.

Also, I will be working with Eastside again with my friend Joel Williams who is sitting next to me at the moment proofreading this blog. I’m not sure exactly how the end result of my job will look, but I think that we will be sort of pre-visitation visitors. We will visit people who have recently moved into town and refer them to their respective Sunday school teachers. Hopefully I will be able to share the Gospel on these visits as well. More than anything else I’m really looking forward to meeting and getting to know all these new people.

Joshua

Charlotte!

As you all probably know I went to Charlotte last week to go through the support training seminar again. I am really glad I went. I think that with the knowledge and momentum that I gained from the trip I will have absolutely no excuse for not having all of my support raised within the next few months, thus putting me on schedule to go to CIT training in February and then leave for Estonia in the late spring or early summer. All I need to do is keep on pluggin’ away!

I also need to note that this trip was good for me because I am so isolated here in Douglas. I hadn’t seen the people I am working with/for for almost exactly a year. So, it was good to feel more like part of the team again.

Thanks for your prayers and support!

Joshua

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One Church

Last week was an interesting week for my community. Many of the local churches met together that Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights in what was called the “Send the Rain Revival.” It was very neat to be a part of because it was the first time I have seen the actual Church in a single community (most of it al least) come together as the one thing that it is. In other words I thought it was fantastic that the Church in Douglas GA met together for the first time last week. I hope that it continues to happen.

As for my support raising, I need more contacts! I am working with some pastors and missions committees right now in order to speak to some groups of people. However, if any of you know of anyone who is interested in Missions and would possibly like to support a missionary through prayer and/or finance, please send them my way! I have $550 in monthly pledges left to raise. I know that God will provide for this and I thank you all for your prayers and thoughts on my behalf!

Joshua

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A Very Brief History Lesson

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I have wanted to write a blog about the history and spiritual attitude of Estonia for a while now. This has been a much bigger project than I had thought it would be and have now spent at least a month in light research with not much to show for it. It has been difficult to find resources that agree with each other. One big thing is that many official statistics give the country a much higher Christian percentage than the arguably more reliable unofficial statistics. I think I have enough info for you guys now to write this blog, so here we go.

Estonia has had a rough time in the past. In 1227 it was conquered by the Danes and Germans. This led to 700 years of foreign occupation spread out between the Danes, Germans, Roman Empire, Swedes, and eventually Russians. Estonia finally gained their independence in 1918, only to lose it again to the Soviets in 1940. They gained independence once again in 1991 and have been a sovereign country ever since. Needless to say so many years of foreign rule followed by the pretty extreme oppression of the Soviets has taken a toll on Estonian culture.

The spiritual side of Estonia has been interesting to research, as I have already mentioned. Estonia has a very strong Lutheran presence due to German influence. Many official resources say that between 30%-40% of the population is Christian. A closer look, however, gives a much lower number. One website puts the percentage of Estonia’s Church goers at 4% of the population (The U.S.A has 44%). So what I will be working with seemed to be an outwardly Christian nation that is inwardly very secular. Some specific implications of this are that divorce, abortion, and materialism is common place here. Here is a great video about this that was put out by Kevin Mason who I will be working under in Estonia.

There is much more to say about this, but for shortness’ sake I will save it for another day. I can say that after learning all that I have about the country in which I minister has made me very excited to get there, and I hope that this blog will make you all the more excited to partner with me when I get there!

Good week, but gas is high

Hello all! I hope that the past week has treated you well. My week has been pretty productive. Since I lost my substituting job I have been working loosely with a business named One Stop Promo Shop. The owners are friends of mine and have actually helped me in the past be printing out my brochures. So, I am financially better than I was a week ago thanks to them.

Now that I know that I will be in Douglas for a while longer I can start planning some new things to help me raise support. One neat idea that my friend Deek came up with is to make a short video about what I will be doing in Estonia. (Deek also has a featured article on youthministry.com, which I thought was pretty neat) It probably won’t take very long if we start making it within the next few days, so I will probably be putting it into my repertoire in the next few weeks.

Gas prices are going up, the economy doesn’t look very good. Many people are distressing over their financial situation. As an end to this blog I just feel compelled to comment on my feelings towards this. I have heard many times that we should be good stewards with our money, and I agree, but I think my definition of “good steward” is different that several of my friends’ who use this phrase.It seems that to be a “good steward” in the conventional way is to save my money wisely so I don’t need to rely on the money of others to survive. It seems to me, however, that being a “good steward” has more to do with the usefulness of the money given to you than in the saving of it. What I mean by this is that the money we have should be used for our own benefit, but if we are to be “good stewards” then it is also to be used just as much for the benefit of others. I say this because the temptation right now is to take money that would normally be spent on someone else (I’m not talking about gifts to friends or loved ones, but of giving to people who need it more than you like the poor) and keeping it for yourself. Fight this temptation. Be good stewards with your money by making sure that those people who are not able to have their needs met are taken care of. What do you guys think about this?

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The marathon

This past week has felt a little like a marathon. As many of you know I have been working towards going to the CIT training session on Sep. 10^th. You may also know that I am the kind of person who has some trouble putting days and dates together. In other words I am fully capable of wanting to do something the day after it happens without realizing any sort of discrepancy. So, I did not realize just how close I was to my deadline until I was pushed into it (I’ll go into that in a bit). To make a long story short my late submission made everyone’s life a bit hustled and awkward and in the end I wound up not having as much money in my account as I had originally thought. My goal, therefore, has changed from hoping to go to training on Sep. 10^th to hoping to go in February. My highest of hopes in this is that I will be able to raise ALL of my support by that time.

The major setback to this is the thing I referred to as “pushing” me earlier. I had been working as a substitute teacher for money to survive on (paying bills, buying gas and whatnot). Apparently the Coffee County School System is running low on money in their budget. To fix this they decided that the best move was to stop using outside substitute teachers in lieu of actual teachers who apparently have quite a bit of free time on their hands (That’s a joke, by the way). So, I need to find some way of getting money now.

So, this has been an interesting week to be sure. The passage that keeps popping up is Matthew 6:25-34 in that through not meeting my goal to go to training and losing my job so suddenly with no real replacement I still have no reason to worry. God provides for his creation and all the more for his children.

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Valdosta!

I had a fairly productive week this week. Tuesday I went to the great city of Valdosta with my friend Deek. I went to see two of my old friends who live there and to talk with one of them about supporting me. I only got to see one of them due to a family emergency for the other friend. After that I got to spend the night with three other friends of mine who had recently moved to Valdosta to go to school there. So, it was a pretty reminiscent night.

My update for the week is that I now need $225 to go to training (I still have a week to raise this if I want to go to the next session) and $1,114 overall.

Been a while

It has been several weeks since I have lasted posted anything and I apologize for that. The reason for this has been a mix between the fact that I have been expecting several more subscribers (hello to you who are new!) and the fact that I simply don't have all that much to report.
The biggest news is that I am $200 a month closer than what I was when I last posted anything. So, I now only $300 more monthly pledges until I am able to go to training. The next session begins on Sept. 10th, so the next few weeks will be the deciding factors.
Other than that, nothing spectacular has been going on. I have started substituting again since the school semester has begun, which is a good thing.
I will end the post with some prayer concerns. Firstly, I would ask you all to pray for my support raising (obviously). Specifically that I would be more assertive in it, but also that I would do better at keeping up with you guys! I want to be closer to you guys than I am, and this requires more time calling and emailing you than I am spending. You can also pray for me while I am learning Estonian. I am able right now to learn grammar, but I won't be able to actually practice speaking the language unless someone comes around to help me with it.

Joshua

Blessed Miscalculation

I was looking over how much support I had in my account and had a dawning realization. I had been figuring the monthly support and one time support separately, which is alright unless you forget to go back every month and add in the support that comes in. I had not been doing this. When I added it up I realized that I had just over $1,000 more support raised that I had thought! To make it even better I sent an email to UWM (my mission board) to ask when the next training sessions was being help. I had assumed that it was in August, but I was informed that it actually begins on September 10th. So I now have less money to raise and more time to raise it in!
That being said, before I can go to training I need to have $1922.60 for my one time amount. What is more important, however is that I need to get $523.20 more monthly pledges to go to training. So, if you know of anyone who you think may support me, or if you would like to come on board yourself, please let me know. I would love to partner with you in teaching the Gospel!

Getting rolling

To begin with I would like to say hello to those getting this newsletter for the first time. I hope that we remain in good contact with each other and that we will be able to minister together for a good long time.

There's not been too awfully much to talk about this time around. The most important thing would be that I am finally getting into a groove of raising support. I have at least one Sunday School class per Sunday booked for the remaining portion of the month. Hopefully I will be able to generate enough support to go to training in August. All I need to go is $3,000! That may sound like a lot, but it's certainly not as bad as it was a month ago. So, I am still hoping (maybe even vainly so) to have enough support to take the next step soon! Once again if any of you want to support me, or know of anyone who might be willing to come on board, then let me know so that this dream can become a reality!

Two surprises

I've had some pleasant surprises in the last two weeks. The first one came from an unpleasant situation. Last week I decided to step down from my position as youth pastor of New Harmony Grove. The reason for this is that there is just not enough time for me to both raise support and to be a youth pastor, so I had to cut it. So, last Wednesday I spoke to the church and told them what was going on and why. The surprising thing is that they had decided to give me a check for $1,000 for the time I had spent there. Also they gave me the money from the VBS penny war (in case you don't know, this is just a competition in which boys and girls compete to see who can bring the most pennies for missions). This came out to be over &1,200, which was a huge boost to my one time fund. Thus my time at the Grove ended. I'm sad to see it go, but I'm very glad that I had experienced it.
The second surprise has to do with New Harmony as well. The youth had been asked to sing at the local county wide gospel sing last Sunday. During the introduction of our presentation Bro. Don (New Harmony's pastor) mentioned that I was a missionary raising support. Towards the end of the service one of the pastors motioned that the group take up an offering and pray for me. They took up the offering and it came out to be $960. Then all of the pastors gathered around me and put their hands on me and everyone prayed for me. It was the first time anything like that had ever happened to me and I think it will be one of my fonder memories in life.
So, I had a pretty good two weeks. I am continuing to look for supporters and I am still in need of a large amount of support. Please continue to pray for me while I'm doing this and if you know of anyone who you think might be willing to support me or if you are willing yourself please let me know!

Sick, but with new ideas

On Saturday me and my friend Deek went out to get some soda from a local gas station. He took me because of its ingenious quality of having not merely your pick of different varieties of Pepsi brand soda, but also your pick of different flavorings to add to it! I got Sprite and Deek got Dr. Pepper, both with vanilla flavoring added to it. We tried each other's concoctions out of pure curiosity, and so I've inherited Deek's sickness this week. It hasn't been too bad, but it did force me to go to bed around 8:00 Monday night.
The new idea part comes in because I'm trying to implement an idea from one of my superiors at UWM into my fund raising. I've been asking people to put on dessert parties that I can speak at. The hope in this is twofold
1) I hope to raise financial support from it (obviously)
2) I hope to get people more involved in what I'm doing so that I have a better relationship with the people who are supporting me. I feel strongly about working with people as a concept, and this is a good way to put that into practice I think.
If anyone has any other ideas I WOULD REALLY AND TRULY LIKE TO HEAR THEM! So, email me or post a comment on by blog. I really and truly want to be working with all of you so feedback would be much appreciated, even if it a critique of what I'm doing.
Also I am going to have a pretty busy weekend. On Saturday the band that I am in is going to play a the skate board park that I work at and then on Sunday I will be taking the youth of New Harmony Grove to Nashville GA for the last performance of the mini tour that I had mentioned last week.

On Tour... kind of

Hello all! I hope everyone has had a great and productive week this week. As for me, I've been busy. Some of you might have known that Monday and Tuesday we took the youth of New Harmony Grove to perform a mini choir tour. I was honestly concerned that we would be way too unprepared to do well, but it turns out that both nights went fantastically. I think that we all learned as a group to work better together and also that we can do fairly big things if we just get up and do it. Needless to say the outcome really encouraged me.
Also, I have been promised a pretty large sum of money ($500) this week from a sunday school class that I had spoken with a good while ago. This puts me closer to my goal of $16,000, but I'm still a pretty long ways away. Please pray for me while I go and speak to people for financial support. Especially pray that I won't be so awkward when asking for money and that people will know how serious I am. My goal is to be gone to training by August, so I have quite a bit of work to do. Also, please pray that I'll start getting in some monthly donations with all of these large one time amounts. They are just as, if not more, important than the larger one time donations.

Getting Rolling

Hopefully many new people are seeing this blog because of the mass email that I sent out and I would like to take the opportunity first off to say “Welcome to my blog!” I hope that you find it informative and that you will participate in working with me to accomplish God’s purposes.

I have finally taken the time the past week and a half to copy the email addresses on my computer via an Excel document and put them into a group on my Hotmail account. I only thought that this would take an hour or two. Those of you who are observant, however, will notice that it took me a week and a half. It took a ridiculous amount of time to get everything organized and in the same place and I am very glad to be done with it so I can move onto other things like writing more blogs!

In response to my last blog post I can pretty much say that my and other’s prayer was answered. I now have as of Wednesday three small jobs that seem to be sufficient enough to pay my expenses and flexible enough to allow me to raise support. These jobs are:

1. Monday-Friday 12:00-3/4:00 I’ll be working at a skateboard park for my friend Matt who is also the drummer of Billy Loves Silly (which is the band that I’m in).
2. Monday, Wednesday, Friday I’ll be working 6:00 am- 9:00 am doing janitorial work for my friend and former Sunday school teacher Keith.
3. I will also soon be the paid youth/children’s pastor for New Harmony Grove, who is the church that I’ve been helping. By the way, many of you are youth pastors or have worked with youth and/or children yourself and any advice or neat idea you could give me would be great!

Lastly, I would like to say that I am going to try my best to get more people actively involved in my mission endeavors. A few friends of mine are going to meet and try to think of some creative ways to do this, but if any of you have some ideas of how people in general (or you yourself) could help in this ministry, feel free to let me know. I would love to work with you!

Summer job

The time has come that I had hoped to avoid. That is that the summer has come, thus ending my position as substitute teach, and I have not raised enough money to move forward toward Estonia. So, it has become a priority of mine to find a job for the summer in order to both survive and to continue raising support like I need. So, if you would please pray about that I would be much appreciated. This added to the fact that my car has recently been having some trouble and will probably require money to fix has been weighing on my mind for the past week.

However, I cannot forget that God is fully aware of my circumstance and hasn’t left me out to dry yet, and I don’t expect him to do so any time in the future. In the end it’s useless to be anxious about such things because worries won’t change the situation at all and I am a firm believer that God absolutely will not abandon a righteous man. So, even though the situation is strained at the moment I, as well and thousands of others who have survived similar situations, will continue on. Also, my goal is more than ever to have enough money to go take the next step and go to training by August, so please remember to pray for me in that as well.

Intro

Welcome to my blog! My goal here is to let you all know my progress heading towards Estonia and for you to know on a more consistent basis what my plans are when I get there. I hope it will also be a way in which I can gain feedback and advice from people in hopes that my mission will turn into more of a group effort.