Macdonalds March Madness 2011
0 comments | Posted by St Peters on 01 Apr 2011 in Missionary Support ::
From: Seumas MacDonald
Hi all,
Since it looks like our last news was early Feb, this is about two months rolled into one!
Firstly, we have been formally accepted by Pioneers, which we passed on to you once we heard. This is terrific news! A real step forward in the process of getting to Mongolia and the mission field (What an odd phrase, ‘mission field’). Since then we’ve had a chance to catch up and chat with more than a few Pioneers staff people in Australia, and with some of the team in Mongolia . Such chats are always an encouragement to us. In terms of what’s next, we are currently figuring out a budget, so we know what we need to raise in financial partnership (see below for some more info), and we are trying to get a good photo to use for some prayer cards, so you can stick us on your fridge and pray for us.
In terms of life as we know it, we’ve now been at Lane Cove for two whole months, and Seumas is well settled into his role. Joys include preaching regularly, running a PTC group studying doctrine, leading a bible study, and drinking coffee and talking life + God with young men. Struggles are the same for ministry everywhere; the world, the flesh, and the devil running amok in people’s lives. Rachel is also feeling more settled at Lane Cove. She has been enjoying SMBC a great deal, especially Old Testament. Linguistics at UNE is also interesting, but a brain-stretching exercise. In Seumas’ study news, one marker has finally agreed to read and mark his MTh thesis, but a second is required. Meanwhile his PhD application is working its way through the pipelines over at Macquarie Uni.
Life is fairly busy, especially at night, and that means we haven’t been able to catch up with even half as many of you as we would like. That’s why we thank God for the internet. Looking to the future we know that we will need you as partners in our work and in our lives, and so we are trying to work out as many effective ways to make that happen as possible.
Partnering with us:
Related to this, of course, is finances. Unlike some other mission agencies who organise things differently, Pioneers has us raise all our own financial support. At first this seems a bit of a burden, but actually I (Seumas) have come to think of this as a privilege. It’s a privilege because you are not giving to support Pioneers, but giving to support us through Pioneers, and so we are more directly partners in this work. So here’s what I want to say about this side of journeying with us:
If people don’t pay, we may never go. That might happen. It might be sad. It wouldn’t be wrong. But it’s just reality – there is no ordinary way for us to support ourselves in Mongolia unless we spent the majority of our time working and the minority serving the church. The Mongolian church can’t afford to support us, this is precisely part of why we are going to serve them and not be a burden to them.
More importantly, if you don’t pray, we might as well not go anyway. God does what he wants, he’s divinely sovereign and that is tremendously encouraging. But the Scriptures teach us again and again that God is both delighted and glorified to fulfil his purposes through the prayers of his people, and anything he may choose to do through us, whether here in Australia, or in Mongolia, or somewhere else, will be mightily enabled and aided by prayers: your prayers.
So we want your prayers first. As you should desire our prayers for you. And then we want you to seriously, soberly, and wisely consider whether you can and should commit to financially supporting us for the years ahead.
At this stage (2011) we don’t need your money to support us. So here’s three things you can do.
(1) You can pledge to support us, starting whenever we head overseas (at this stage we’re planning on late Jan 2012). This helps us know what people will give us in the future.
(2) You can both pledge and start giving. Money that is given before we depart will be put to pre-departure costs and set-up costs once we arrive in Mongolia for the first time.
(3) You can always give one-off donations.
And if you do, here’s what you do. You pick up the telephone, that old-timey contraption, and call Pioneers on 1800 78 78 89, or you go to their website at www.pioneers.org.au and tell them that you’d like to support Seumas and Rachel Macdonald, and they’ll help you do that.
(If you’re in America or the UK , you can contact Pioneers in your own country, which shouldn’t be hard to do, and tell them you’d like to support us and that we’re linked up to the Australian outfit, and they should also know what to do).
Rachel calls this “leading with a right jab” approach to raising partners and support-money. I just call it sharing my heart and the reality of mission. There’s no judgment here, no guilt. Just us trying to work out how best to serve Jesus with this life of ours, and you doing the same.
Seumas + Rachel
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