Giving When It Hurts

Giving When It Hurts

It happened in 1997 when my parents moved to a new city to open a new mission base. Our missionary organization was, and still is, self-funded and self-governed. With no established means of support and no large sponsors yet, finances were tight. My parents had teamed up with another missionary couple, so there were four grown-ups and 14 children to feed. I don’t think we were there up to a year, and this happened.

Last month we decided to set aside 1% of our income to give as a gift to those who need help in the greater missionary organization (as we had been helped), even though we had barely been making it financially since opening up our Home. This was in addition to our tithe. The Lord blessed it and our income went up. This month we set aside 2% and we were still able to get some mission base needs we’d been praying for. We surely never lose by giving!

I was probably around 15 years old at the time and remember wondering if we could even afford that 1%, but as we’ve found out, you cannot outgive God.