I am currently sitting in a house with all of the members of my beautiful CCP team. This weekend, we have had the privilege of gathering together in fellowship and prayer as we continue to be trained for our time overseas. To my left I see Mason, and to my right I see Devin and Wes, all typing away on their computers as they writes letters to their supporters. Down the hall I hear two other women on my team having calls with people on their support list. This entire day has been approached with a "nose-to-the-grind," mindset with regards to support, and I love watching my teammates as I also write letters and make calls, because we truly are in this together. In only three official meetings, we have become a family.
Bill, our "team dad," travelled to Johannesburg several weeks ago to do some preliminary preparations for our time in South Africa. While he was there, he met many of the students we will be doing ministry with and laboring with on the campus of The University of Johannesburg-Bunting. At lunch today we watched a video that they made of these students, and I was incredibly moved to watch as they prayed for our team. We haven't even met them, but we know they love us, and this is just further indication to me that God has divinely selected THIS TEAM of students from the Charlotte region to live and work at J-Bunting. Last night one of the area directors for Campus Outreach spoke to us, and at the end of his message he read to us Revelation 5:9 --
This is our vision. We, as Christians, get to be a part of this. There will be people worshipping at the throne of Christ because of our lives and because of the Cross Cultural Project. There is no greater privilege than this.
In order for this to happen though, there are several needs that we have to have met. I have currently sent out letters to every person on my personal support list (with the exception of one or two people who might be receiving them this week. Sorry, the post office can take several days). Also, I have at least attempted to follow up contact with every person that has received a letter from me, whether that be through a phone call or an email. The Lord has blessed me through these phone calls, as I have often walked away feeling like my supporters have been more of an encouragement to me than I have even been to them. Not only have I been blessed by these phone calls in this way, but I have had some generous and loving people commit support to me both financially and through prayer, which is a continuous blessing.
I say all this to say that from now on I will no longer be updating my blog with updates on how much support I have raised personally, even though I have not yet met my goal of $6,000. I will be updating this blog with information on how our team as a whole is doing. And right now, we need help.
Our goal was to raise $102,000 before we left for JoBurg in May, and right now we have raised close to $40,000 in the two and a half months since we started in January. While this is something that we praise God for, our goal was to have at least 66% of our total support raised by today (~$67,000). Because of this we are also in a season of pleading and petition with the Lord to bring people on our team who will support us both financially and through prayer. To put this in perspective, we have enough to buy our plane tickets to make it to South Africa, but we do not have money for a place to stay, for food, or for any of our other needs (which would make for a really short trip). We have 45 days before we leave, so our team needs to raise over $1,000 a day to make this happen.
Please, join us in prayer as we seek to glorify the Lord through our ministry of support raising. Ultimately, He is the only reason we desire to spend our summer overseas and spend our time this spring raising the money we need to be there.
Pray that God would help us to persevere as we labor in this season of support raising, even in the face of the "no's" some of us receive. And above all else, pray that our hearts would be sanctified as we wait on His timing and provision.
In Him,
Katlyn
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