Ebook: Our Balanced Attack -- How Nazarenes Finance World Evangelism (part 8)
This ebook by Howard Culbertson was originally published in the Nazarene mission book series by the publishing house now known as The Foundry, under ISBN 0-8341-1418-6. This online edition includes some content updates.
TL;DR: World Evangelism Fund giving supports the missionaries and infrastructure that make other partnerships possible. These historical examples from Haiti show how gifts from outside organizations supplied Scriptures, meals, buildings, equipment, and volunteer help, extending the impact of Nazarene missions giving.
How much are you now giving to missions? Would you like to give two or three times that much? Good news. It's already happening! How? Well, every dollar you give to the Nazarene World Evangelism Fund is being multiplied. Let me give you an example. Some time ago, I sat in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, reading the weekly mail. I opened an envelope from Bible Literature International. Out fluttered an $8,000 check. Stunned, I grabbed the letter and began to read. The check was for us to buy 10,000 New Testaments.
Sometime earlier, I had run across Bible Literature International's name and address. As mission director, I wrote to ask for help with Scripture portions to use in evangelism.
BLI president Jim Falkenberg wrote back. They had a backlog of pending requests, he said. However, he did ask me to send a proposal describing what we needed and how we planned to distribute it. When I got his letter, I thought: Why not ask big?
So, I wrote him a proposal for distributing 10,000 Creole New Testaments. We could buy those New Testaments in a paperback edition for 80 cents each from World Home Bible League. Amazingly, that cost even included shipping into Haiti. I asked Bible Literature International for $8,000 to purchase those 10,000 New Testaments.
Months passed. I heard nothing. I decided our request had been for naught. Then, here came Jim Falkenberg's letter: "Enclosed is a check for you to purchase 10,000 New Testaments."
Holding that check, I sat dumbfounded. How could these people trust us? They didn't even know us! Or so I thought. Later, I discovered they worked with Nazarene missionaries in several other parts of the world. Not only that, but several employees in their Ohio head office were Nazarenes. They did know us. They knew we could be trusted.
World Evangelism Fund put us on the field. Bible Literature International then funded our distribution of 10,000 New Testaments. On top of that, a year and a half later, they came back and gave us the funds to purchase 15,000 more! Nazarene World Evangelism Fund money didn't buy those New Testaments. This wasn't even Nazarene money. Yet, it was multiplying the effects of Nazarene World Evangelism Fund money.
When we were in Haiti, missionary Bill Dawson was in charge of our Compassionate Ministries. Every year, in the late spring, he used to sweat a bit. You see, that's when TEAR Fund let him know if they would be helping our Haiti hot lunch program for the following year. TEAR Fund, a Christian relief organization based in Great Britain, supported our school lunch program. Its name comes from the first letters of the words "The Evangelical Alliance Relief." For several years, they poured nearly $100,000 annually into feeding Nazarene schoolchildren in Haiti. Suppose they decided at the last minute not to continue helping us. Where would we find the money to feed those children? You can understand why Bill worried.
They did eventually phase out that aid. But for years, they came through. TEAR Fund people trusted us. The relationship was perfect for both groups. They wanted to help children. At the time of this book's publication, Nazarene schools in Haiti served some 25,000 children. The TEAR Fund didn't have to spend its money putting staff people in Haiti to supervise a child feeding program. World Evangelism Fund support covered many administrative costs, such as keeping missionaries on the field. By picking up some of those costs, we got an additional $100,000 annually. World Evangelism Fund support were being multiplied.
At the time of this book's publication, Compassion International, a large Christian child sponsorship organization, was providing even more funding for Nazarene schools in Haiti. It contributed close to $300,000 annually to help those schools, extending the impact of World Evangelism Fund giving. It was helping in similar ways in India and other countries.
When people give to Christian organizations, one of their concerns is how much of the money reaches the people and projects it is intended to help. World Evangelism Fund support covered essential staffing and administrative costs, allowing other organizations' gifts to extend the work. These partnerships multiplied the impact of Nazarene giving.
In the fall of 1987, we spent an evening with an independent missionary family who were also in Haiti. During the meal, another missionary, Art Clauson, dropped by. As we talked, he asked if we had any use for a Butler metal building.
Art, who was serving with the Church of God, told us that a company in Canada had ordered four large prefabricated buildings from Butler, Inc. These were buildings using large steel arches covered on the roof and walls by painted sheet metal. Butler built the buildings as ordered. Then, before the ordering company took delivery, it went into bankruptcy. Butler found itself with four custom-made buildings and no customer.
Someone within the Butler organization convinced the company to donate these buildings to a nonprofit, charitable organization. Those buildings went to the Christian Reformed Church, which then began looking to give them to someone working in Haiti.
Just prior to that, we missionaries in Haiti had been tossing around some ideas for expanding our clinic/dispensary building. Only a year earlier, we had doubled the floor space of that clinic. Now, with greatly increased numbers of patients, we needed even more space. We also needed classroom space for our new village health worker program, plus more office space. Unfortunately, we hadn't come up with a satisfactory expansion plan. Nor did we know how we would raise the funds for construction once we figured out what we wanted to build.
Then, out of the blue came this offer of a building. We began sketching ways to use it to solve our space problems. It quickly became clear that this $30,000 Butler building would give us more floor space than we had dared dream about.
World Evangelism Fund put us in Haiti. We were running a medical project and carrying out other programs. We had a valid need for this building. The new building, which surprisingly was a two-story structure, also had room for a large X-ray machine that a Nazarene layman in California purchased in a bankruptcy sale. Not only did we get the building, but we were able to supply it with some new equipment. God is multiplying Nazarene resources in unbelievable ways. He's on a "matching" basis with us!
The year 1988 was very special for Nazarenes in Haiti. A 12-month evangelism and expansion push in Haiti launched what would be a Caribbean Region island-by-island focus. The major goal was to reach 95,000 full members in the Caribbean by 1995. Haiti's special year of emphasis was 1988. District superintendents and missionaries in Haiti set all kinds of goals under an umbrella theme of "Haiti '88." These goals included opening work in 88 new villages, running eight citywide crusades across Haiti, organizing two new districts, and ordaining 28 new elders.
As we began gearing up for Haiti '88, I knew we could use large quantities of literature in those special outreach efforts. I remembered a group called Scripture Gift Mission. While in Italy, we had excellent relations with their British office. They had supplied us with hundreds of tracts and Scripture portions in Italian.
So, I wrote their Canadian branch to see if they could help us in Haiti. They responded that 1988 was their centennial year and that they were looking for a special project to mark 100 years of ministry.
Ultimately, we agreed on several programs to distribute 100,000 Scripture portions. That meant 1,000 portions of Scripture for every year of their existence. They trusted us. Scripture Gift Mission had worked with Nazarenes in several different countries for many years. They knew we would use the literature exactly as agreed.
World Evangelism Fund support made possible the big Haiti '88 push. With funding assured for the basic program, we were able to attract lots of other resources, including those 100,000 Scripture portions from Scripture Gift Mission.
Nazarene Mission Teams (formerly called Work & Witness) have been a tremendous part of our balanced attack. Hundreds of Nazarenes have experienced the Lord at work on a mission field.
For Nazarenes on some mission fields, opportunities to host short-term mission teams extend beyond Nazarene groups. Other groups believe in what we're doing. So, they send teams to help on Nazarene projects. During our years in Haiti, a Reformed church group spent a week in Haiti, building benches and pulpits for several Nazarene churches. Youth for Christ has been especially helpful to us in Haiti. A dormitory on the campus of Haiti Nazarene Bible College stands as an example of their contributions there.
World Evangelism Fund giving supported a missionary in Haiti as a full-time mission team coordinator. That made it easier to respond when groups outside the denomination offered us their help. Scott Hannay, who was a Nazarene Mission Team missionary in Haiti while we were there, helped set up a trip to Haiti by students from LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas.
Most of these examples come from Haiti. I've lived and ministered there. I know the details of Nazarene work there. Look elsewhere around the world where we're at work. There, too, you'll quickly discover many ways God is multiplying the Nazarene missionary dollar. Because you give, other groups and organizations are willing to invest in Nazarene missions.
In the early 1980s, two missionaries in Haiti, Steve Weber and John Burge, made some proposals to the Alberta provincial government. The result of that was that we received a grant of $75,000 for medical, nutrition, and well-drilling projects. Earlier development projects headed by Walter Crow and the late Charles Morrow helped channel thousands of non-Nazarene dollars into Nazarene efforts.
In one year before this book was published, Compassion International sent $1.3 million worth of medical supplies through Nazarene medical work in Haiti. Those supplies were shared with a dozen other organizations that have medical work in Haiti. We, of course, had first pick for our health center and rural dispensaries. These supplies helped stretch World Evangelism Fund dollars earmarked for medical work.
So don't hold back. It's not just the $1 you're giving. In the end, that $1 may wind up being $2 or $3. Some marvelous multiplication is going on. It's all part of our balanced attack. . . . [ continue reading ]
-- Howard Culbertson, hculbert@snu.edu
| There's stuff in our garages and attics that could be put to use in global evangelism efforts. Those unused tools and musical instruments and wedding dresses can make valuable contributions. . . . [ read ] |
