87 Cents.

For the past several years our Lighthouse Staff has run themselves ragged trying to track down Christmas gifts for Heaventrain. It is tough to find 1200 gifts every year, but somehow it always comes together.

Running a ministry to children you learn very early on that people give to the things that warm their heart and feel good to them. Giving a toy to a child is an easy way to satisfy that feeling at Christmas. The challenge for a ministry that is also working to minister to, feed, love on, tutor, and build relationships year round is that most giving happens at the Christmas season.
This leads to a real challenge, how do you keep a ministry going year round when 2/3 of all giving happens at Christmas.

This year this is especially true. We have had a great year in ministry, God has been faithful to see us through, but a challenging year financially. We had one major donation for tutoring, that was lost because of a civil war in Africa. That loss was significant and moved us from our most successful to most challenging year ever. We have weathered that storm, but we know that we have a major challenge on our hands for 2012.

Finding a replacement in training for pastor Phil is going to be tough. Finding the right fit, with the right talents, with the right calling, is going to be hard enough. Imagine doing it with no money to pay that person. We realize that this year we have to find a way to pay for Christmas gifts, but bigger than this we realize that we need to find a way to pay both our current Heaventrain pastor and the successor(s).

The challenge is to try to cover Christmas, the short term need, without forgetting the long term need of finding a new leader to develop for Heaventrain. One takes care of the warm feeling in our hearts, and the other sets up the next generation of ministry to future generations.

This has weighed heavily on our hears this year. Saturday on Heaventrain we taught a lesson about giving vs. receiving. A five year old little boy came up to my dad after the service and places 87 cents in his hand and said, “I want to give this to Heaventrain.”

This little boy gave all that he had. It was a sacrifice to him and he invested it in a place that he saw great value. We have all been encouraged that if a little on sees the value in what we have been doing all these years and is willing to give so that it can continue, so does God.

Not sure how these things will be worked out. We are not very good at raising money, nobody on our staff feels comfortable with the high pressure nature of ministry fund raising, but we know that God has a plan for Christmas and beyond and that He can use a little 5 year old boy to remind us that He can move in the hearts of people in order to keep His work moving forward.

It is hard to keep pushing when you are told no for a grant because you don’t have a building, or the idea is too theoretical, or because I don’t understand what or why you this. We feel proud when folks say, we don’t like why you do what you do, or who you do it for or to. We are even more proud when the little boy says, “I want to give.”