Money.. Matters...?

"The Christian should never worry about tomorrow or give sparingly because of a possible future need. Only the present moment is ours to serve the Lord, and tomorrow may never come. Money is really worth no more than as it can be used to accomplish the Lord’s work. Life is worth as much as it is spent for the Lord’s service." George Muller

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This is a hard one. I read it on a friend's facebook status update recently and it came at a time when I was worried about tomorrow. We were losing monthly support (and still are) so I started worrying about a tomorrow that may never come. Oops... :/

I know some have questions regarding our finances so I'm going to write a bit of an unusual blog post... I hope this clears up some questions you may have. I was always curious about the finances of missionaries before I became one and I know some of you are so here goes...

When our budget to come to Hiroshima, Japan was created back in Spring of 2009, the USD to JPY exchange rate was just under 1:100. So this is the rate that our budget was based on, hoping that it would stay around about there or improve. However, it's gone steadily down and the average for 2011, our first full year here, was around 1:79 (went down to about 1:76, worst since WWII). In terms of our monthly support, we were at 100% for a couple of months, but then was closer to the lower 90's for the rest of the year. HOWEVER!!! Our home church, New Vision Church, promised to keep us at 100% for the duration of our first year and they came through on that promise. Yay!!! Praise God!!!

For those that are lovers of math, you'll know that even if we were at 100% of our monthly dollar amount, we weren't at 100% in terms of our Japanese yen amount due to the exchange rate. Did the bad exchange rate hurt us? Yes, and so we lowered our salary a bit, but we were good. :) One good thing about our monthly support amount is that some of it never leaves the US. Things like payments for our international health insurance and fees for Pioneers are dollar to dollar payments. Things like savings for annual regional conferences and savings for flights for furloughs remain in our US bank account until we need them. Hopefully when we do need to pull out large chunks of money for these uses, the exchange rate will have improved! (Pray pray pray...)

During the past couple of months, we found out that 2 churches are reducing their support, another one is potentially reducing its support, and that our biggest individual financial supporter (who supported us the same amount as our biggest supporting church!) will no longer be supporting us. We're down by about another $850 and we don't have the extra support of our home church this year. We also have to pay taxes in Japan every year now too. HOWEVER!!! I know that God will provide, that He already has people and finances lined up, and that we'll be fine. :) God has provided abundantly through many of you and for that we are really really truly grateful. It's so awesome and humbling to think that we're here in Japan doing the Lord's work and I hope that we will always be good, godly stewards of the gifts that many of our friends, family, and even people who we barely know, are so generously parting with so that we can be here.

Michael Oh, Korean-American missionary / founder of a seminary in Nagoya, gave a talk during the 2011 national Desiring God conference called "From Every Land to Every Land: The Internalization of Missions - Its Potential and the Price" (longest title ever!). This talk really inspired me and I learned a thing or two too about godly stewardship and being a Korean-American missionary in Japan. Francis Chan is another one that always challenges me too.

If you ever ever have any questions about financial issues, please do not hesitate to ask us. We don't want it to be a mystery. :)

Apparently, William Carey once said, “We will go down to the depths of hell to rescue souls if someone will hold the other end of the rope for us.” Well, you're that "someone".

I feel like I should end with a Bible verse about good stewardship... :) There are lots. But I think I just want to finish by saying thank you. Thank you to those who gave, those who are giving, those who may give, those who are praying for us, those who track with us, those who read our blog, those who send us care packages, those who love us and care for us. I pray that through us, you will truly be able to see God working miracles in our lives, those of the people here, and also in yours. Thank you. :)