twinkle, twinkle...

I was on Facebook before Bible study the other day. A worship leader friend of mine posted something funny about sight reading the song “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” Not being a musician, I didn’t think much of it;  I’m not sure I even got the joke. A few seconds later, however, the strangest thing happened. As if on cue, one of my neighbor’s children began her recorder lessons. The song her plastic windpipe made across the lake? “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. Needless to say, the song stuck in my head. So I was taking a shower, getting ready, and thought it only appropriate to sing...  

“T-winkle, t-winkle, wittle star... how i wonder what you are...” I love to sing in the shower, but this time I found myself singing in a little child’s voice. In doing so, almost worship-fully, I sensed the wonder of being God’s child. I was singing a song to my Abba, the creator of the universe. I was His little girl, singing to Him my little song. 

As I rode my bike to the Bible Study, I continued singing. Yes, I bicycled through my Pine Ridge Estates neighborhood singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” at the top of my lungs. Welcome to my world. 

When I got to the Bible study, we ate, we fellowshipped, we worshipped. Then our Pastor put on a video for us to watch. It was Lou Giglio’s “Indescribable,” a presentation on the heavens telling the glory of God; the expanse of the universe declaring the work of His hands. 

As Lou began to describe the greatness of God, he said something like, “We’re not talking about twinkle, twinkle, little star here, folks. We are talking about something... indescribable!”

God had my attention. 

The universe is unfathomably huge. God is so present in my life. 

Yet, I am small. I loved the words of Astronaut Neil Armstrong, after seeing the planet Earth for the first time from space:

“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”

I started thinking about my own smallness in light of God’s greatness. I started thinking about my life, and how tempting it can be to think you are ‘center of the universe’. I thought about my next trip to Haiti, how miniscule I feel, how inconsequential and inadequate in light of all the need. Oh, how small a mission I have there, to these little oprhans in the poorest country on this hemisphere. Seemingly nameless children, found on a tiny island on a tiny little planet amidst billions and billions of planets and stars and galaxies in a universe too big to calculate, too big to even comprehend. 

And yet, God sees these orphans. He loves these children and is mindful of them. He has counted the numbers of hair on their heads. When they get their hair braided and beaded and barretted, if they lose a few hairs, God re-counts. 

 “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” Psalm 8:3-4

Why is man special? Because he was created for relationship. To walk with God and talk with God in the garden. I rode home that night after a beautiful night of fellowship and prayer, my bicycle cutting the balmy Florida air. I realized I was small - I was so small - and yet so loved by a Love whose breath, height, depth and width was infinite. I was created for relationship.

I put the brakes on, hopped off the bike and looked up into the sky, wanting to talk to God, wanting to see the stars He had made and glory in them. But when I looked up, the dark sky was only loosely speckled with starlight. Naples, Florida had too much artificial light for the stars to genuinely shine. I thought of Haiti. In one of the poorest parts of the world, the stars shone brighter than I have ever experienced. 

I longed to go back to Haiti. I longed to see the children. My plane ticket bought, there is relief, except from the need for provision. I need a lot of money for this trip. I need alot of medical supplies donated for the children. I need a lot of logistical factors to come together. I need a big God to deal with my teeny little world. I thought of these words by my favorite Catholic saint, 

"It is needful to remain little before God and to remain little is to recognize one's nothingness, expect all things from the good God just as a little child expects all things from its father; it is not to be troubled by anything, not to try to make a fortune. Even among poor people, a child is given all it needs, as long as it is very little, but as soon as it has grown up, the father does not want to support it any longer and says: "Work, now you are able to take care of yourself". Because I never want to hear these words I do not want to grow up, feeling that I can never earn my living, that is, eternal life in heaven. So I have stayed little, and have no other occupation than of gathering flowers of love and sacrifice and of offering them to the good God to please Him.”
                                                                            ~St Therese of Lisieux

So I continue singing my little song to God:
“...up above the clouds so high...like a diamond in the sky...”

There are more stars in Haiti than in Naples, Florida. This is why I am going down again. To marvel at His creation, to marvel in His love. To glory in the God of the universe who’s eyes are on the sparrow, who loves the ‘least of these’. 

Who can count the stars?

Who can count the grains of sand? The very hairs on the top of my head?

God knows my little dreams, and the little desires of my heart. 

He knows how many orphans are living in Haiti who need His love. 

He counts the stars.

I can’t wait to return to Haiti and count them with Him...

“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”

              ~Isaiah 40:25-31

To watch Lou Giglio's sermon "Indescribable" click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUtuEOA0WD8&feature=related

Life or Death?

I was talking to a DR friend the other day about Haiti. I have a month off from work this summer and want to go back down. I have a several options of where I can go, but I’m trying to hone in where God may be leading me to move full time. Yes, I want to move to Haiti. Crazy, huh?

However, decision making is not my strong point. Never was. Big decisions trip me up so bad it’s ridiculous. Intuitively, I know a lot. Intuitively, I am to go on the foreign mission field. Intuitively, I am to give my life to the poor. Intuitively, I am to go to Haiti. But exactly where in Haiti? I wish I had the faith of Abraham who left his homeland not knowing where he was going. A country like Haiti only increases my anxiety to have a well made plan. Lord, increase my faith! But, for now, when faced with a decision, I investigate, evaluate, gather information, pray and enlist the counsel of trusted friends... 

So I was Skyping with this friend, and during some smalltalk, he asked me what I was doing. Sitting outside, I said. I happened to be on the deck of my beautiful Florida cottage on the lake. Fragrant jasmine vines encircled my chaise where I sat with my laptop, enjoying the sun. I told him about my day up to that point which included a farmer’s market and lunch with a few girlfriends. 

He marveled that I was outside, as it is rainy season in Hispaniola. It had been downpouring and flooding where he lives for days. Rainy season in Haiti means lots of rain. It also means mud, floods, mosquitoes, suffocating humidity, hurricanes and disease. I realized, with my big sunglasses on, I was trying to enlist myself into a world that is simply not as kind as Naples, Florida. Hello. 

I thought about being back in Haiti. In the poorest country of the Western Hemisphere, there are no farmer’s markets with free coffee, gluten-free scones and organic arugula. There’s just not. There are also no lazy Saturday afternoons spent idly in the sun, sipping cold herbal tea and doing a little vinyasa yoga before settling into a good book. For a moment, my friend’s laid down life of serving the countries of DR and Haiti challenged me... convicted me.

Then it occurred to me...that thought. The thought that keeps creeping up on me lately. It’s the sinister tempting whisper that says: you could just not go back. I could just succumb to the comfort of America and relax. The voice is correct, I don’t have to go back to Haiti. I am choosing to go to Haiti. But Haiti was hard. Haiti was difficult. Haiti was frustrating and challenging and hot. Haiti is full of potential heartache and sickness and difficulty. And I choose to go back!?

I’ve been toying around with the idea of moving to the DR, simply because life isn’t so extreme there, and Haiti is only a bus ride away. It’s my attempt at making things easier, I suppose. My pastor wasn’t too keen on the idea. “Kristin, I can’t see you anywhere but the uttermost. You’re just not cut out for compromise. You won’t be happy...”

Happy? I tried to imagine myself in Cite Soleil, on the top of a garbage pile, giddy. 

(Note: If I choose to move to Cite Soleil, it will be confirmed that I can’t make a logical decision!)

I remember writing my epitaph. I was living in a New York ghetto and signed up for grief and bereavement training because of the inner-city ministry I was involved in. Trauma and sadness came with the territory. Part of the training included writing your own epitaph. As I write this blog, I feel like I’m there again. I can’t remember what my last epitaph said, probably something like “She gave her life to the streets of West Hill.”

My epitaph would now say this,

“If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.” (Mark 8:35 NLT)

If I go back to my Lazy Saturday afternoons, my herbal tea, my comfort...I will lose my life. Like a vapor in the warm Florida sun, it will just vanish. However, if I give it all up for the Gospel, I will really start living. Jesus said so and I bank my eternity on it. 

Figuring out how/where/why/when is becoming less and less important. In a life or death situation, sometimes even the luxury of planning must be forsaken. All I know is that I want out of Naples. You can have your organic gluten-free scones and everything else Naples, Florida has to offer. Give me mudslides, give me malaria, give me Jesus.

Just go, I hear another voice saying. This voice is also a whisper, but it’s peaceful and hopeful and safe, the voice of my Shepherd. 

The uttermost is wooing me, “...into a land I will show you.” (Gen 12:1)

"You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. 

Though he was God, He did not think of equality with God      

as something to cling to.

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
    he took the humble position of a slave
    and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
    he humbled himself in obedience to God
    and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor
    and gave him the name above all other names,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father." 

(Philippians 2:5-11)

Medikal Klinik La

“I don’t know what’s going on. I just had it working this morning!” 

Doctor Jay looked puzzled as he tinkered with the blood pressure machine, tightening valves, checking for connection, beginning to look unnerved for the first time that day. 

“I just can’t figure out what’s wrong,” he said to the interpreter, who then began to explain the situation in Creole. Our patient, a Haitian mountain pastor, had come down the mountain for the free medical clinic we were conducting at the orphanage. He was a small bearded man in his early forties who’s main complaint had been tansyon wo, high blood pressure. 

Once translated, he just chuckled at the news of the broken machine la. This I found was common among our circle of Haitian friends. When life became frustrating or difficult or complicated, everyone just giggled. There seemed to be few alternatives in a nation like this. Life had been distilled to laughing it off.

“Why don’t you come back tomorrow,” Doctor Jay told the smiling man, who thanked us in Creole, and went on his way, exiting past the long line of villagers waiting to come in. 

This was not the only issue our little clinic experienced that day. We had hauled several suitcases of donated medical supplies and a retired Bonita Springs doctor with us, over the ocean, through customs, across the country of Haiti by bus to the orphanage. Other than naturopathy, I had no real western medical experience, but I was assigned as the doctor’s assistant. It was my job to document the orphan’s health as well as establish medical records for a new clinic being built on the property. 

Halfway into the first day of the clinic, I documented stomach aches, asthma, thrush, malnutrition, worms, diarrhea, AIDS, fungus, scabies....and now high blood pressure. I looked at the table where our supplies lay and realized, we are not prepared for this. Our supply table was laden with American supplies: some band-aids, antibacterial creams, vitamins, cold remedies, and a broken battery-operated blood-pressure machine. Here in the poorest country of the Western Hemisphere, band-aids weren’t going help. 

I walked out of the clinic that day through the sticky Haitian mountain mud, somewhat discouraged, but comforting myself with the knowledge that this was a scouting trip. Take one step, God will be faithfull, take another, God is faithful. 

At the dinner table that night, I decided to take the next step. Sharing our dinner of bouyon kabrit was Junior, a young farmer. He was raised at the orphanage and it was his desire to give back. “I want to do a lot here,” he told me in calculated English that afternoon. “Bon tè?” I asked him as we looked out at healthy crops of banana, pineapple, corn and cabbage. “Good land,” he replied, and smiled. That evening I handed him a packet of Moringa seeds, the ‘miracle plant’ indigenous to Haiti. Moringa is proving to be one of the most nutritious plants on the planet, decreasing infant mortality rates and saving lives in famished parts of Africa. It is easy to grow and is actually grows wild in on the island of Hispaniola. 

“Oh,” one of our Haitian pastors said dismissively, “I know what this is. We feed it to the animals.” Junior shot me a puzzled look. “Oh, no!” I said, “You should feed it to people!” The pastor looked at me like I was a blan fou, until our host’s wife chimed in. “Oh, I remember this. I know this! Moringa, yes. My mother made tea with the flowers for l’oppression....” Asthma. “It made the breathing fasil.” Easy. 

“What else did she do?” I pulled my chair a little closer. 

“For TB, tuberculosis...pas problem. Galanga. Make the tea, strong, vert. Drink it every morning for 7 days. 7 days later... healthy. Pa plis maladi!” Ginger leaves, who knew.

“What about skin disease, what did she do for skin disease!?” 

“The ocean. Everyday my father take a bath in the ocean. He was very healthy. No problems. Bèl po. And moringa, yes, I know this well. Anpil byen.”

Junior put the seeds in his pocket and gave me a smile.

The next day, the line for people to get into the clinic was twice as long as the day before. Word had gotten out in the village. Knowing I would be there for hours I took a walk outside before we began. I came across the kitchen where a small group of women were preparing raw chicken by rubbing it with orange peels. “Prezève?” I asked, and they nodded yes. To preserve. 

Orange peel, I remembered from naturopathic medicine, is a natural astringent and strong anti-bacterial. It is also anti-parasitical. I saw a pot of rice in beans cooking in the corner above a small pile of burning sticks. I remembered another anti-parasitical: cloves. Traditional Haitian rice and beans is flavored with cloves...

Once back in the Clinic, Doctor Jay and I called in the first patient. It was going to be a long day. Several people in, I was already fighting discouragement. We simply didn’t have the supplies on this trip for the issues were were encountering. I took to reaching into my back pack and giving away my own supplies: coconut water for electrolytes, homeopathy for stress, black walnut tincture for worms, saline spray for allergies, magnesium for pain. It is more blessed to give....

While checking the vitals of yet another villager, the door to our room swung open and three young girls skipped in, giggling, “L ap fè mal! L ap fè mal!” Sophia, one of the girls who lives at the orphanage, ran to me with a small cut on her arm which had oozed a little blood. “Ranje m' ” she said, in her typical sass. I cleaned the cut and applied a band-aid. I then gave her a dozen or so loud smoochy kisses on her arm, which made her giggle out of the room with the other laughing orphans in tow. 

But looking at that band aid - that big, awkward, white plastic American-made band-aid - on this little, brown, Haitian orphan's arm - a girl who may have never worn a band-aid before in her life, was surreal. Like many Haitians, she was resilient, self-sufficient, strong. Her cute, skinny knees were scarred and calloused from probably a hundred uncared for falls on rocks and concrete. What was my blan band-aid going to do for her? Hadn’t my kisses and concern been enough? Wasn’t that an aloes des jardins plant I saw growing by the dormitory?

Later that day, the mountain pastor returned, this time san yon bab, without a beard. “Kote se bab ou?” the translator asked, recognizing the bearded man from the day before. We were glad he came back. The blood pressure machine had been working fine all day after some tweaking and a fresh battery. Our translator gave us the explanation: the man shaved his beard because he thought it was keeping the blood pressure machine from working. When we put his arm in the cuff, however, the machine mysteriously stopped working, again. I pondered the power of the lwa. I even wished I had a fèy doktè here to teach me a thing or two...

Again I glanced at my table of neat rows of colorful, shiny boxes of American supplies. We are SO not prepared for this! After finishing up for that day, I left the clinic to trudge through the mud once again. During our walk, I looked up at a mango tree, laden with fruit. “No child is sick during mango season,” I heard our host say. And yet, we had seen at least a dozen people today with malnutrition. Our translator explained, “No, they don’t eat mangoes. They are only sold at market.” That night, I struggled to scrub the mountain mud off my shoes. I began to see that the issues of Haiti are as complex as the mud is sticky. Here we were to help, but how do we help?

On my last day at the orphanage, a village woman and schoolteacher approached me. In broken English, she said, “Madame, is very nice to known you,” and continued to talk in Creole to my translator. He listened, and then shook his head before rebuking her and sending her on her way. “I am sorry, lady,” he said to me. “She asked you for money for her school; I told her she couldn’t do that, that she shouldn’t ask you for money here.” 

I wondered what I was doing here, in Haiti. My once bulging suitcase that barely made weight a the terminal was now deflated and empty, carrying only some muddy clothes and some rocks as souvenirs. I had no money left in my pockets, but for 2 single dollars I was saving to buy a water in the airport. I had no money back at home. I looked at the woman as she walked off, sensing her resiliency, sensing her strength. I was exhausted. I had nothing to give her, nothing left. Realizing my own inadequacy to do anything for Haiti, I sensed the presence of God. I remembered Peter’s words in the third chapter of Acts, "I don't have any silver or gold for you. But I'll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!" The only thing I really had to offer Haiti, is Jesus. 

“Why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?” It’s always about Jesus. 

At the airport on the way back home, I met a woman who was also returning from a medical clinic in a tent village in Port Au Prince. “It was wild,” she exclaimed. “So many issues! We weren’t prepared for the need we encountered. But we did what we could. One of our doctors performed some surgeries with an Exacto knife... without painkillers... in the mud.” 

She asked me if I was going to return. “Of course,” I said.

“Good,” she replied, “Because the need is great.” 

The issues of Haiti are complex. 

The need in Haiti is great. 

My Jesus is greater.

And He told me to go. 

Not by might, not by power, not by human wisdom, not with band-aids, not with silver and gold. 

“‘By my Spirit’, says the Lord.”

Ayiti, mwen pral retounen. 

Depraved Indifference

HAITI

HAITI

The Finger

I cut my finger really bad at work the other day. We were trying to fix a malfunctioning Robocoup and silly me - I stuck my finger into a moving blade. I could have lost part of my finger, but thankfully, I simply sliced off a bit.

The Guatemalan women at my job taught me to put coffee in a wound to stop the bleeding, dull the pain and help the healing process. I immediately ran to our cafe to rub freshly ground espresso powder in the cut. I was gushing blood, however, and I dropped to my knees in pain. I sat on the floor with paper towels, trying to contain the blood into the garbage can. I applied pressure and put my hand above my heart. 

I looked up through my tears as the cafe girls stared at me. I think they were in more shock than I was, considering the blood everywhere. “What time is it? When does Sandy get here?!” I yelled. Sandy is our front-end manager and former RN. She was scheduled to be here any minute. Good. I sat and tried to keep myself composed. 

As I waited there, my morning devotion came to mind:

"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus." (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

Sandy came in, 9 o’clock on the dot. She walked behind the counter, put her bag down and saw me there, sitting on the floor, hugging the blood-stained garbage can. “Oh, boy,” she said. “Good morning!” I replied, with a teasing smile. 

She took me in the back to inspect. Looking at the wound, she said I probably needed stitches. Because of our mutual aversion to hospitals, we decided to just bandage me up. We had no first aid kit, so she went across the street to a drugstore for supplies. God bless America.

As I waited, I continued meditating on my morning devotional, a message on 1Thessalonians by Graham Cooke:

     "The will of God is always tied into His nature. The will of God is to make you like Him. We are all made into His likeness. Therefore no matter what is occurring in our life, the opportunity to become like Christ is always instantly, immediately, constantly available to us.       If you are in distress you will learn how to be like God in those moments. If you’re facing opposition you can face it, learning to be like God, enjoying opposition.        It doesn’t matter what the situation is, the ability to become like Jesus is open and available to us and sometimes the situations around our lives dictate for us what God wants to be in us and what we can actually be in Him. That way, if we adopt that way of thinking, life makes all things possible to us but especially if we face it with joy and with thanksgiving."

Sandy returned minutes later, and the bleeding, for the most part, was under control. With bandages in hand, she said, “OK, let’s see it.” Now, the cut was on my middle finger. As she began to expertly attend to my wound, I sat there, middle finger extended, flipping her off, giving her the bird. 

She looked at me amused as we both sensed the irony of the situation. You see, I did not like Sandy. Not too many people in my workplace did. She had nicknames like “Sand-Paper” because she rubbed people the wrong way, and “Sandy-Bot” because she had no mercy for human emotion. She was difficult to work with, to say the least, and I often reacted negatively towards her in the past. She knew that I, like many others, had a general disdain for her. So as I stood there, middle finger extended, she began to dryly chuckle. “You’ve been wanting to do this for a looooong time....haven’t you?”

Previously, my answer would have been a definite in-your-face ‘yes’. She made my days very difficult when I worked with her. But for months, I had been crying out to God to change my heart, to help me love this horrible woman, to make me more like His son, Jesus, who loved the unlovable.

Realizing this was the perfect ice-breaking moment,  I said, “There was a time when I would have loved to have flipped you off. But now that I can, I don’t want to. Sandy, to be honest...I love you.” Without flinching, without any change in tone or emotion, she replied, “I love you, too. Always have.” And with that, she finished bandaging my finger and went on her way.

And that’s when I realized that it was God’s will for me to cut my finger that morning. It was purposed in Heaven that Sandy and I would have a moment of reconciliation, and God saw it fit to wound me to bring it about. Praising Him, I prayed, “If that’s what it takes Father to make me more like your Son, then You can wound me all You want!” I found reason to rejoice and give thanks. The pain and anxiety of the morning seemed to dissipate, so much that I was able to go back to my kitchen and finish out the day. 

While working a verse came to mind:

"If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing." (1 Corinthians 13:3)

It occurred to me that I am about to go on another overseas mission trip. And yet here in America, at my job, was a woman to whom I had not truly brought the love of Christ. God was giving me the opportunity to make things right with her. He was answering my prayer to soften my heart. I was to first go and be reconciled to my sister; then offer myself to the mission field. (Matthew 5:24) Perhaps if I hadn’t of been so stubborn, I wouldn’t of had to slice my finger off to get to this point. Regardless, God was faithful. I was able to tell her I loved her.

During the next few days, she followed up with necessary care. As she cleaned and re-bandaged my finger, we had precious moments. We laughed. We confided in one another. I made her lunch. We hugged.

Graham Cooke was right. God uses everything to make us more like Christ, even distress, pain, flesh wounds. In all things we can rejoice! I watched myself heal. As new tender skin formed around the finger, it became a reflection of my heart that was new and soft towards this woman who was once my enemy. 

I had a new heart. My blood brought reconciliation.

I was becoming more Christlike.

“...for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

Lè Bondye Voye Ou...

"Lè Bondye voye ou, li te peye bòdwo a." 

(When God sends you, He pays the bill.)

Plans for my Haiti trip caught a few snags, hit a few bumps in the road. By the time we worked out all the details, the trip was a little over a month away. 

I didn’t have much time to get prepared and raise support. No worries, I thought, there was a missions board meeting that week where I could easily make a request. However, that month, the board decided to make some cuts and pull support - not the best time to ask for money. I remained quiet. 

At the meeting, emphasis was on investing wisely and having a good return on money spent. Dollars should translate to souls in heaven, they decided. Fair enough.  So I’m riding my bike to work a few days later and began to pray...

“Aren’t I a good investment, Abba? Am I not a high-yield missionary? Am I not your chosen daughter?” I prayed. “You called me to ‘go’ and you called me to bear much fruit. How am I to make disciples of the nations unless you send me? Please, Daddy...pay for my trip.” 

No sooner did I say an ‘amen’, when I saw a dollar bill on the ground! I hit the brakes, spun the bike around and reached down to pull the money from the grass. It was as if my Heavenly Father was saying, ‘Of course I will pay for this trip!” I put that dollar in my back pocket and rode off, full of faith. 

That night, I was at a Bible study which ended with small group prayer time. I asked for prayer, inviting my friends to agree with me that God would finance this trip. That same night, a young man approached me. He had been raising support for his own trip to Nicaragua and received a surplus. He wrote me out a check for half of what I needed, on the spot. The next day, another couple hundred was donated by a friend and medical missionary to Guatemala. “Tax refund,” she said. “God told me to give towards missions.”

I spent the weekend praising God. Early Monday morning I received a call from the pastor of a local church who is going with us on this trip. “Kristin,” he said, “the church and I have decided that we want to sponsor you ourselves. Whatever your balance is, we would like to cover it.” And with that, all of my support was raised. 

“My yoke is easy and my burden is light,” Jesus said. 

Believing what the Lord says in the Word is effortless. I am so glad the the Lord has already made promises to me in His Word about missions work. The only work I have to do, is believe. God gives us rest and surety that He will pay the bill. 

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God."  Phillipians 4:6

"And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him."  1 John 5:14 

"And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father."  John 14:13 

"The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me; your love, O LORD, endures forever--do not abandon the works of your hands."  Psalm 138:8