Most Fridays we devote our blog posts to sharing resources, ideas or personal stories about generosity and/or stewardship. It is our desire that our readers be encouraged in their own stewardship journeys and encourage others along the way. Today we have a guest post from Mary in Windsor, CT.
“Our family first met Mike Anderson in 1995, when he came to help my husband paint at our church, Trinity United Methodist Church. Mike and Lisa and their family were visiting Mike’s parents in Connecticut and he heard about the painting project and came down ready to work. As they worked, Mike told Steve about his ministry with Campus Crusade and then asked if we would be interested in joining their support team. Steve came home very excited about what the Andersons were doing with the ministry and wanting to join their team.
At that point in our lives, we had gone through many financial trials for about two and a half years: Steve lost his job and it took a year and a move to Georgia to find another job. After five months, the Georgia Company had financial problems and Steve was again unemployed. He worked any kind of minimal wage jobs just to keep us going. For aerospace engineers, it was a bleak job market. After a year of underemployment, we made the decision to come back home to Connecticut. That is when Mike came into our lives.
When Steve suggested giving monthly support to the Andersons, I was pretty set against it, not seeing how we could possible find a spare dollar from a very tight budget. With four young children growing and eating non-stop, I thought we were doing great being able to tithe to our local church, and doing more seemed wrong to me. But, as Steve was so moved to help, we agreed to give $15.00 per month. For me, that was a real leap of faith. It was also the first personal involvement we had in a missionary organization. Although our church supported several missionary families and organizations, we really had no knowledge about what they did.
Well, that $15 per month grew a little bit at a time as God provided new jobs for both of us, and we have expanded our missionary support to include three Campus Crusade families, along with a few other missionary organizations and orphanages. We have been blessed to get to know Mike, Lisa, Kevin, Matthew, Christopher and Nicole Anderson after several visits they have made to Windsor. We have followed their lives to Thailand, Singapore, and more places than I can recall. By the grace of God, we are able to increase our support this coming year to ten times what we began with in 1995. I am so thankful that we have become part of the support team, and look forward to seeing how God will continue to use Mike and Lisa in His perfect plan.”
Mary
Windsor, CT
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