Missions Support Opportunity

One of my greatest joys in life has been seeing my eldest daughter take interest in missions work. As a teenager she went on multiple trips to Juarez, Mexico, to work at the Amigo Fiel mission, and spent countless evenings helping fill and stack sandbags when our town was being flooded by the Missouri River in the Spring of 2011. Last year she spent her Spring Break from college working at homeless shelters and soup kitchens in New York City. Now this coming Spring she is planning a trip to Uganda to work at Greenhouse, a Christian orphanage, to help run a Vacation Bible School, minister to the orphans, and join up with other outreach projects. What is different this time is that she and the two college friends going with her will be unsupported; the Mexico trips were run by our church and the New York trip was the work a of a national missions organization (I believe it was somehow connected to Cru, aka Campus Crusade for Christ, but don't quote me on that!  ), but for this trip she and her friends are funding themselves, drafting purpose letters and contacting friends, relatives, churches, etc., to raise the money completely on their own. They are taking steps to connect with the charitable organization that our church uses for the Mexico trips in order to make donations tax deductible, but in the meantime we have set up a PayPal account on their behalf:

Uganda Mission Trip  (If this link doesn't work just go to paypal.com and send money to ugandamissiontrip@midco.net)

Any help you can give them, financial or spiritual, is greatly appreciated.  If you do choose to donate and want a "Thank You" card from her you can leave your name and address in PayPal's comments box; otherwise, leave it blank to remain anonymous (well, sort of ... PayPal will still tell us who you are. ).

I will update this post when we get word on the tax deductible status.


Here ends my shameless plug for money to help send my daughter to Africa!

Well as I said on the CMR, please post her support letter here so we can get more details!  I was in Uganda in March/April doing some work at an orphanage and it was a pretty amazing experience.  If she has any questions or anything, I'm an open book!

kerrick wrote:

Well as I said on the CMR, please post her support letter here so we can get more details!  I was in Uganda in March/April doing some work at an orphanage and it was a pretty amazing experience.  If she has any questions or anything, I'm an open book!

Thanks man, we might take you up on that. She is 19 and knows everything (  ), and one of the girls she is going with has actually gone before. In fact, that girl is from our church and her parents are in the process of adopting two boys from that same orphanage! So it's not a total venture into the unknown!  

Nice!  Very cool.  How long is the trip for?

Two weeks.

That's a good amount of time.  That's how long I was there for as well.

Awesome for her. Man, I live on support and we're tight now, which is my excuse why we can't give and seems lame. Sorry, we are struggling to support friends in missions already. But I support her in my prayers and tell her some strangers she doesn't know are proud of her.

Redeemed Fool wrote:

I support her in my prayers 

Prayer support is just fine. In fact, prayer support is better than financial support.

Update ...

We still don't have the whole tax deductible thing worked out yet, but we have learned something about PayPal donations ... PayPal charges a 2.9% fee, plus $.30 per transaction, just as if she were selling something. Seems somehow wrong, but it's how PayPal is structured. 

So if you wish to give her money and you already have a PayPal account, a recommend you simply give her money that way so there won't be a fee. If you do not have a PayPal account the donation link is just fine.

And of course, if all you want to do is pray for her, that is just fine with me. In fact, I shouldn't say "all you want to do," because truthfully providing her with prayer support is better than providing her with financial support.