Effective Charity Systems

Scroll to UPDATE for a summary of my situation.

Scroll to PRAYER for three requests for me that can be prayed for others.

Every day many people are laid off or fired from their jobs.

Many people are injured or become serious ill daily.

Our cities have handicapped and elderly.

All humans have basic needs for food, clothes, shelter, medicine and transportation.

When the cost of living is greater than the income there are troubles.

This gap can be spanned by savings, credit card, gifts from others, nonprofits and government assistance.

Before government programs began in the 1940s most charitable aid came from Christians.

I am not advocating for us to return to only that means of aid.

But in this generation most Christians have lost touch with practical benevolence.

All of that has been turned over to the government agencies and a few nonprofits.

God used me for more than seven years to raise prayer support and money for Shebaa Green.

She was disabled and qualified for several government programs.

She was receiving assistance, discounts and subsidies.

But all of those were not enough to pay for her many medicines and other needs.

She had lots of health challenges.

The hundreds of dollars I raised each month went for medicines, groceries, bus passes and toiletries.

Shebaa and I lived in the same apartment complex.

It was in a rough part of town to get low rent.

She went to many churches over the years and joined several.

They prayed but there was very little help with paying for her basic needs.

Also through Shebaa I met others in much need too.

God used me to help them financially.

I was giving 10 to 20 percent of my paycheck in such practical benevolence.

During this time I noticed repeatedly that there was no system to screen and help them.

These were people in real need due to circumstances beyond their control.

They had asked family and friends for help before.

They had gone to the government agencies and churches.

God used me, a stranger at their time, to pay for bus fare, medicine and simple needs.

Individuals and churches did not have a way to know if the needs were real.

If the needs were real, then were they getting met?

Is this just a short term emergency or part of a long term pattern?

Are they taking action steps to get better?

Do they know of the various agencies and nonprofits that could help?

Have they been abusing the system?

What is their spiritual condition?

What are ways they can get to where they have an income?

I prayed much during those long and painful years.

I studied the Bible and reflected on the verses related to benevolence.

Several times during those years I imagined launching a ministry aid at this niche.

The name I used in my files and in my mind is Effective Charity Systems.

Today here I am in real need of help.

I was fired from my job about a week ago.

God has used a few dear friends to help me get this far.

I have hope that God will make a way for me to get back on my feet.

There were times I could have used little things like a bus pass or some groceries.

Housing was the main expense.

But I needed personal care items like toiletries.

I have bought many bottles of water this week.

One person paid for 2 nights at a motel.

Another person designated 200 dollars for my stay at the missionary housing.

Other funds were not designated.

I kept receipts and made a spread sheet of the incomes and expenses.

This was not required of me but seemed like the right thing to do.

I am facing uncertainty about where I will be living after I leave here.

Many people have been praying and I am grateful for that.

What I envision are systems to bring together the many parts in a whole.

An individual, couple or family enters the system.

They are screened by trained volunteers.

There are screening forms adapted from what agencies and nonprofits use.

The immediate needs would be identified and hopefully met.

The short, medium and long term goals would be sketched out over time.

There would be referrals to others that could help.

A case worker would be assigned to the more complex clients.

Meeting temporal needs would be woven together with spiritual needs.

There would be various fund raising campaigns done year around to pay for this.

This is a small but important part of Our Stewardship Community.

We as Christians will give an account to the Lord Jesus Christ for our stewardship.

I can appeal to donors and volunteers by demonstrating big results over time.

Overall I would structure the budget and services as follows:

10 percent for overhead including administration and case workers

20 percent to help the clients gain income by employment including self employment

30 percent to meet temporal needs like bus passes, medicine, groceries, utilities, rent, etc.

40 percent for spiritual needs like Bibles, New Testaments, evangelism resources, discipleship resources.

I would start with about a dozen screened clients.

They would be the beta testers.

Then as they are helped I would ask them how to make improvements.

Little by little there would be improvements.

The aim from the start is to make this system available for other groups.

Those groups include small groups, local churches, mission agencies and others.

Those who serve the poor like food banks and homeless shelters could use it.

It can be set up using paper based 3 ring binders unto software and cloud based.

There will be much confidential data so security becomes an issue.

When I prayed I told God I am willing to design this and set it up.

But I am not willing to oversee daily operations.

There will be lots of personality conflicts and spiritual warfare.

There will be clients going off psyche medicines.

There will be greed, blaming, complaining, whining and more.

I want God to send me the right person to spear head this after it gets going.

I am in no rush to do this.

But this is the time to share with you a part of what is my calling.

UPDATE

Last night I had a mild case of gas and diarrhea.

I took a laxative.

I am feeling much better.

Please pray for my health now and later.

I connected with the key and ATM card today.

I have been studying the crowd funding platform.

Pray for me to effectively use this tool.

https://www.indiegogo.com/

PRAYER

Here are three prayers for me and you can adapt to pray for others.

May I often come to the Word with a humble and teachable spirit.

May I quickly let go of thoughts and feelings that distract me from simply trusting and obeying the Lord Jesus Christ.

May God remind me of the times and ways He answered my prayers in the past so that I can remain steadfast in my faith in Him.

Shalom 

Looking to Jesus Christ Again

I trust the Lord Jesus Christ to guide and provide again.

This is just another test of my faith in Him.

He is been faithful in taking care of me for decades.

He promised to never leave me nor forsake me.

He is always my Good Shepherd and knows how to guide me.

Two weeks ago I had no idea I would be here in these conditions.

The last week has been an adventure.

The next weeks will be more of an adventure too.

I have been praying and requesting many prayers.

God has been with me in super intimate ways.

When I felt anxiety I turned to Him in prayer and that dissolved.

The central challenge has been housing.

I spent 1 night in a homeless shelter.

I spent 2 nights in a motel.

The other 5 nights were in missionary housing.

I had this missionary housing reserved until Monday noon June 30.

Then I talked with the manager and got an extension to July 3

Then I will owe 450 dollars for the 10 days.

I have already raised 200 dollars toward that 400 dollars.

Please pray earnestly that all the money will arrive on time.

My plan had been to move to a garage apartment on Monday June 30.

I had a good lead on that but that door has closed.

The owner is going out of town until mid-September.

That was going to be rent in exchange for services and utilities.

Surely there are other possibilities like that in the Dallas area.

Besides garage apartments there other kinds of options.

Those options include a trailer or lake house a family is not using.

I am seeking a place to stay for the next 30 to 90 days.

During that time I will build an online crowd funding platform.

Also I will prepare for the road trips described previously in Phase Two and Three.

Those cities are College Station, Plano, Arlington Texas, OK City and Colorado Springs.

After I have gone there and visited leaders I expect God to lead me to one of those.

Or God may lead me to relocate to India, Philippines or Australia.

I talked with my brother at length last night.

He works half the week at home.

The other half he goes into the office.

His employer offers cloud based computer services to huge corporations.

They have employees and clients all over the globe.

One the assignments my brother does is to coordinate of the weekly conference calls.

There are many players that need different kinds of information before and after the call.

This kind of global communication is happening every day all around the world.

So on one level where I locate is important due to who I will see face-to-face.

On another level it is not important due to the proven teleconferencing tools.

Besides talking to others together in a group there are many other tools.

I shared links recently to online services I can use for a modest fee.

They will allow sharing files, collaborating, forums, wikis and much more.

NEXT

I replied to the owner of the garage apartment that is leaving town.

I requested referrals to other garage apartments that are open.

I am asking you if you know of any in the DFW Metroplex.

Do you know of anyone with a trailer or lake house I could rent inexpensively?

I can conduct online research and I ask your special prayers for God to guide that.

I have made some progress in planning the crowd funding platform.

My best notes are on my desktop computer and it is in storage.

Pray for me to connect with that key and get a ride to pick it up soon.

I need to connect with my ATM card that was sent in the mail.

That will allow me to quickly get funds from donations sent to Pay Pal.

UPDATE

That garage apartment option did not work out.

I have extended my stay at the missionary housing until July 3.

May Jesus Christ lead me to suitable housing for the next 30 to 90 days.

May God to guide my thoughts, words and deeds.

May the crowd funding platform go public soon.

May God connect me with many generous givers.

PRAYER

May I make time daily to be still and wait on You.

May I meditate on Your Word day and night.

Teach me Lord how to best claim and stand on the precious promises of Your Word.

Shalom 

Job, Career and Calling

The summary of my situation is found toward the end at UPDATE.

The prayer requests that are for me and others are at the end at PRAYER.

I worked as a house manager at the sober house for nearly 2 years.

During that time I helped many residents seek a job.

Eventually they got one.

I am very familiar with the job seeking process.

I know about the current job market.

Then I had access to a car to take them on job searches.

There is much research involved online and just walking in shopping centers.

Most but not all job applications are done online these days.

Often there is one short screening interview.

Then if that is passed there is a second longer interview.

It may take a few or many interviews before getting a job offer.

Then there can be a delay of a few days until the paperwork is done.

There is the drug test.

Then there is the first day on the job.

The job might be part time or full time.

Then there is a long delay before the first paycheck.

The hours need to be worked and recorded.

The pay cycle ends.

The hours worked are sent to accounting department.

The paycheck could arrive 10 to 20 days later.

During that gap basic needs need to be met.

The needs include housing, food and transportation.

In order to move into an apartment they require deposits.

So many hundreds of dollars are needed before that starts.

It takes a long time to save up many hundreds of dollars.

I have gone through this process many times over the decades.

I have had jobs at retail stores, fast food places, a machine shop and a feed store.

There have been lots of other jobs too.

This is the summer so many jobs are taken by students out of school.

Those jobs that are easy to get do not pay much.

So that means small budget for housing, food and transportation.

I do not have a car today.

I have had a few cars over the decades.

I have needed to spend many hours riding the bus to my job.

Most of the men I helped had been to college.

Then they got tangled up in drug abuse.

They went to intense residential rehab for 30 to 90 days.

There every hour was structured.

They had meetings, counseling and other activities.

The sober house was to transition to live on their own again.

I told them there is a difference between job, career and calling.

I said a job is what you do in the short term to pay bills.

A career typically relates to a professional position.

Examples include doctor, lawyer, engineer, architect, etc.

A career takes much study and preparation.

Then a calling is what you can do during your lifetime to serve others.

A calling comes from the passion to contribute to the highest good.

Many men appreciated this perspective.

They recognized that my job as a house manager was not my calling.

I told them about my passion to serve those in severe poverty.

I had a large bookcase in my bedroom.

It had a sampling of about one third of my books.

They were there to as a visual reminder of the libraries I hoped to plant globally.

FAITH AND WORKS

Many people had recommended that I go get a job right away.

That would seem like the logical thing to do.

But I have gone through that process many times before.

It takes me about 3 to 6 months to stabilize from a decent starting place.

I have never been homeless like I am now, so it would take longer.

I would need to borrow much money that I would need to repay slowly.

I would need to again put the lamp under a bushel about my ministry.

It would take most of my time and energy just to survive.

Along that path will be many more episodes of depression and despair.

I have struggled with the will to live since 1988.

It can be exhausting to deal with the negative thoughts day and night.

Recently the mind talk has been as follows.

I do not want to live.

I want to not live.

My deepest desire has been to slip into dreamless sleep or annihilation.

I have not wanted to think or feel any more.

I have not wanted to fight the good fight or run with patience the race.

I am not in danger of taking my life.

I have prayed for God to take it and He has not.

I have had three near death experiences.

Those give me a perspective on how fleeting this world is.

What is most important is to trust and obey the Lord Jesus Christ.

The best way to follow Jesus is to be a doer of His Word.

During the last twenty years I have not just been sitting on my hands.

I have been actively researching, planning and preparing for ministry.

I have invested dozens or hundreds of hours in the following sites.

These are online services used by large corporations for doing business.

I used their free or low cost versions.

I share this to indicate I have laid much ground work.

I am familiar with the tools used by companies that trade internationally.

It is like those at NASA that did massive amounts of preparations.

After the launch the many preparations were put into action.

I just need to launch the ministry.

These relate to strategic planning, project management, marketing and more.

On Strategy http://onstrategyhq.com/

Biz Gym http://www.bizgym.com/

Ten Step http://tenstep.com/

Sales Force https://www.salesforce.com/

Liquid Planner http://www.liquidplanner.com/

Smart Sheet http://www.smartsheet.com/

Kanbanflow https://kanbanflow.com

Pomodoro Technique http://pomodorotechnique.com/

Due to this an many other factors I believe I will do well.

I know God has called me to this good work for me to walk in.

I trust He will provide the funds right on time.

I will hire others as needed to get the job done.

UPDATE

I got a reply to the email about the garage apartment.

The owner is leaving town soon for many weeks.

Pray for us to meet very soon.

Maybe this is not the right place for me to live next.

Pray for God to open the right door and guide me there soon.

Not yet connected with the key to storage or ATM card.

Pray for rapid progress on crowd funding site.

PRAYERS

Here are a few prayer requests.

I genuinely seek prayers along these lines.

Also these are general so they can apply to praying for others too.

God grant me ears to hear and eyes to see.

May I hear Your still small voice.

May I see truths in Your Word that will set me free.

Lord Jesus Christ I ask You to weave into my soul an attitude of gratitude and a heart of thanksgiving.

Grant me Your understanding and insights about what season of life I am in now and the next season.

Guide me to most wisely use my time and talent to address the challenges of this season.

Guide my preparations for the next season.

Lord God help me to live a better balanced life including the following ways:

Working on short term and long term priorities

Ministering to others and taking care of myself

Using my reason and my intuition

Shalom 

Huge, Complex and Global

INTRODUCTION

This is another long message.

If you want just the updates about my situation then scroll to the bottom.

Look for the heading UPDATE or Simple Daily Summary then go to this link.

If you want just the prayer requests then scroll to PRAYER go to this link.

http://justrequestsandtestimonies.blogspot.com/2014/06/posted-june-25-2014.html

Pray for me to set up email versions for each audience.

CALLING

The three words huge, complex and global describe the ministry God called me to do.

Honestly I do not like that it is so big.

I wish it was much smaller.

Then I could control the variables.

Then I would not need to trust God every step of the way.

I would not need to request prayers.

My faith and patience would not increase.

I would not become more like Christ.

Do you know what I want in my heart of hearts?

I want to the following:

live in a cabin in the woods by a stream near a lake

2 outside dogs that are friendly to go for walks in the woods

1 indoor cat that is affectionate

a kayak and small sail boat for the lake

I would do the following:

commune with nature

write

publish online

get my healthy groceries delivered

do all my shopping online

develop lots of close online friends

have a few offline friends

grow old gracefully

die peacefully

But what if I had all that and neglected my calling?

Then I am sure my conscience would trouble me.

The Holy Spirit would convict me.

I would not be fully satisfied.

Sooner than later I would return to my huge, complex and global calling.

I have attempted to deny, neglect and turn my calling off hundreds of times.

It is my destiny to move forward with this.

I may or succeed but it is embedded deep in my soul.

I promise you I did not make up any of it.

BACKGROUND

I was born in Houston Texas in 1953.

That makes me a Baby Boomer.

When I was born my father was an engineer.

We lived in a duplex with one car.

My brother came along three years after me.

My father attended night school and got an MBA.

Then he got on the management track.

The company he was with was growing very rapidly.

He began to travel more and more.

He traveled internationally which was not common then.

He was one of the first Yuppies before the term was born.

We moved to an affluent neighborhood when I was in junior high.

When he traveled, his associates took him out at night.

Thus he returned the favor when they came here.

Often they came to our nice house.

They had a few drinks then went to a restaurant.

I met men from England, France, Italy, Germany and Venezuela.

My father treated each man with dignity and respect.

That was my early and formative introduction to international people.

When I pray or worship in a group I sometimes close my eyes.

I see the faces of people from every culture.

It is like a parade of photos from National Geographic.

I see Asians, Africans, Europeans, Latin Americans, Eskimos, etc.

God has given me a genuine love for all the people groups.

When I worked at the seminary for 12 years I enjoyed international students most.

When I read the Great Commission the word all stands out to me.

It says to go make disciples of all nations in Matt 28:19

http://biblehub.com/matthew/28-19.htm

That is the challenge the Lord gave.

Most mission agencies focus on one region of the world or a people group.

In order to me true to my heart I cannot leave out any precious people group.

Therefore the word global is central to my calling.

There are more than 7 billion people and I could never reach them all.

God has especially burdened me for those in severe poverty.

There are about 2 billion people that barely survive from day to day.

They live on less than 2 dollars a day.

Most of those 2 billion are in cities.

But many are in rural areas.

It is the subsistence farmers that I can help the most for the least cost.

The Peace Corps and others have been educating them for decades.

They improved how they farmed and raised livestock.

They used the best tools and practices they had at the time.

The new digital technologies will allow us to reach and teach more and easier.

The Bible tells me that God has always had a heart for orphans.

What I can offer to help them and any others too is literacy lessons.

When a child can read then they can access knowledge.

That can break the lead the way to a hope filled future.

I have met many pastors from around the world at the seminary.

In most cases they have very few biblical resources at the local level.

We can provide untold value just on a simple USB thumb drive.

There is big push to get out 100 dollar laptops for those in developing countries.

Then what is needed is a basic printer.

The lessons and other resource could be printed out.

I would give them permission to sell the printed materials.

That gives the local people a profit motive to educate their community.

The linchpin to the vision God gave me are community centered libraries.

The librarian could choose to print out items from the database we sent.

These would be bound in a durable way.

A library that fit in one small room could transform a village.

There would be ways to ask the end users for feedback.

We would use their comments, suggestions and questions.

This would lead to revisions, new modules and more.

This is obviously huge and complex.

I am sure this can be done.

It is just using technologies that are working today in a different way.

The tools and processes proven by businesses are applied to missions.

This will take many years and many people working together.

I do not have anything better than to do this.

My current challenge is to craft short, medium and long presentations.

Then I need to get them online is ways that are attractive and interactive.

Going to meet with people face-to-face in various cites has much value.

But that takes lots of time and money.

Meanwhile while also preparing and going there I can interact online.

I will always need intercessors, advisers and donors.

This message went out to many dozens of people.

It will be archived and others will read it later.

I will personally meet only a very few of those people.

In the coming days, weeks and months more messages will go out.

I will connect with more supporters online than offline.

So pray for me to design and set up systems that bridge those relationships.

UPDATE

I have been sleeping soundly and taking daily walks.

The red spots on my left arm are lighter.

I have not yet heard back about the garage apartment yet.

I have not yet connected with the key to storage or the ATM card.

Making progress on segmenting the messages that I will send to opt-in lists

I have got a good initial administrative and time management base.

Next step is to focus on the nuts and bolts of setting up the fund raising system.

PRAYER

May God grant me His wisdom, insights and favor.

Lord Jesus Christ guide me in using my time very wisely.

God may I become a faithful doer of Your Word.

Shalom