Go and make disciples of all nations, no matter how many T-shirts you have to sell. Ok, so Jesus didn’t really say that (that’s why I didn’t use quotation marks), but if you have gone to the Cafe in the past month or walked by the fountain or stopped into Commons, you have probably seen a T-shirt table, a snow cone machine or a little jar with a country on the label. All of these are signs of Great Commission activity or at least the attempt. Thanks to the ICS program and SMU, there are many mission-minded students at Biola, and many of them decided to pack up and go out to corners of the world this summer. All you need to do to get them there is buy a shirt.
The obstacle isn’t a lack of destination; if you attended Missions Conference, you know that there are way too many people who haven’t heard the gospel for us to comfortably sit at home watching Lost. The obstacle isn’t a lack of motivation; summer missions teams aim to help some of the truly ‘lost’ people. The obstacle is … dum dum dum … money.
I talked to some of the leaders of these summer missions teams to figure out how much they needed to raise. Teams Indonesia, Russia and Panama answered my questions, and here are the results.
Indonesia comes in first with a meager $1,380 airfare and other various costs such as gas, lodging, food and supplies. Team Panama asks each member to raise $2,800. The seven members of Russia 2008 — you might have received a letter from one of them —are raising a whopping $3,600 each. So, as you can see, serving God on the foreign mission field is not a matter of wanting to; you need the cash first.
Teams are raising money by selling T-shirts (and snow cones), sending support letters, leaving jars for donations, washing cars, and partnering with local businesses such as Big Straw. Yet, team leaders never know if all their fundraising efforts will result in the required cash.
Team Indonesia has met their absolute minimum need, though they are still raising money to further bless the local church. They are trying to build a ceiling on a church building and raise money for kids to go to school.
Team Panama has raised approximately $8,000, which would cover about four people to go.
Team Russia is also still in need of funding. Their travel agency gave them until April 30 to meet the minimum, but as of April 27, they were $5,000 short. Prayers were answered, though, as the deadline was extended to May 15.
God is not without His influence in fundraising, though.
“I really feel like we are forced to depend on Him. The amount we have to raise is pretty daunting,” said senior Marisa Swingle, a Team Russia member. “It can get so discouraging when you have a million other things to do … God puts us in a place where we have to depend on Him. We are still depending on Him.”
Thankfully, since God commanded His followers to go in the first place, He will make a way for students to go. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He provided a fish with a coin in its mouth. Or maybe nowadays, He mostly works through T-shirts.
