Support Raising- Where am I? (and then a cool conclusion)

I don't want this blog to be about where I am in my Support Raising.  There's a cool story at the end.  Part of me wants to say, "I'm right where God wants me to be" because He's in control, right?  Part of me wants to say I am where I am because of the effort (and at times, lack thereof) that I've put in.  

Actually, I think it's both.  God is in control but there's work for me to do as well.

So I'll say a little something about "where I am" and then I'll get on to the real story.

According to I-Teams I'm only about 15% supported.  That's the monthly support I'm already receiving (as of last month).

According to commitments I've received from friends I'm a little over 40% supported (their bank drafts just haven't started coming through yet).  

I've had some really good visits in the last 5 weeks and I have about 10 "follow-ups" to make.  I know better than count my eggs before they hatch but I feel like most of those visits will yield monthly support worth maybe as much as 15-25% meaning I should have 60+% of my support as soon as I can follow-up on those visits.

But here's the cool story.

I received a $1000.00 one-time gift the other day.  

Now, that's only 1/60th of my total need (monthly support plus Start-up plus all my training/traveling expenses).  

And it's only 1/36th of my monthly support.  

It's 1/10th of my Start-up cost.

Hang on, I'm not to the cool part yet.

I've received some bigger gifts.  I've received some other $1000.00 gifts.

I've never received that big of a gift from a 16 year old though.  In fact, this kid is my youngest supporter at any level.  And I'm so incredibly humbled that a 16 year old would bless me that much.  

There are days when I doubt I'll ever get there; and then there are days like that.

I should be listening to Dental Stops and Fricatives

Time:  11:15 pm
When:  Sunday Night.  August 7.
What: In the middle of a two week long Introduction to Phonetics course.  About 3/4 through Lesson 10.

Motivation: Gone

Would rather watch a movie on Netflix.  Would rather eat.  Would rather sleep till noon tomorrow.

Went to church this morning at historic Moody Church in downtown Chicago.  Now that was cool.  The building is nearly 100 years old and it's beautiful.  What was even more beautiful was that it was packed with young families and while it wasn't as quite a diverse congregation as I expected, it was still much more ethnically diverse than most churches.

After cruising around the northside of Chicago after church and having lunch on the way home I crashed for a really long nap this evening (4 pm- 8 pm) and now I'm trying to get back into academic mode for tomorrow by finishing up homework.

This stuff is CRAZY!  It's hard to explain.  I guess it would be stranger to me if I hadn't already studied Russian, but suffice to say there are a lot more sounds that can be made than the ones we use in English.  And that's what we're doing these 2 weeks.  We're learning how to hear and make those sounds; some of which will show up in the various languages we will study on the mission field.

Therein lies part of the motivation problem.  I've studied enough Russian to know which of these sounds are present and which are not and therefore have little motivation to learn the ones which do not.  Make sense?

What I really want to do is see my Support Account increase by about 50% and then go to Ukraine in October as planned!