Support

Submission and Support

By WMF International Executive Director, Chris Heuertz

Originally printed in The Cry: An Advocacy Journal of WMF, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Winter 2005)

Christmas is approaching, and if your stack of mail looks anything like mine, then you’re probably getting a lot of letters from non-profit organizations trying to capitalize on year-end giving. 
 
With Asia’s tsunami, New Orleans’ hurricane Katrina and the recent earthquake in Pakistan, several non-profit organizations are reporting lower-than-expected incomes for 2005. It’s not because people aren’t giving; it’s because of the tragic domestic and global needs that many gifts have been redirected this year. Something similar happened back in 2001 after 9/11. It took some non-profits years to recover from the impact of that re-directed charitable giving. Thankfully, even post-9/11 giving was up for WMF.
 
As we look back over 2005 we are again humbled and blessed by the faithfulness and generosity of WMF’s friends and donors. You have all continued to surprise us with your kindness and loyalty.

This issue of The Cry focuses on submission. A concept not usually considered is the reciprocal relationship of submission between a giver and the receiver. I’d like to take a moment to reflect on this idea, and help clarify the type of relationship we hope to establish with those of you who give to WMF.

Over the years WMF has been very reluctant to pursue an aggressive fund-raising agenda for the organization. It’s not because we don’t need funding; on the contrary, the needs of our community increase each year. However, we have tried to be very careful how we’ve approached fund-raising. The way we handle every penny is as much a reflection of our integrity and commitment to Christ as is the way we care for every child in WMF homes and community centers.

But caring for children requires funding, and fund-raising has often been viewed with suspicion or as an unpleasant activity. As post-modern Gen-Xers who have been culturally and socially conditioned to be skeptical of those who seem to always be asking for money, we sometimes feel a reluctance in fund-raising.
 
Even before many of us in WMF graduated from college, we felt as though we had been jaded by a sense of “donor fatigue.” Churches, Christian colleges, friends going into ministry and missions – it seemed like there was always a need coming at us, and our dollars were usually presented as the solution to those needs.  
 
Then we joined WMF and suddenly found ourselves on the other side of that envelope and appeal letter. Now, we were the ones sharing an “exciting opportunity” to join in something with the potential to change the world. It was humbling and sobering for many of us. 

 As North Americans (and especially evangelicals), we feel uncomfortable talking about money. For example, I don’t know what my dad’s salary is, and he doesn’t know mine. But when I’m traveling outside the U.S., I get asked frequently what I make in a year or how much rent I pay or what it cost me to fly overseas. There’s a greater sense of freedom to talk about money once I leave the States. Why is it that we don’t like to talk about money here?
 
Recently, a friend pointed me to a little booklet by Henri Nouwen called The Spirituality of Fund-Raising. To be honest, before I even read it, I had made up my mind that Nouwen was throwing the word “spirituality” around the idea of fund-raising in an effort to make it more palatable. When I actually got around to reading it, I was surprised by its depth and profundity. The book really opened my eyes to some new things.

Nouwen writes about “inviting people into a new way of relating to their resources.” It made me think about the way we often relate to the poor. Our founding director, Shane Clark, used to talk about how we usually give the poor our worst.

Several years ago when I lived in India, we received a few boxes of donated clothes for one of our children’s homes. As we opened one box and reviewed its contents, I was shocked to discover a dirty pair of boy’s underpants. The Indian staff looked amazed that their “rich” brothers and sisters from the West had sent such an offensive gift. There was nothing I could say.
 
At the same children’s home, I noticed a bunch of broken dolls in the apartment of one of the Indian staff members. These dolls had their eyes poked out or faces scribbled over with markers, were missing arms or legs or had been given bad haircuts by their original owners. One afternoon, I found the courage to ask about all the broken dolls and learned that they had been saved by our Indian staff over the years.

When friends from the States would send toys for the children’s homes, the Indian staff would go through the boxes and remove the broken and damaged toys because, as they put it, “our children wouldn’t understand.” They went on to explain to me that “our friends abroad have sacrificed so much to send us these gifts, and the children might not be grateful if we gave them broken toys.” So our staff, grateful for the gifts, wanted to protect the donors from any hurt the children might have from getting someone else’s castoffs. I was stunned because I knew that the people who had sent these gifts probably hadn’t really sacrificed much at all – they just had a tainted understanding of how to give generously to the poor. They had not given the poor their best, only what was really fit for the trash.

But what did our Father do? He sent His Son, Christ, the most precious gift He could sacrifice for us. As Christmas approaches and as many of us get into the “spirit of giving,” let us be mindful of the type of gift that God expects. Let us follow His example and put forward only our best.

Reconsidering the role of giving and fund-raising in our own community reminds us that it’s also the best of our hearts and lives and ambitions that we’re called to surrender to the poor. In our reciprocal relationships of submission with the poor, we find the blessings of God realized and see His Kingdom come.

What You Can Expect From Us
Friend to friend, family to family, considering the reciprocal relationship of submission we have with those of you who give to WMF, I want to let you know that you can expect several things from us: 

We won’t be sending you four-page quasi-personal letters with the “important” parts highlighted in bold and italics. We will never objectify you by viewing you solely as a potential resource. We won’t hassle you and fill your mailbox with appeal after appeal.

We want to grow in our relationship with those who support our community. By “supporters,” I mean those who are on this journey with us. Support can come through financial gifts, prayers and even solidarity with our cause.

We don’t want to position ourselves in such a way that a gift or funding creates leverage that humiliates, rather than humanizes, one another. We want to explore and grow into receiving gifts that renew and embolden and inspire, because that’s how God intends our giving to be. We really want to do this – serving Christ among the poor – with those of you who support WMF. We want to be honoring partners in this.

Recognizing that each person reading this article will not necessarily give financially to WMF, we confidently encourage every believer to give generously and sacrificially to some ministry. Our biggest concern isn’t whether you give to WMF or not, because we are convinced that God’s people will never lack His resources to accomplish His purposes. Our experience in almost 15 years of ministry among the poor testifies to this truth – we have never lacked any good thing.
 
We don’t want to wait until we’re desperate to ask for money and we don’t want to live from crisis-to-crisis. We want to be free to ask before we get desperate. We want you to be on this journey with us and walk together.

We will not feel guilty about making the ministry’s needs known, because we are simply doing God’s will in response to His call. Likewise, we don’t want your giving to be guilt-induced. Giving should be joyous. As we fulfill God’s call together with you, both the giving and receiving should be a guilt-free transaction.
As we enter into more freedom to ask when there is need, we also commit to not asking you to give unless we have a real need. We commit to integrity in that we’re not going to fill the storehouses and let the grain of God’s provision rot.
 
We will continue to embrace gratitude as our posture and celebrate it. We want each of you to know that in our gratitude, we will handle every gift you send with humility and integrity. We do this recognizing that every gift creates an opportunity for a grateful exchange with the giver.
 
We commit to deeply valuing each “friend of WMF” whether or not you’re a donor, or even a potential donor. We invite you to take ownership in what we are about in the world because we believe that God is at work. 
 
We make the above commitments to you because we believe in WMF and what we’re doing – not because WMF is the answer, but because WMF is the family to which we’re called. We want to see the Kingdom come and we want to see justice for the poor.

We beg so they (the poor, our friends) don’t have to. In humility and submission, we ask that you’d join us in this and continue to stand behind our efforts in seeing His Kingdom come among the poor.

This fall, Chris celebrated nine years serving as WMF’s International Executive Director. Born and raised in Nebraska, Chris is an avid college football fan. He and his wife, Phileena, reside in Omaha.