Midnight ramblings

The tire looks fine, or it did earlier today, anyhow. I'm going to walk to church tomorrow morning (there's a Lutheran church on my block) and then drive to Michelle's in the afternoon. It'll be a test. If I make it to her place no problem, the tire will be safe until Rob gets home. If it flattens on the trip, I'll go to the Firestone. Rob did call Firestone from Africa on my behalf, after all.

Today was an official rest day. It was tough to do, with all the contacting I need to do. But I couldn't be calling pastors today anyway. First thing Monday AM, I can do more calls. By my calculations, there were 22 area pastors that I never spoke to, either because my message on their answering machine (or with a person) wasn't responded to or there was no answer repeatedly at their number. I'll give them a ring on Monday. There were a few that were on vacation or attending weddings/funerals as well that need a call.

I do feel weird calling churches aroung here though when I was at synod assembly. I thought being there would open up more opportunities for us. Like, I'll be calling pastors who may have walked right by my table and had not a lick of interest. Wouldn't they have stopped to talk to me if they were interested? Maybe I'm thinking about this all wrong. I believe in what Rob and I are trying to raise finds to do. I wish I had more faith that churches would care enough about reaching people through Bible translation to put their treasure where their heart is. This "partnership development" experience can be frightfully bi-polar sometimes. I can be talking to someone one minute who gets visibly animated and excited at the prospect of Bible translation, asks to keep in touch before I have a chance to even show them the prayer letter sign-up sheet. That's encouraging. Then, a pastor comes up to me and tells me that he's challenging his congregation members to make monthly committments ... and I believe him because his church handed us a check on our first visit. That's encouraging. But this is followed immediately by several people wandering past my display who won't even make eye contact or return my smile, presumably for fear that I might require something of them. Shyness? Personal problems unrelated to me? Perhaps I take it too personally. But when I'm one of 2 people in a small hallway and they act like I'm not there when I smile and say "hi", well ... that's discouraging. When I call a church and the phone-answerer says, "We don't accept solicitations," as if I had just tried to hawk a fake Rolex on them, that's discouraging.

Boy, I just slipped into whine and complain mode. Part of me feels like I shouldn't be quite so honest about the emotional aspect of "partnership development". But part of me is tired of trying to be chipper all the time. I have doubts. I tell myself that these doubts are not in God ... they are in people. I don't know if I can trust people to provide what we need to be able to get to Namibia. Can't God work in spite of people? Sure ... but, frankly, God doesn't write checks. People do. And we have some great supporters, people whose names we see on our donor reports and at the end of emails, cards and letters that give us a little rush of strength. But we have to be at 80% of our support by November and 100% before we can go. And we can't even start getting our start-up fund (car, rent, dishes, etc.) together until our regular support is accounted for. And our current support level is 40% ... that's what the last couple of months were and that's what our overall average is since we started PD last fall. That gives us 4 months for our support level to double from what has developed in the last 10 months.

I guess the thought of that is getting me down. Maybe I'll look at this posting tomorrow or next week and think, "That's too personal ... I should delete that." But I need a miracle. And, tonight, just before midnight, with my husband away for more than a month and it being too late to call anyone, I just feeling like being honest ... with myself, most of all.

Of course, that's what private journals are supposed to be for, right? :)