Raising Money in a Developing Country

Many people would lead you to believe that it’s not possible to raise money for missions projects in poor developing countries.  The thought is that the money must all come from the affluent church from the West or the affluent countries in the East.  Those people are wrong.  They leave out the fact that there is a generous church in developing nations often eager to invest in projects helping their own people.

Today, Sunday September 18 my wife and one of our conference committee members Zat Pung traveled to Adonai Church in Yangon to ask the members to give to the Myanmar MOVE National Youth Pastors Conference.  The Conference has a goal to be fully supported within the country of Myanmar after 4 years.  The conference committee is responsible for raising over 50% of the conference costs to train 300 youth leaders in 5 days.  In turn, these leaders will put on their own camps and conferences that will reach literally 1,000’s.  The church we went to is pastored by a friend and local named John Pongshar.  John has a huge heart for youth work.  We had called ahead of time and asked if his church would take up an offering for the conference.  He told us to come and they would.

When we arrived we found out that they were giving us their offering for the week.  To our surprise they weren’t taking a separate offering.  When it was time, I got up to speak and told the congregation of 25 about the conference and that we were asking churches to partner with us in this project.  John came up after I talked and told the congregation, “It may shock you that a foreigner is here to ask you for money.  But this is the right way of doing things.  We usually have a habit for wanting help from foreigners, but that is actually a curse.  It is better to be a blessing to others.  We are taking up one offering today for the conference.  Give more than you usually do.  Give as generously as you can.”  That little church blessed our conference with 60,850 kyat (approximately $81)!  Which means that each person gave over 2,000 Kyat.  For most of the people in the congregation 2,000 kyat (equal to approximately $2.60) is a day’s wage.  Many in attendance were bible college students who currently didn’t have an income at all.  After the service they apologized for not being able to give more.  I thanked them for their generosity and we stayed and chatted with those cheerful givers.

2 Corinthians 9:7 “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”