“I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.”(Philippians 4:12,13, The Message)
The World Mission Prayer League provides material support for its missionaries – not as wages for work done, exactly, but to enable them to volunteer in full-time missionary service. For that reason we disregard levels of education and experience when calculating compensation. We do include health insurance, housing, contribution to a pension fund, a modest monthly stipend, as well as a few miscellaneous items.
We call our monthly stipend a “missionary allowance,” and we label all other compensation generically as “benefits.” We consider benefit expenses our first obligation. That means that when we don’t have sufficient funding in any given month, it is missionary allowances that do not get paid. We would love to pay 100% of targeted monthly allowances, yet missionaries enter service knowing that their allowances may fluctuate from time to time. We have found that our needs have been met in one way or another throughout the years. Sometimes it is necessary to get by on less, while at other times God provides in different and wonderful ways.
We are happy to report that we have met 100 percent of all compensation expenses every month since last July. God’s provision came in an unexpected way. A couple of years ago we received a large gift to our Estate Fund, designated for the general support of our missionaries. Our Home Council applied a portion of this gift last year to help offset benefits expenses. This allowed a greater portion of day-to-day donations to go directly toward missionary allowances, helping us to meet our monthly support goals. In July our Finance Committee applied an additional portion of Estate Funds toward benefits expenses. Our General Fund, as always, will be used when available to bring allowances up to 100 percent of their target. And we will continue to apply 52 percent of support fund donations for designated missionaries’ allowances, and the remaining 48 percent for missionary benefits.
Thank you for your support! Your donations have paid 100 percent of missionary allowances during the past 12 months and more than half of benefit expenses. In June, once again, we were able to pay all of our missionaries 100 percent of their target allowance. We used $44,034 from the General Fund to meet these needs, leaving a balance of $68,452. Our Benefits Fund shows a balance of $391,743.