Our General Fund is a catch all. It is used to pay for purely administrative costs ? postage stamps and light bills and the like. But it is also used to supplement individual missionary allowances, housing, and insurance and pension costs when designated contributions are insufficient.
Since the General Fund is used so widely, it is in some way an indicator of our financial health. It may surprise you to know that more often than not we do not receive enough General Fund contributions to meet all of our administrative and support needs from month to month. In fact, General Fund contributions have been short by some amount in 28 of the past 41 months, dating to January of 2003. This does not mean that we have been spending more than we receive. In many of these months, our General Fund has carried a positive balance from generous contributions in previous months. Yet in 15 of the past 41 months there were neither sufficient contributions nor sufficient reserve ? and missionary allowances were cut short.
Since adding many new missionaries in 2005, we have seen this trend accelerate. It is worth mentioning. In the last few months, on average, our General Fund balance has met approximately one half of our General Fund needs. Since the beginning of the year, we have received General Fund contributions of approximately $42,000 per month. In May alone, we were $42,400 short of full, designated support for all of our projects and missionaries. It is important to note that General Fund giving has remained pretty consistent over the past few years. But we have added new missionaries. Contributions, simply, have not kept pace.
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Monthly General Fund Income as |
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a percentage of monthly need |
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2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
2006 |
|
|
Qtr. 1 |
63% |
90% |
106% |
74% |
|
Qtr. 2 |
88% |
71% |
55% |
47% |
|
Qtr. 3 |
65% |
108% |
54% |
|
|
Qtr. 4 |
158% |
129% |
109% |
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Monthly General Fund donations |
?? 41,661 |
? 38,645 |
? 45,533 |
? 42,570 |
I bring this to your attention to ask you to pray. Many of you are already contributing to the people and projects of the World Mission Prayer League. Many of you are contributing to our General Fund ? and many out of very scarce ?general funds? of their own. Thank you for your contributions! Please join us in prayer for God?s ongoing supply. He has supplied additional workers. Let us pray that he will feed them.