Missionary Support

Every once in a while I can’t resist the urge to tabulate statistics. It is something that I have always enjoyed and something that my position at the Home Office occasionally requires, so that works out nicely. I recently took a look at fielding cost trends over the past few years. The table below summarizes what I found.

The top row, labeled “Fielding Cost,” is the average amount required to fully support a Prayer League missionary for a month. Fielding Cost expenses include living allowance, health insurance, housing, pension, and a few other minor items. You can see that these costs have gone up over the last four years by about $150 per month – due almost entirely to an increase in health insurance and housing expenses. Living allowances were last increased in 2009.

The next four rows show how these expenses are met. The primary resource is designated support funds. This number has trended downward over the last four years, from an average of $1,718 per missionary per month to $1,593 this year. When support funds are not sufficient to meet monthly fielding cost expenses, we distribute the general fund as far as it will go. General funds available for this purpose have trended downward slightly, from $809 per missionary per month in 2008 to $765 this year. It is our custom to use estate funds to raise the allowance of under-supported missionaries to a “floor” of 65% of their target allowance, if neither support nor general funds are sufficient to meet their fielding costs. Estate funds distributions have increased over the last few years, from an average of $88 per missionary per month to $279 this year. The result is short allowances, shown in the next row. In 2008 the average missionary’s allowance was reduced by $138 per month; so far this year that number has increased to $268.

From one point of view, the trends shown here seem to be going in the wrong direction. Overall giving has remained steady over the past four years, but designated support funds, especially, have not kept up with the rising cost of fielding our missionaries. Yet we know what to do with trends like these. We pray. Please pray with us for God’s guidance and provision for our work around the world, especially in the area of designated support funds.

Financial Update

At the end of June we did not provide full allowances to all of our missionaries. After designated support funds were used up, we needed an additional $70,668 to meet full allowances. We used the entire general fund balance of $40,777 and an additional $22,940 from estate funds to bring minimum allowance payments to 65 percent of their target amount. Of our 50 missionary units, 16 received full allowance and 32 received this minimum amount. If you would like information about the missionary or project you support, please drop us a note or give us a call. Thank you for your ongoing prayers and support!