A while ago I realized there was an imbalance on the mission field - between people who had money (or 'good support') and people who did not. Typically, missionaries from nations with a large proportion of Christians in the population and a history of mission sending such as America, Britain, Australia and Korea tend to have stable fund-raising and the ability to accomplish the work they set out to do without too many financial limitations. I know I am one of these fortunate ones and am eternally grateful that I could leave my country and financial self-reliance, and still receive training and work uninterrupted for the last three years.
But I also realized there were so many who did not make it or could not continue despite the callings/passions/gifts that they had. People with a missions heart from countries with few churches (1/3rd of the world) and a history of being the mission field often find themselves with inadequate support if they want to do ministry full time. Put another way, when you're from an unreached country, where will you find the churches to support you? And churches that do exist may be more used to being on the receiving end rather than giving.
Yet the huge irony is that it is exactly these local missionaries who will be the most effective - because they do not need to overcome a language and cultural barrier before they can reach their own people.
So what to do about this? Something about about the Aussie in me doesn't live well with unfairness, so I couldn't ignore it and pretend I was more deserving of receiving support than these guys - it's none of my credit that I come from a relatively wealthy nation with a generous church family background.
Yet I could give away all that I get and I would still only have enough to help maybe one other person and soon that would run out. On top of that, inevitably money is power and I've seen first-hand that a pattern of relating where one person or nationality is always giving and the other is always receiving ends up with dependancy, distrust and manipulation - in the end if one side is always relying on the other, than one side must always obey the other while probably resenting it.
Basically to break this pattern, balance out the power and restore dignity, the poorer side needs to find an independent source of funding. So I began to look around for a simple, tent-making source of income - perhaps a minimum effort business that I could set up an hand over to a Thai missionary once it was running smoothly (thanks to Dad and Mr. Beasly for all that background in business).
So the first step in setting up a business is working out what the market wants and after deciding that the world probably doesn't need more Thai fisherman pants, I soon found an empty niche - in Chiangmai there are very few quality, decently designed Thai/English Christmas cards and the ones that do exist are expensive and focus on Santa (or are made out of elephant dung paper which can't be posted though customs).
While this idea was floating around in my mind, I found out that our current training courses were very short on funding and yet had the most Thai students we've ever had. So I proposed that we try to design and sell Christmas cards as a fund-raiser. If this goes well, perhaps it something we could continue doing to support our Thai staff who struggle with funds. After a rocky start there was finally acceptance of the idea, then we ran a mini-design competition, voted in our office and online and sent the results off to print!
So here are the results.
We're selling them for 35 baht (A$1.25) a card or a mixed pack of 6 cards for 200 baht (A$7) and they can be ordered by going to www.createthailand.com/christmas
Unfortunately, it's difficult for us to post internationally unless you order more than 30 cards (5 packs). Still, perhaps you have 30 friends?
But I also realized there were so many who did not make it or could not continue despite the callings/passions/gifts that they had. People with a missions heart from countries with few churches (1/3rd of the world) and a history of being the mission field often find themselves with inadequate support if they want to do ministry full time. Put another way, when you're from an unreached country, where will you find the churches to support you? And churches that do exist may be more used to being on the receiving end rather than giving.
Yet the huge irony is that it is exactly these local missionaries who will be the most effective - because they do not need to overcome a language and cultural barrier before they can reach their own people.
So what to do about this? Something about about the Aussie in me doesn't live well with unfairness, so I couldn't ignore it and pretend I was more deserving of receiving support than these guys - it's none of my credit that I come from a relatively wealthy nation with a generous church family background.
Yet I could give away all that I get and I would still only have enough to help maybe one other person and soon that would run out. On top of that, inevitably money is power and I've seen first-hand that a pattern of relating where one person or nationality is always giving and the other is always receiving ends up with dependancy, distrust and manipulation - in the end if one side is always relying on the other, than one side must always obey the other while probably resenting it.
Basically to break this pattern, balance out the power and restore dignity, the poorer side needs to find an independent source of funding. So I began to look around for a simple, tent-making source of income - perhaps a minimum effort business that I could set up an hand over to a Thai missionary once it was running smoothly (thanks to Dad and Mr. Beasly for all that background in business).
So the first step in setting up a business is working out what the market wants and after deciding that the world probably doesn't need more Thai fisherman pants, I soon found an empty niche - in Chiangmai there are very few quality, decently designed Thai/English Christmas cards and the ones that do exist are expensive and focus on Santa (or are made out of elephant dung paper which can't be posted though customs).
While this idea was floating around in my mind, I found out that our current training courses were very short on funding and yet had the most Thai students we've ever had. So I proposed that we try to design and sell Christmas cards as a fund-raiser. If this goes well, perhaps it something we could continue doing to support our Thai staff who struggle with funds. After a rocky start there was finally acceptance of the idea, then we ran a mini-design competition, voted in our office and online and sent the results off to print!
So here are the results.
We're selling them for 35 baht (A$1.25) a card or a mixed pack of 6 cards for 200 baht (A$7) and they can be ordered by going to www.createthailand.com/christmas
Unfortunately, it's difficult for us to post internationally unless you order more than 30 cards (5 packs). Still, perhaps you have 30 friends?
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