how I feel about receiving support
It is part of being with YWAM (it would be difficult being with YWAM and working :-)
I understand how charity works.
I often tell people I am an independent charity worker. I tell them that every afternoon millions of kids walk out of class, and the teachers never ask them to pay for the education they just gave them..why, because we don't think kids should have to pay for education. We do believe kids should be educated though, therefore we are happy to pay our taxes. I see this as similar to how we operate.
Society > Teacher > Kids
Supporters > YWAMers > People
We, like teachers, believe that our work is valuable, but do not believe that we should charge the people that receive the benefits of our work for our service. We, like teachers, must eat, and therefore we rely on people that believe in the value of our work (people like you)
How we got into this in the first place.
My time in University in New York, and Lisanne's first couple of courses in YWAM. (PCYM and DTS) were funded by a mix of our savings through working (I used to work 5 x 11.5 hour shifts in a steel factory (week on days, a week on nights), lisanne worked in a pretty rough pub, and some help from our family.
Other options
We work for some of our time and we do missions for another part (mission defined like in the paragraph above (work not paid by those that receive the benefits
2 options here
work for a while and save up, then mission for a while.
seasonal mission work, a few months working, a few months mission for example.
another option would be to do mission in our evenings/weekends
these are both very valid ways to serve. We however feel called to give all of our time to missions, and therefore not an option.
Another option, is business as mission
I naturally believe that every believer is called to make God know through their life wherever they are.
I have considered this on a number of occasions - I thought about applying for a job with Red Bull for a while. (funny now because OYWO was created partly to combat crap energy drink's dominance of action sports), I have also considered more lately, having set up the MaxMoves business (making parkour parks etc)
Another option would be to find some kind of work here in Francavilla (using sport, or youth work, or architecture, or English teaching...) and be an influencer in that way.
However each time I lean in that direction I feel God reaffirming our YWAM way.
This life suits us
why
We enjoy the benefits
Things are changing
After we got married, we were not sure what our lives would look like. We bought a big old American motorhome and moved to France (Biarritz) a few weeks after we got married, with plans to find regular work. That didn't work out, and we were head hunted to manage a kids sports holiday centre in Africa ...less than a year after being married we were living in Uganda.
We needed to fundraise for the year we spent in Africa. It was not so difficult as the cost of living was so low, I think we only needed to raise about £120 a month (our flights there and back probably cost almost as much)
after our time in Africa however we really believed we should join YWAM and base ourselves somewhere in the middle of Western Europe....I did my DTS in southern Germany and then we moved to YWAM Wiler in 2001. After some work with kings kids and a couple of YWAM courses, we took over Rollerrama and spent 5 years running the Eternal Sports House - action sports community centre in Thun. I set up an independent Swiss Charity to run the project. In order for LIsanne and I to work full time on this project we continued receiving support, while running the hall as a charitable business (good rent deal from the local government) with help from volunteers.
During our time in Switzerland Ryan and Ethan were born and now we were raising support for 4 mouths.
When we finished the project in Thun (the hall was demolished to make space for a new apartment building, we prayed long and hard about our future. Lisanne was pregnant with Isaac. We knew that our next move might be our last for a very long time as our kids were going to be starting school. We believe God spoke to us about Italy and could see how it would suit our life and minsitry. We spent a year back in the UK reconnecting with friends and family and helping out with our nephew who was having a really difficult time. We then moved to Italy. During this transition we lost about 80% of our support. All our Swiss supporters (from the Thun days) stopped supporting us (understandable, as they were investing indirectly in Swiss youth, and that was no longer going to be the case).We also lost the support of 3 biggest British couples (combined they gave about 50% of our support at the time (One couple retired, one couple got divorced and one couple moved location - these three changes in their life circumstance meant that, although they still believed in our work, they could no longer support us). Moving to Italy with very little support, was a big step of faith at the time. Soon after moving I received an unexpected inheritance, that covered our first year, then my work for Ivan with his house in Croatia covered the 2nd year, then the director/founder of the American online academy we worked with, covered the next years. When his support started to dry up due to the collapsing of academy (his business) I reached out to the Bern community. We were blown away by the generosity and love shown by you and others in the community and to this day about 2/3rds of our support comes through the community. It has been quite a journey...but one we have endured/enjoyed (It has been hugely challenging, but also hugely humbling, faith bundling and a beautiful blessing.
For better or worse....it is what we know. We have been living as YWAMers, raising support, for 20 years. We have found a peace (through much wrestling) with this way of life. It might be so easy to change...
Our golden guide: Don't be greedy, Don't be lazy.
Don't be greedy... How much support should we aim at? Loren Cunningham's advice on this one: Aim to raise enough to live like a person of average wealth in your location. We receive about 2000 euros a month. That is probably a little lower than the average couple in Francavilla. It looks a little less, when we have 3 kids, (a couple more than most families). However on top of our income we also are blessed with lots of non-monetary blessings (free accommodation in Switzerland, UK, random gifts etc)...which if factored in...would make us average.
Don't be lazy....We have no-one watching over us. We have no direct boss. It could be easy to...slack a bit. I consider myself and Lisanne, somehow, as leaders. In various ways we take initiative and others follow. The bible speaks a lot about servant leadership and I feel that this guides our work a lot. We want to serve people. In Romans 12 v 8, it says if your gift is to lead, do it diligently. I take this seriously. I think we work pretty hard (Most Swiss and Japanese might disagree). On top our direct ministry related work, we have 3 kids. We have also carried out about 20 years of our work in foreign non-English speaking nations (this alone adds lots of time and energy to all we do (linguistic and cultural challenges, with a limited network of people around you to support you).
MintWood - buy land and build an off grid house
Potential save of about 10,000 euros a year on rent and utility bills by owning (rent save), solar panels/rainwater harvesting/compost toilets (utility savings), veg garden/hen house/beehive (food savings).
We could potentially earn an additional 10,000 Euros a year through renting out the 3 eco pods we plan to build on the site.
This could be a game changer. It could make living in Italy possible without supporters because we could potentially reduce our expenditure by about 50% and then cover that with income from renting out the 3 eco pods we hope to build on the land.
Over the years we have invested lots of the money that we receive from supporters into our action sports projects (vehicles, parkour parks, travel). Two of the initiatives I have been a part of kickstarting the past couple of years have the potential to invest in such projects and we would therefore use our own money for such things.
MaxMoves. 10% of all income from panel sales will go to action sports projects.
OYWO gives 90% of money raised will go to action sports
partners not supporters
This is the best way for us to think about our financial supporters. Together with our partners we serve. We both have the same hopes and dreams, one provides the money, the other the time.
We live a fun adventurous life, with lots of variety, travel, hosting and we meet loads of interesting
We have lots of flexibility. This particularly suits my pioneering, research based, problem solving, creative way of working.
We have learnt to deal with the challenges
We have become content with a little or a lot. We regularly have no money in my bank account. We regularly have to ask friends to help me out. We regularly have to live very simply
this keeps us pretty humble :-)
This could also play a valuable role in our later life as we have no savings or pension (one of the sacrifices of our mission's life as we have never had surplus support)