Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

As a missionary, I usually live a life in the fish bowl.  Everybody sees everything I do.  But I’ve never seen people gawk like this.

One fellow missionary said, “It looks like a shark just came and bit a chunk out of the front of your truck.” You know, it kind of does look like something took a big bite out of it, don't you think?

#CHOMP!

No, I wasn’t in a wreck although I’ve come close to causing a few just by people on motos with their heads slowly turning as they stare, mouth agape, at my freak of a truck.

I don’t mind it that much, although it is going to severely reduce my gas mileage, but the thing that irks me most about it is that it’s stealing our savings from us.

Our truck is our savings for re-establishing our lives in the States (things like shipping a 20 foot container of all our belongings as we move back to the States, and paying for re-entry counseling and a reliable car, etc. when we return to the States).

We’ve got a lot riding on getting money out of the sale of this truck and some young mentally unstable teenager came and set fire to a gas can in our yard and you see the results.

That's gas that didn't burn there in a puddle in front of the truck.  People keep telling me I should feel lucky that something worse didn't happen.  I am really grateful for the help of my neighbors who put out the fire and for God's protection, but I'm not sure I would call the feeling "lucky."

Anyway, we obviously didn’t plan for this expense and so here it comes.  I’m going to shamelessly ask for contributions.  

You may ask, “why would you want to pay for our truck to get fixed?”  Once again, the investment in the truck will pay for many things if we get a good price out of its resale.  Those many things are all related to our returning to the States well.

Why, again, would you care about our return to the States?  Well, I will not belabor points that you already know well.  I’m not going to remind you of the obvious, that what has begun well needs to end well and be supported to the end.

Instead of focusing on endings, though, I’d like to focus on the future.  An investment in our future is still an investment in the future of God’s mission in the world.  We have felt God’s call on our hearts to take what we’ve learned in 9 years of church planting work and apply it to our next mission field in the United States.  

Let me paint you a few broad strokes for you.  This Sunday, about 83 out of every 100 Americans will not be attending any church building.  Within the next 40 years, if nothing changes that number is going to grow to 90 out of 100. (see theamericanchurch.org)  And yet the American church sends out almost half of the missionaries being sent all over the world. (see thetravelingteam.org)*  What’s going to happen to the global mission if the American church dies?  Or put in a less dramatic way, what do you think is going to be the first budget item to be cut as churches get smaller and smaller.  I’m sure God will find a way, but I’m just trying to help you connect the dots.

It may sound complicated, but helping us fix our truck helps us transition into our new mission field in the States as well.  

So, what’s the bottom line?

The truck is going to set us back about $1500.  We have some funds to try and cover this but any help would be appreciated and if we get more than this we will just apply it to what it’s going to cost us to get settled in our new mission field.

Please send money to

Homewood Church of Christ

c/o Burk Mission Fund

265 W. Oxmoor Rd.

Birmingham, AL 35209

You can send checks to the address above or, if you like, you can just click the paypal button down here.

* - the actual statistic on thetravelingteam.org states that out of 140,000 protestant missionaries being sent worldwide 64,000 of them hail from the United States.