By Eric Miller
Do you ever receive requests for financial support from pastors or church workers from other countries?
The Global Mission office of the Church of the Brethren often receives requests for support from Christians around the world. Many churches also receive these requests, as do individuals on Facebook. Though we are blessed by God, we have limited resources, and therefore focus our resources on our partners around the world. We know and trust these partners to make good use of the money we send to them, and to call them to account if they do not.
No doubt, many of the others who approach us are worthy servants and deserving of aid, but there are also people out there who will claim to be doing the Lord’s work in order to enrich themselves. Even many of those who are well-meaning have a hard time being successful working on their own without the support and accountability that a larger organization provides.
In some cases, churches are supporting individuals and projects overseas that are well known to them. We praise God for the faithfulness of these churches.
Churches and individuals who are approached by individuals they do not know well may wish to respond in much the same way as the Global Mission office: “We are already supporting churches and projects around the world and/or in your country. Please understand that we are unable to support your project at this time, but may God bless you in your work.”
We also sometimes receive requests for Bibles and donations of Bibles and other books. Usually, we are unable to meet these requests. The costs of shipping Bibles and books is quite high, and the translations available to us are often not the best for those in other countries. We do sometimes support the work of Bible translation into languages that do not yet have a complete Bible.
We are grateful for the interest in people who wish to share the love of Jesus around the world and for the support that many individuals and churches donate for the support of God’s work around the world through the Global Mission office. We are also grateful for the churches and faithful servants who are working around the world. There is much to be done!
To contact me if you have questions or concerns: emiller@brethren.org.
— Eric Miller and his wife, Ruoxia Li, are co-executive directors of Global Mission for the Church of the Brethren. Find out more about the ministry of the Global Mission office at www.brethren.org/global.
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