4 Misconceptions of Being a Mission Partner


1. "A mission partner is the same thing as a donor or benefactor." False! A mission partner is really a partner for the mission. I need partners because I cannot go on mission by myself. This means a mission partner believes in the mission of "Leading Teens Closer to Christ", specifically in Haiti. I don't want mission partners who don't really care about what's happening in the mission and don't really want to support it. I want mission partners who love the mission, care about it, pray for it, and are invested more with their hearts than their pockets.

2. "Mission partners just give financial support." FALSE! It is my hope that all mission partners are also prayer partners. Some mission partners are also prayer partners who don't give donations. These are often my favorite mission partners because I know they are making real sacrifices for me. I have had mission partners who take cold showers as a sacrifice, give up drinking coke or coffee, pray a weekly rosary, set an alarm to pray for me at a specific time of day every day, or even pray for me at night before bed with their whole family. These are huge blessings to me, and actually more important than any donation given.

3. "Mission Partners must have lots of money." This is not true. I have many, many mission partners who make big sacrifices each month to be a mission partner. Some are growing families where only one parent is working and some are even college students. I am super blessed when I know that a mission partner is making a sacrifice to support me. It reminds me that I am never on mission alone, and that I am not the only one making sacrifices for this mission.

4. "I just make a donation and that's it." Actually, I have some commitments I make to you too! I commit to praying for you. I commit to keeping you updated on how the mission is going, through emails and blogs. You may even get a little something in the mail every once in a while. It's more like we enter into a committed relationship, based on Christ. We are building up the Church together!

Thank you for the support that all of you give me. I could not be a missionary without you. I hope that you feel that you are really on mission WITH me here in Haiti! Thank you especially for the graces that God gives me through your prayers!

To become a mission partner, please donate here. Donations made before December 8th will receive a special gift: http://donate.lifeteen.com/saravasile/

To find out more info or to make a prayer commitment, please email me: saravasile@gmail.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Does it Mean to Give?

There’s something I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around lately.   I live in a country where people don’t have a lot of material possessions. They also don’t have a lot of food, and the food that they do have is not the most nutritious or balanced type of diet. Their houses are not great; they don’t have cars; many don’t have jobs. The question: What is my response? Many times, people here ask me for things. It seems that I can’t leave our mission base without someone asking me for my water bottle, my sweater, my shoes, some money. I’m pretty sure they see me as a rich white person. What I’ve realized recently is that in many ways, this is actually true. If you look at the big picture of the whole world and all of the people in it, I am rich, even though I am a missionary and I have to ask for money for everything that I have. I am rich, even though I buy almost all of my clothes on sale, and have many that were given to me. I am rich, even though my laptop is five years o
Read more

From Naivete to Growth

Image
I remember sitting caffeinated, late at night, in the library with a friend in college, talking about foreign mission. One day, we could live in Africa, we said over our lattes and laptops. It seemed a glorious thing to me, this missionary life in a foreign country. At the time, I wanted to travel. I did have a true and real desire to love and live among the poor, but the rest of it was a dream, built on nothing – I had barely left the country then. In fact, I don’t think I had ever met a real live missionary. I had heard about mission trips, but never been on a foreign one. My imaginary life was just that, imaginary. A little more than a few years later, I was moving to Haiti to start a mission there with a few other people from an organization that I loved. I don’t think I could have admitted it then, but it definitely felt glorious. I had read a few books about missionaries, met some missionaries, been on mission trips, been inspired by the passion, zeal, and sacrifice of others
Read more

Under the Shade of the Almond Tree

The air is fresh and clean up here.  Can you hear that? The sound of silence. The breeze moving through the trees. No traffic, no big trucks or motorcycles. Peace and stillness. Sitting outside under the shade of an almond tree. She has AIDS, we are told. She is frail, we can see. A man disappears to get us food from the garden. Bananas, sugar cane. A gift for our visit. A gift for the priest. We sit on chairs. She sits on the floor, in the doorway. The air is fresh and clean up here.  The silent mountain where death is coming but has not yet taken the one we came to see. So we sing and we pray and we talk under the shade of the almond tree, up in the clear, cool mountain air. The place that feels like Heaven, though Heaven is not yet here. Months later, we hear news of her death.
Read more