FSM 406

CM/FM

11/03

Special Action FSM #23

Dear Family,

This article is by a team in a sensitive country, where it is not possible to give out the Word as freely or raise funds as easily as in some other fields. (The Homes in this country aren't able to use Activated and thus use Motivated, but in the vast majority of countries Activated would be the feeding of choice, along with the other GP and follow-up materials the Lord has poured out.) However, in spite of limited materials the Lord has led them into a follow-up ministry which has brought in good support, and which has also emphasized feeding their sheep the Word despite the obstacles.

We're sharing their experiences with you because they show how circumstances need not hold us back from giving the Word, feeding the sheep, and raising support. We pray their story will inspire you to ask the Lord for ideas and initiatives for your area, and that you are encouraged by this example of the Lord blessing the hard work of follow-up and faithfully feeding His sheep.

Love, WS

Our Beginnings in Follow-Up5

Secrets of Our Success5

Working as a united team5

Keeping the vision through the Word6

Growth is our goal7

Diversity of Ministries and Fundraising Opportunities8

Basic follow-up and tool distribution8

The place for tool distribution9

Seminars9

Deaf Training Center10

School shows11

CTP special projects11

Youth Leadership Training Program12

Speaking engagements12

Birthday parties12

Advertising in our color newsletter12

Grants13

How It Happens14

The initial meeting14

Hearing from the Lord for each sheep14

After the first visit15

Referrals—a golden key16

The goal is love16

No quick fixes16

Bringing People in Closer17

Gifts of the Word17

Hearing from the Lord for friends18

Prayer and healing for our friends18

Bringing them to CTPs18

Healing as a witness19

Bringing them to our Home19

Yearly appreciation party19

Organized Feeding20

The types of Word we use20

Our local newsletters21

Summary of our feeding program21

Records and mailings on computer21

Organized Donors22

Pledgers22

Occasional givers23

Less-than-occasional givers23

Corporate donors23

Provisioning contacts23

Advertising contacts24

New friends24

Schools24

Contacts and friends24

PR/media24

How we set up as a registered country-wide work25

Inactive file26

Tools of the Trade26

Presentation album26

Color three-fold presentation brochure26

Presentation video26

Uniform letterhead/envelopes/business cards26

Stock letters on letterhead26

Mobile phones26

Vehicles27

Databank27

Video camera27

Tips for Fruitful Fundraising and Follow-Up27

Avoiding the "fellowship follow-up" rut27

An abundance mentality28

Time to pray, prepare, plan, and phone28

The importance of little people29

Teaching people to give29

Goals for visitation30

Good stewardship with gifts received31

Young people as professional outreachers31

In the End …32

Dad on follow-up and fundraising32

(QUOTES IN BOXES THROUGHOUT)

(Jesus:) For years you have longed for a work that would grow, that would finance you. … The time has now come. … It's a multistage program, and will require time, faith, faithfulness, and hard work. (ML #3308:21-22, GN 908)

(Peter:) The Family's future is in feeding the sheep, doing follow-up, and building a lasting work. The Activated program is not limited to only the monthly magazine—that's just the first step. It includes personal follow-up in a major way. (ML #3308:41, GN 908)

(Jesus:) You are now leaving behind your days of humble beginnings and you enter the days of power—both of spirit and of finances and of influence. (ML #3298:125, GN 895)

(Jesus:) The God factor means that if you will put your trust fully in Me, you will lack nothing. It means that if you preach the Gospel, you will live of the Gospel. … It means if you are trusting Me and doing what I tell you to do, I will never fail to support you, even if I have to drop the support out of the sky.

If the Family will put their trust in Me, if they will claim My promises, if they will obey what I tell them to do, I will supply all their needs according to My riches in glory. It means if they will get out and do the "wenting," I will supply. (ML #3363:153-154, GN 959)

(Dad:) Now is the time to feed the sheep and follow up on them like never before, with Activated or any other tools you have available! Now is the time!

If you feed them, one day they will feed you! If you sign them up for the Activated magazine and keep them going on that; or if you're in a country without an Activated subscription program but you give them whatever follow-up tools and materials you can; if you're inviting them over for Bible studies, Church of Love meetings, or discipleship classes, depending on what level they're at—in the long run, this is going to make things easier for you! (ML #3348:16,41, GN 943)

(Dad:) You're going to have more regular support from these thankful souls, meaning you won't have to get out there and hit the streets fundraising as much. You're going to have more people on fire about witnessing and helping you distribute the tools, so that you won't have to spend as many hours out doing that, and can instead spend more time feeding and teaching a much bigger sales force than you and your family could ever be!

If you're faithful to feed the sheep—whether there's just one or two or there's a hundred—one day you'll wake up and realize that those sheep are helping to sustain and feed you and others. (ML #3348:42,44; GN 943)

Funded by Follow-Up

Building a Lasting and Fruitful Work in a Large Muslim City

By Gideon and team

Thinking that perhaps there may be Homes that are feeling the call to start a solid follow-up ministry, struggling with how to get started, or perhaps wanting to get their existing work more organized, our Home wrote this story of what we've done and how we do it, in the hope that others can benefit from our experience.

We are very isolated in our field, without regular fellowship, much visitation, or much experience in other follow-up works, so we pray that we don't come across as though we have it so "together," because we don't! In fact, if you visited our Home, you would probably find it interesting and entertaining to watch a typical day's organization and activity—i.e., the lack thereof. We don't pretend to know all there is to know on this topic, and much of what we write could well be something that is already being done by most.

There is diversity in our outreach ministries and a lot going on in our Home—but we are of average size: five FGAs, three SGAs, one senior teen, three junior teens, and ten children from JETTs to babies.

It may possibly be construed from reading this article that our Home is rolling in the dough, but that is not the case. On a monthly basis we fight to achieve our budget goals just as most Homes do. I can testify, though, that since we embarked on a follow-up-based outreach ministry in the post-Charter days of 1995, the Lord has blessed it, and on average we have been fairly consistent in meeting our monthly budget goals, living with a buffer and savings, and often having extra to invest in growth and development.

I pray that what we share here can be a help to someone else, and encourage your faith to believe the Lord's promises for His supply as you follow Him in feeding His sheep.

When getting down to the nitty-gritty of deciding whether to do follow-up or not, probably every Home asks themselves the question: "What kind of support will this bring in?" That's not a bad question, because the Lord often uses our financial needs to stir us up. But what are our priorities? Sometimes it can be easy to get our eyes off the goal of bringing in the sheep and drawing them closer to the Lord when we are too concerned about finances. Yet the need for funds is real and ever-present in our missionary lives.

Something we've been learning in our Home is that if the Lord can trust us in this aspect of life, in our being able to keep the balance of feeding the sheep while raising funds, then perhaps He can trust us to be the financial power He promised we would be, or at least to experience an increase in our finances.

We've had the feeling He may be asking, "If I let you guys get more finances, are you going to be more faithful to witness, and invest in the growth of your sheep and your work? Or are you going to slow down, kick back, and take it easy?"

Before I go further in this article, much of which pays attention to fundraising and support, I feel it's important for me to qualify a main, in fact, THE main goal—and that is to feed the sheep. As Jesus challenged all of us, "Lovest thou Me? Then feed My sheep!" That was always Dad's burden and exhortation to us through the years, as it is Mama and Peter's today. Dad always taught us that if we put the Lord and His work of feeding the sheep first, then He would faithfully supply. With that as the foundation stone of our outreach, then no matter how large we build our building, as in "Builders Beware!" (ML #309B, Vol.3), it will stand and flourish.

Our Home has diverse ministries and outreach activities, many of which bring in support, but the main focus of each ministry and our main goal with each person met is to see how we can bring these people closer to the Lord, the Word, and the Family. It is now the era of action, and we have the power of the keys at our disposal. The Lord has promised that He will lead us into bigger ministries and wider places as we obey His vision.

We believe that follow-up is a key to our moving forward. As Peter said in "The Family's Future and Expansion Program," "The Lord wants all of us to understand that the Family's future is in feeding the sheep, doing follow-up, and building a lasting work" (ML #3308:41, GN 908).

Pull Quote:

Our Home has diverse ministries and outreach activities, many of which bring in support, but the main focus of each ministry, and our main goal with each person met is to see how we can bring these people closer to the Lord, the Word, and the Family.

One further note at the beginning of this article is to underscore that although we work hard and we put in a lot of hours, our efforts are only a small part of the reason we see fruit. The point is that it's all the Lord who makes things happen. Especially in this difficult field, we've come to learn to lean heavily on Him for everything. Using the weapons of prophecy and getting our directions from Him, as well as praying desperately for people and situations to develop and ripen, have proven to be the keys to success in many of our endeavors.

Our Beginnings in Follow-Up

Our Home is in a large metropolitan city in a field that is 98% Muslim and very conservative. The Home was formed after the Charter, made up of people who had been living in various Homes together for the previous 10-15 years. Up to that time, our outreach had been almost entirely tool-oriented, and it was very fruitful. Some of the hottest video testimonies in terms of sales were from this field—500 or 600 per Home per month.

Having lived in the Philippines, taking part in the DF Revolution, and knowing what was in the Word on that, our post-Charter vision was to base our Home on a solid follow-up ministry in which we could really feed people and bring them along. We wanted to be able to support ourselves through follow-up because we felt that it was more fruitful as well as more consistent than other means of support. It was also much more productive and fruitful in the lives of the sheep, who receive more regular feeding in a concentrated follow-up program.

At that time the Homes in our field were supported almost entirely from tooling/sales, and although we didn't abandon tooling, it was a great step of faith for us to try to switch over to having much more of our outreach be based on follow-up.

The nature of our field is such that the English-speaking educated class is also the business class, and that was our target group. Being not only in a non-Christian country, but in a predominantly Muslim one, we knew we'd have to go slow and bring people along one at a time. We couldn't hold group meetings, as that approach hadn't proven so productive in our field. Our goal was to win "followers of the teaching" on an individual level.

When we started this follow-up program, it was a fight because we obviously had to keep supporting ourselves. But we heard from the Lord and He confirmed that we were going in the right direction, so out of the two daily witnessing teams we sent out, we committed one to follow-up and one to other tool-oriented outreach. That was our commitment, and we put the Lord on the spot, praying that we could cultivate pledged support from the people that we followed up on.

It took some time and it happened slowly, but before long we saw results and began building a solid group of pledgers who we would see regularly and who would give regularly. The Lord blessed this step, and over the years we've continued to expand this ministry until now we are almost fully supported by it.

Now, no matter what else we do, follow-up continues to be the focus of our overall witnessing. We have learned, and are still learning, that if we put the feeding of the sheep first, the Lord faithfully supplies our needs.

Pull quote:

We have learned, and are still learning, that if we put the feeding of the sheep first, the Lord faithfully supplies our needs.

Secrets of Our Success

Working as a united team

In evaluating our work over the years, one strength we can identify in our Home is that we all work together with a large measure of unity as well as a solid commitment to our field. We five FGAs have been working together here for the past 14 years as a team, and hope to continue to live out our days here. Much of that time it was with only our children and ourselves. We super appreciate the recent addition to our team of the three SGAs who have infused new blood and energy into our efforts.

(IN A BOX:)

(Mama:) Unless the Lord gives you a specific leading to be a roving missionary, then He probably wants you to find the place where your talents, gifts, and abilities can be used to the fullest, and when you've found it, to invest them in His work there. One advantage of committing yourself to stick in the place that the Lord has placed you is that you are able to work together with others who are like-minded in reaching the people of that city or area. It takes time for a Home to become a strong team, for each member to recognize and accept one another's strengths and compensate for one another's weaknesses. If a Home is constantly changing its personnel, it's difficult to bond into a cohesive team. (ML #2978:95, Vol.22)

Our Home operates on the premise that we care for the work and the Home as a team. Thus we all abide in the calling of our particular ministries and what we do best. This can be more of a sacrifice for some, especially those on childcare, which can be demanding on a daily basis but has its own rewards. As Mama once said, running our Homes is like running a small business, and each facet requires a lot of attention, focus, and consistency, which is difficult to provide if every day the schedule and ministries are juggled. But we all share in the labors of the other by enjoying the fruits of our work together, both on the outreach side and the Home side.

In this way, the outreachers are able to focus their full attention and stay consistent with their follow-up- and outreach-related work, which is quite demanding time-wise in order to be successful. Someone else focuses on all the business and the multitude of Home-care details that need attention, as well as helping with much of the fundraising activities. Others tune into the children and their schooling. The outreachers in particular are then able to have the time needed to properly attend to not only going out daily or working on the phones, but also to taking care of the office-related work that goes into follow-up—the letters, requests, mailings, thank-yous, praying and hearing from the Lord. Much of this gets done in the mornings or in the evenings after they come home from outreach.

It's not that the others don't ever get involved in doing outreach or going witnessing, but it's not their main ministry. With each abiding in his or her calling and being the best at what they're good at, we've found we can unitedly move forward and make the progress that we desire in building a fruitful work. In the end, everyone is happy that we all have a hand in things and benefit from the fruit of our labors together.

The JETTs and teens in the Home play an important role in the work, carrying a share of the load in the efficient running of the Home and going out as outreach partners in addition to their schooling.

Pull quote:

One strength we can identify in our Home is that we all work together with a large measure of unity as well as a solid commitment to our field.

Keeping the vision through the Word

We found that stirring ourselves up with the vision by reading the Word is essential; it stirs us up and reminds us of what we're here for. We try to have special devotions at least twice a month dedicated to reading Letters related to outreach and follow-up. The outreach teamworker prepares devotions with this in mind to keep us all in tune with the latest Word in this area.

Something that has provided great inspiration, vision, and faith for our entire Home has been to study through the series "More on the Keys!—What the Future Holds, Parts 1-5" (ML #3349, GN 942; ML #3351, GN 946; ML #3354, GN 947; ML #3357, GN 952; ML #3359, GN 956). This series has very feeding and strengthening promises to claim, as well as the Lord's guidance as to how He wants us to do our job. There are also amazing promises and direction from the Lord in the Letters about Activated and our Family's future.

We've found that it's important to encourage the follow-up and outreach people to get into the Word about their ministry and also to involve the whole Home in praying for people, and giving them feedback by sharing testimonies. Otherwise some folks who aren't often on outreach can tend to feel a bit left out. The folks at home are encouraged to pray for the outreachers and their appointments, etc., as that provides support so that those witnessing and ministering don't feel that they are shouldering the entire load.

Growth is our goal

Some indicators to judge growth by are if we are reaching the field and feeding the sheep, and the two go hand in hand. Finances, supply, good PR, and credibility are not the goal, but rather the fruits that result when the goal is accomplished. And that goal, as stated above and repeated here for emphasis, is the spiritual growth of the sheep, and their growing close to the Lord and the Word and the Family.

"Growth" becomes a key word, with our goal as a Home to grow in influence, credibility, outreach, and support, and our outreach goal is for each sheep to grow in their relationship with the Lord, the Word, and us!

It seems that in this era of action, the Lord is counting on us to really reach the world with His love and message. His promises of greater power to achieve greater witnessing and outreach are also accompanied by promises of increased financial supply and greater influence in the cities and countries where He has us. We have been learning that as we take the steps of faith to obey the Lord in establishing a follow-up-based outreach, He has been faithful to fulfill the promises of increased supply and influence.

Pull quote:

Finances, supply, good PR, and credibility are not the goal, but rather the fruits that result when the goal is accomplished. And that goal … is the spiritual growth of the sheep.

Perhaps a few examples of fruit from this follow-up ministry will be an encouragement. (All of the following are about people who are Muslims):

(Margie:) Mr. A. is an older businessman who owns his own company. We met him when we first stepped out to try to cultivate a follow-up-based work. He bought some videos on our first visit, and on subsequent visits we tried to feed him, but he was the skeptical type and showed little interest in the Word. He did, though, commit to helping us on a regular monthly basis, starting with a donation roughly equivalent to $20 per month.

He'd ask on every visit, "Why should I support you?" and challenge us to prove the worth of our work here. After one and a half years he stopped giving, but we continued to send him articles in the mail, and stopped in occasionally to visit him. Then about a year later he phoned us, asking us to please come see him. His wife had passed away, and all of a sudden he became very spiritually hungry, asking many questions about the afterlife, the spirit world, salvation, etc., and on that visit he finally prayed with us.

Since that time he has become one of the most faithful and generous of our monthly supporters, also giving additional gifts for special projects that we at times present to him. It is still a battle to feed him, but he is definitely much more hungry for the Word, and we often sit down and read the Bible or Treasures with him.

Mr. W. is a young businessman who owns an art decor paint company. We met him while provisioning paints for our yearly Orphans Summer Camp. He not only agreed to donate the paints, but also volunteered to come to the camp and teach the kids art classes every day for the week that the camp lasted.

This hands-on involvement in our work got him sold out, and from there it was easy to feed him the Word on a regular basis, as he was very receptive.

After some time we asked him to make a monthly pledge, and he has done so faithfully and generously for the past four years. He also prayed with us, and is now regularly receiving meatier Word. He also attends the "Motivated Leadership Classes" which are part of our Youth Training Program.

E. is a university student who we invited to get involved in our "Youth Volunteer Program." He started by helping with our Orphans Summer Camp, and subsequently got involved in some of our other community service projects, often bringing others of his friends along.

He recently moved to Australia to continue his studies and we received this e-mail from him.

I don't want to end this note before telling you that the time spent with you guys has had a deep and everlasting impact on my life. I not only enjoyed being with you, but also learned so much at the same time. My concept of life has never been this clear, and now I feel so good. Thank you for the wonderful leadership workshops and discussions that resulted from such meetings. I especially appreciated the discussion of the topic of "freedom." I have always loved my freedom, but could never find its true meaning. I wish I could attend more of your classes, and I will when I return.

Thank you to all of you for the inspiration you give me from your strong commitment. Thanks for bringing so many good things into my life. May Allah be with you in all the good that you do.

As a result of our getting more involved with people on a deeper level, our overall outreach has become more fulfilling and rewarding because we see so much growth and change in their lives. This provides a good deal of inspiration, as we try to keep the whole Home abreast of testimonies on a daily basis by sharing the happenings of the day over united dinner.

We have found that as we minister more deeply, people are more open and willing to minister to us in return. They often become keys to open greater and more effectual doors of opportunity. They are often more willing to take extra steps to do more for us personally or for special projects that we initiate, and they are more willing to give us referrals or introduce us to others of their friends, who quite often are people of prestige and influence.

We have taken some pains here to establish the premise that the main reason for doing follow-up is to help bring the sheep closer to the Lord. However, it costs something to maintain a follow-up work, and without losing sight of that foundation principle, let's move on to more aspects of fundraising and ways in which we've learned to make witnessing pay.

(IN A BOX:)

(Dad:) Good witnessing always pays! Good witnessing will never be wasted, and it pays off in many, many, many ways. It will pay now, while you are still there on Earth, and it will also pay later when you get Here. All around, you just can never lose if you witness! (ML #3134:29, Vol.24)

(IN A BOX:)

The place for tool distribution

Gideon: We know that the Lord blesses getting out the tools and expects us to do so. Something that is helpful to read from time to time is the message from Mama and Peter about the importance of tool distribution. (See "Get Out the Tools," a stirring message in ML #3382a:92-107, GN 978.)

With limited personnel, you can only do so much in a month. We've learned that the key to success in having a balanced outreach attack lies in prayerful planning and organization. We take time to meet at the beginning of the month, and then at the beginning of each week, to pray and plan together. Due to the nature of our field and present sensitive conditions, we don't do a great deal of street witnessing, office-to-office, or store-to-store, but we try to have a plan of attack for getting tools out in other ways, which are mentioned here in the description of our various ministries and activities.

We've also recently started sending out teams in the early morning to visit schools with the main goal to sell tools, get Motivated subscriptions, as well as to book seminars and shows. (By the way, this has been a fun ministry to get our JETTs and teens more involved in outreach.)

Diversity of Ministries and Fundraising Opportunities

Basic follow-up and tool distribution

Our outreach is basically two-fold with regards to our follow-up:

1. 1) to follow up on people we have already met, and
2. 2) to meet and cultivate new sheep.

Thus, on a typical outreach day, a team may have some fixed appointments, but then at other times may do some office-to-office outreach with the tools in order to meet new people.

We do go "freelancing" in between scheduled appointments, and in that way we meet many new contacts. Although at the end of the day it can feel somewhat discouraging if there was not much immediate fruit (e.g., not being able to meet the right people, bosses not in, or not as many tools out as expected), the real "gold" that often comes is the stack of business cards that the team collected of bosses who were not in or of others met while freelancing. We then follow up with phone calls and make appointments to see people who are now new hot leads. This often proves quite fruitful, as the managing director feels that if you took the trouble to come to his office, then perhaps you have something important for him and he needs to make space in his schedule to see you.

Likewise we are on the attack to get out Motivated, approaching it in a similar way to Activated programs in other fields, as it's a very Word-based witnessing tool for our field.

However, we've found it important to have many different avenues of witnessing and fundraising, to prevent being overly dependent on any one method. In any given month, if one channel doesn't come through, relief often shows up via another. We find we have to be desperate and praying for that supply, and the Lord seems to organize things to meet the need, with not all sources usually coming through at the same time. We thus have invested time in creating various ministries that are relevant to our field.

In addition to doing outreach, using the tools and Motivated, we have implemented and been fruitful in the following ministries:

Seminars

Over the years we have put together comprehensive teacher training courses on a wide variety of topics, particularly for primary school teachers. We also have courses for secondary school teachers, principals, administrators, and parents.

This has proven to be a very fruitful ministry, as we not only give relevant training, but at the same time include a lot of witness, especially in the handout materials. Each teacher that attends gets a Motivated magazine and many sign up for Motivated subscriptions. We also display and distribute our videos and other materials.

We have gained a reputation as "Master Educators" (and none of us have a college degree, only Family training!), and we are often sought after to conduct courses in schools.

We also hold a half-day workshop one or two times per month in a local hotel (which we provision). Tickets for these workshops are approximately $10/person, and we normally have anywhere from 25-45 teachers attending. This ministry has proven to be a very effective way of reaching women in this country, as 90% of the seminar attendees are women.

We also conduct "Leadership and Management Training" seminars for multinational companies and private businesses. Again, this is a good way to witness as well as to gain some additional income. For example, one multinational oil company asked us to put together a workshop on the subject of "Business Communications." This was a nine-hour course (three hours a day for three days) for which they paid us $400. Although the material was rather dry, we were able to put in feeding reading such as Reflections, which became the focus of group discussions, as well as tell about our work and make new contacts.

How did we know anything about "Business Communications?" Well, we went to a bookstore and purchased some books, as well as researched Family pubs on the topic. After learning about the subject, we made lecture material, overheads, and handouts. Although it was a lot of work to put together, it has paid off: The first course was such a success that the company had us repeat this course for 8 different groups of 20 people each over the space of a year, paying us the $400 each time. They've now called us again, asking us to repeat the same course again in this new year for other groups in their company.

(IN A BOX:)

A list of available seminars, on both education and management, is available on the MO site for downloading under the section on seminars at the following link: http://www.familymembers.com/activated/downloads/index.php3

These include all the material, overheads, handouts, cover letters, promotional material, and tickets.

Deaf Training Center

What began as a small cottage ministry many years ago with our son Zion, after Dad wrote "The Advantage of a Handicap #2" (ML #1937, Vol.16) has now grown into a full-blown ministry that attends to the needs of over 120 deaf students daily.

Six years ago, the Lord led us to take the plunge of opening and running on a daily basis our own vocational training center for deaf students. Two years ago a center comprised of three large office rooms was provided as a donation by a local friend, who furnished them and set them up as classrooms and an IT lab. One of the other Homes opened a second center in the country's second largest city, and thus we now have centers operational in the two largest cities of our country, with a vision for opening more in various urban areas throughout the country. We have hired and trained teachers to implement our teaching methods, and are providing free education to these needy youth, also assisting them in finding employment, etc.

We have an IT lab in each center, and the Lord has provided all the necessary computers for the kids to work on, with 25 computers in each center. Recently we were able to upgrade, as a local multinational company donated 35 additional Pentium computers for both centers!

The budget for running the centers is somewhat demanding, upwards of $1,500 per month, but it is a good appeal project as well as a good testimony of our work in the local community. For the past six years, the Lord has provided the finances to keep things running. We take visitors there, and they are visibly touched and impressed with our efforts and work.

A little example: Recently a businesswoman visited the center and then asked how she could help. She said that she didn't want to give money, but would like to help with providing some needed equipment. In response to our request, she then proceeded to buy us a 16-seater diesel Mazda van with air-conditioning! This was a total miracle and answer to prayer, as vehicles like these cost double in our field due to import taxes and other fees.

School shows

We have a multi-generational show troupe that does shows in schools and at private functions. The team consists of all our OCs, JETTs, and teens, as well as SGA Gracia and FGA Sam. We also have a clown team of SGA Mike and JETT Jo.

We started teaching the kids when they were just YC age to perform and project on stage, and over the years their team has grown and improved so that they now do first-rate shows for large audiences. This is a good ministry for the teens and keeps them very challenged, providing lots of fun opportunities to perform in many diverse situations. Many doors of opportunity for our work have opened as a result of this ministry, and we've met many top people through it.

We have a local sponsor that organizes shows in the schools, and then provides the stage, sound system, as well as a fee for each show we do. In that way, we have been able to do shows in hundreds of schools over the years, and now our show troupe has quite a reputation and following amongst the young teen crowd.

The troupe recently appeared on national TV as part of a concert featuring some of the top local artists, and, DV, we are soon going to launch our own CD and music video.

CTP special projects

We do basic fundraising for special CTP projects such as a benefit music concert and our Orphans Summer Camp. These can be very fruitful and a good way to contact new people and make new friends to follow up on.

We try to do these programs on a yearly basis, which shows our consistency and commitment to improving the quality of life for the beneficiaries of these projects. Thus, the donors are willing to repeat their giving for these functions on a yearly basis, and we've been able to cultivate some long-term supporters as a result.

We have mailed out request letters for special donations for events such as these. Funds raised in this way then usually cover the cost of the event, including funds to help towards the operating expenses of those of us who are working on the event.

For example, for the third year running we held a benefit concert for 3000 handicapped and underprivileged children. Our show troupe was the main performer, but we also had local guest artists. We provisioned snacks for all the children and guests, and overall it was a huge success. It was covered by all the local press and TV media, giving us good PR, and was a good fundraiser.

Our Orphans Summer Camp is an activity we have held for the past five years running. We have organized and conducted a weeklong summer camp for the 150 children of a local orphanage. It not only is a good fundraiser, but a very credible CTP that people very much admire and respect. We also got very good press coverage of this event.

We use these occasions to distribute sponsored tools. For example, at the benefit concert we gave out video libraries to the heads of each school that attended the concert, resulting in 250 sponsored videos being distributed. These special events give many of our friends a reason to give above and beyond their normal gifts, and increase their faith for giving as they see the resultant good effects. They grow in giving and in receptivity, as the Lord blesses them.

Youth Leadership Training Program

We have a number of young local volunteers who help us in our various projects, called our "Youth Volunteer Program." We started this program with just a few at the very beginning some years ago, and in this last year their number has grown to about 50! Two years ago we "officialized" this project by calling it our Youth Leadership Training Program.

These volunteers have been an invaluable help in making the Orphans Summer Camp a success for the children. At the recent benefit concert, over 50 young people came to assist us in all aspects of the event. They have been a great help to our work, and in a Muslim field such as ours, it's a great way for people of a different faith to get involved with our work.

We've recently begun to give training classes to these young volunteers, putting together leadership training materials from the Word, and holding classes and seminars with them. This has also been a good appeal project, showing that we are working hand in hand with the local community and helping to channel their youth in a positive direction.

Speaking engagements

As a result of our seminar ministry, from time to time we have been asked to be the guest speaker at a particular function, to give a talk at a college graduation, an inspirational message to businessmen, or most recently a presentation at a "Young Leaders" conference where guest speakers were invited from many top companies and NGOs in the country. This is a wonderful way to influence people and share a message, as well as a good occasion to make new contacts and connections.

Birthday parties

As a result of our show troupe's shows, we are often asked to do private parties and birthday parties. All the young people in the Home join in on these events, clowning, face painting, ballooning, etc. This is a good "reach the rich" ministry, as not only do we receive payment for the party, but also we are able to meet new people and make contacts—especially the wives of many top businessmen.

Advertising in our color newsletter

Sometimes people's hearts are in the right place, but they are not so ready to give from their pocket. We found out that often large companies can't justify giving outright donations, but they all have large advertising budgets which they are happy to give from if you have a place for them to advertise, such as in a newsletter, or hanging a banner at a seminar or event.

Selling ads has developed into quite a good ministry, because we found that a lot of companies that won't help any other way are willing to help by taking advertising space. Thus, while our newsletter is a good PR tool in that it has photos and updates on our recent activities, it also serves as a fundraiser through advertisements on the back pages.

Our advertising rates are $400 for a page, $200 for half a page, and $100 for a quarter page. So that's $2,400 in advertising space that we gain in one 12-page newsletter, with 6 pages of articles and photos, and 6 pages of ads. It costs about $750 to print, and that is a big expense. But thus far the Lord has touched people's hearts and we have been able to either provision the printing or get it sponsored. We use a professional layout company to do the work (provisioned), and print the newsletter on matt finish art paper in color, so that the final product is a good presentation of our sample.

When we do an event such as a benefit music show, summer camp, or seminar we have easily obtained sponsorship by requesting local businesses, particularly large ones, to hang up a banner at the event advertising their product. In return, we send them some photos of the event, which show their banner displayed.

It's important to remember to display the banners neatly and in a well-organized way, as it is their face to the public. Typical banner rates in our field are approximately $100-150 for a side banner, and $150-250 for a front banner.

Grants

We have been inspired by the vision and faith of the Family Care Foundation. The Fundraising Video which FCF produced some years back underscores the fact that though we may indeed be doing a great work and positively impacting many people who benefit from our efforts, we may need to learn to better present ourselves to the System in order to tap into funding that is available.

Over the past few years we have tried to pursue various grant opportunities that have come our way. When I say "opportunities," I mean the open door to make a grant application, as usually a company or foundation won't consider an unsolicited request; rather you need to be referred by someone who "invites" you to make the grant request—most often the local managing director of the company.

Making grant requests is quite time-consuming, as there is a need to explain and present the project, answer questions, provide financial details, background information, and other information. It has to be well worded and formulated, as well as put together in a presentable fashion. It is a long-term investment in the sense that it often takes many months, even up to a year, to get a response back. And many times we don't ever hear back!

We have made quite a few applications that were turned down, which can often be discouraging, as so much time was put into it. But we have also had a few applications that were approved, which was a great help, especially as we were able to budget the funds out over the year in order to meet the need for project expansion, improve our deaf centers, etc.

For example, some years ago we applied and received a grant from a large international foundation on two different occasions. The first year they gave $5,000 and the second year they gave $20,000! The following year they closed their office here in our country; otherwise we would most likely have continued to benefit from their program. It seems that once you have been accepted by a donor organization, they are often willing to continue with their assistance to your programs.

We also applied to a multinational petroleum company operating here, and for the past three years have been able to benefit from their grant contributions, ranging from $2,000 to $10,000 per year.

When we get a substantial lump sum like this, we try to divide it up in monthly allotments over the year to supplement our monthly income from pledges. In that way, rather than using it up in one go or just sticking it in our savings, we are using it on a monthly basis to fund our projects. This is a great boost in reaching our monthly budget, as well as good stewardship of the funds, in that it is clear they are being used for what they were asked for.

We have found that many international banks and companies have grant programs that they don't always advertise, but if you make inquiries you can find out about them. Although their funding decision-makers may be in the home country headquarters, they usually rely heavily on the recommendations of the local representative, such as the managing director or the marketing manager of the local company. Thus if you witness to and befriend these local representatives, they can be a great help in securing the grant request.

In addition to these projects and ministries, we do follow-up on a daily basis. Following is a description of how this takes place.

How It Happens

The initial meeting

The first building block of follow-up is that you have to meet people so that you can then follow up on them! Thus, the first step is just to start witnessing.

There's a process in meeting people: You meet them, present the work, show them your PR brochure or photo album, evaluate how much witness you're going to give them, and also if you are going to ask them to buy a tool or give a contribution at whatever level you feel they can. You make your request based on the level of that visit. The request could be financial, for provisioning, or maybe you're asking them to pray with you. That's where discernment comes in. Often when going into the offices of top businessmen, in addition to giving a witness, you are trying to make a financial request, or perhaps sell tools.

One thing that really helps is to have a credible project that you represent, and that's where CTPs come in. If you have a credible CTP with good documentation and photos that you can present, most people will receive you in the name of your good works, and that's the bait. Our main goal is to bring them closer to the Lord, but they'll often understand our motives only when they see our good works.

Having a well-made PR presentation—whether a photo album, brochure, or newsletter—can make a world of difference on that first visit. It's human nature that people often judge by first impressions and outward appearance, and that not only applies to the way you look, talk, and act, but likewise to the quality of your presentation.

On the first visit we also try to leave them with some Word to read. Recently the Motivated magazines were printed in our field, so now we leave everyone with a copy of Motivated and a subscription form, or at least a Reflections page. Their initial reaction to the Word often tells you how much of a sheep they are, and helps to prepare them for the next visit.

Every time we go and see someone on a follow-up visit, we pass on something more to read, and talk to him or her on whatever spiritual level they are. Due to the nature of our field, there are some topics on which we have to go quite slow, but then in other areas we can really give a deep feeding, such as the Endtime, prayer, and some other spiritual principles. As much as possible we also try to end every visit with prayer for that person, and/or their family. They have great respect for this, and it deepens our witness.

Pull quote:

Having a well-made PR presentation—whether a photo album, brochure, or newsletter—can make a world of difference on the first visit.

Hearing from the Lord for each sheep

Praying about each one before we visit them, or right after the visit, for direction for our next follow-up and for the Lord's insight into that person has helped us to make the greatest progress in our witnessing. At times we have received messages to share with someone that has made a great difference in his or her life. Or sometimes a specific article the Lord has shown us to share has opened an opportunity for a deeper witness and brought them closer to the Lord and us, as it was something that really hit the mark and what they really needed at the time. Sometimes there are details the Lord reveals that make a big difference in how we conduct the appointment. But we would have never known unless we had first asked the Lord!

(Susan:) We recently met Mr. S., the CEO of a bank. Although the bank had helped us occasionally over the years in a small way, we'd never been successful in obtaining an appointment to meet with him. But a little note of thanks directed personally to him, along with a photo of a banner that his bank had put up to help sponsor a recent event that we held for handicapped children, touched his heart. His secretary called to arrange the meeting.

Before going, we took time to ask the Lord for something specific that we could share with this man, and what we should present to him in this meeting. The Lord told us very clearly that he was a receptive person due to the fact that he'd been raised in a school run by missionaries when he was younger, and that schooling had made a great impression in his life. (We had no knowledge of this fact, simply what the Lord told us when we prayed. Although a Muslim country, there are various schools here run by Catholic missions and they have a reputation for quality education.) The Lord gave other details on how to conduct our visit.

Well, the visit went very well, and at the end opened the door for us to ask him for greater and more regular help. He was very open to this. Both he and his colleague, another bank officer whom he also had attend the meeting, shared how they had spent their childhood attending mission schools!—Exactly what the Lord had shown us! They went on to explain how that experience had favorably affected their lives and views.

They then asked us questions that prompted us to give them our personal testimonies and a deeper witness about our faith and mission in life. They were so touched that they asked us to please come the following week to give a lecture to all their bank officer trainees (about 40 young men and women) regarding our lives and motivation and goals. We did this and it was quite successful, with each of the attendees receiving a Motivated mag, and many sending in their subscription forms for further issues. Some of these young bank officers also offered to sign up as volunteers to help us in our weekly project at the children's orphanage.

It was amazing how all the points we had received in prophecy were right on. As we followed the Lord's counsel we were prepared to give a deeper witness in a situation that otherwise would have been a more PR type of meeting, as often happens with top executives.

Pull quote:

As we followed the Lord's counsel we were prepared to give a deeper witness in a situation that otherwise would have been a more PR type of meeting.

After the first visit

Our main outreachers keep an appointment book with a monthly diary in it. Immediately after meeting someone, they note what Word they went over, what topics they discussed, what response that person had, and whether they gave a gift. When they get home, the outreacher immediately sends a thank-you note, whether the person has helped or not. It can be something simple, such as, "It was nice to meet you, and we look forward to seeing you again some time. …" It's not always necessary to enclose some more to read in the first note, because they were given something at the appointment.

Then the outreachers have to decide when they're going to see that person again, because we often can't really discern much from the first visit. Usually on the second or third visit the person's potential and spiritual hunger become much more evident. So they again pray about that and schedule it and mark it in their diary.

Before the second visit, it's important to stop and pray and hear from the Lord as to what the goals should be for the visit. We pray about what goal to have regarding the Word we're going to give them, what would be the goal of the request we're going to make, and what would be the overall object of the meeting.

Many business people are time-conscious and goal-oriented, and they appreciate it when you also have a plan for the meeting, and you're not just wasting time or beating around the bush. Being prayed up beforehand ensures that you'll have some direction for the meeting. Of course if the Lord changes things, it's important to be Spirit-led, but being prepared is half the battle.

This doesn't need to take too long. Usually the outreach team will simply get together for 15-30 minutes or so to pray about and plan their follow-up meetings for the day.

After the appointment, they log in the results. It's a bit of work, but without recording those things, it is easy to lose track of what's happening, because you've got hundreds of people you end up meeting. If you are not organized and you don't stay on top of things, you lose a lot of potential people who fall through the cracks, which is a shame.

Pull quote:

We pray about what goal to have regarding the Word we're going to give them, what would be the goal of the request we're going to make, and what would be the overall object of the meeting.

Referrals—a golden key

A golden key in follow-up and winning friends is referrals. In our country, people do business based on friendships, and I'm sure every country is similar to some degree. If you're referred by Mr. So-and-so and go in with his name, it is a tremendous help in establishing a new and quick relationship with the person you're meeting. This is something that we've tried to make second nature when meeting people who are positive and responsive about our work—that is asking them for referrals. If people have helped we ask, "We're trying to meet new people, and trying to raise more sponsorship for our projects. Do you have anyone you know that we could go see?"

Also, when attending functions, seminars, or exhibits, it is helpful to get business cards from people you meet, calling them later to make an appointment.

This ties in with being kind and loving and concerned about each person you meet, even if they're not the big boss. We've found that it's often the "little people" such as secretaries or clerks who have the ability to open big doors.

The goal is love

When you meet people that give, and sometimes they are even generous donors because they're wealthy, we've learned that it's very important to reach for their heart and not reach for their money. People can discern very easily if you are thinking of their pocketbooks and not their souls. The Lord is always reminding us about that, and that is a big reason why we try to take time to hear from the Lord about the people we're going to go see. When their spiritual welfare is our motive, the Lord blesses it. It's not that we're ignorant of the other nor leave it undone, but it's not our first goal.

This interest in the person can be expressed in the note written after the appointment. After praying about some further Word to send, we write a little note along the lines of, "It was such an interesting conversation and I was reading this and thought you might enjoy it." Often they respond well to that and realize that you're sincere and you're not just another NGO [nongovernmental organization] looking for a handout.

As Dad points out in "Rags to Riches" (ML #211, Vol.2), it's the wealthy that are often the most burdened and afflicted with troubles, and they need ministering to.

Pull quote:

People can discern very easily if you are thinking of their pocketbooks and not their souls.

No quick fixes

A good lesson we've learned is not to give up on people. We've had friends on the line that hadn't really helped for years, but we kept feeding them and meeting them from time to time. Then suddenly they blossomed as faithful givers, such as in the case of Mr. A. above (pg. 7, column 2), who only gave rarely until a crisis in his life brought him closer to the Lord and us, and then he became a very faithful giver out of gratitude for our help.

As another example, there is a CEO of a top advertising firm here who has been helping us for years, and whom we have been visiting for years. We always have meaningful visits, but it was only recently, after all that sowing, that he finally prayed with us.

Having a successful follow-up work takes a good deal of commitment, consistency, prayer, and hard work. There are no instant results, but rather we have seen the fruit of lives changed as well as regular support for our work evolve at a steady pace that reflects our investment of time, prayer, energy, love, and persistence.

At times we have had the tendency to get lazy and complacent, and it's then that we've had to stir ourselves up and go on the attack to meet new sheep, develop new contacts, get out more tools, and pray diligently for all of that, which the Lord seems to bless.

It's like the story of the farmer who had the goose that laid golden eggs. The eggs were the fruits that provided his livelihood and were the result of his efforts to feed and care for the goose. But what if we, like that farmer, got lazy and just decided to eliminate all the hard work of feeding and caring for the goose and just went for the quick fix of getting that one goose dinner? It might temporarily meet the need, but after that what happens?

In our experience over the years, we have often met many well-to-do people who initially gave a generous gift to meet a need, but then due to lack of proper follow-up and feeding were lost or forgotten. It's those very people who have the potential to become solid kings and supporters; it just takes consistency and determination to bring them through.

Pull quote:

We have seen the fruit of lives changed as well as regular support for our work evolve at a steady pace that reflects our investment of time, prayer, energy, love, and persistence.

Bringing People in Closer

On successive visits we try to bring the people we are following up on deeper into the Word. We've had to work on not staying at a shallow level, but to stir ourselves up. It's a fight because we're working in a non-Christian field, which can lead to the tendency to pull our punches a little. But we've found that when we step out and ask people to pray, they are very receptive.

We read them the Word and we ask the Lord to give us personal messages for them, and they readily receive them! It's all pretty much one on one, taking each person where they're at, and being Spirit-led and not pushy. But we do challenge them to progress as the Lord leads, and it's very fruitful.

Gifts of the Word

We often give people Word gifts. For example, the "Mottos for Success" are super! We didn't sell this tool to all our contacts, but for many made it a Word gift.

Another thing we do is to print the poem "I Said a Prayer for You" in a nice font on brown paper, burn the edges, and frame it. The whole thing costs maybe about $1, and we wrap it and give it as a gift. People love this gift and many keep this prayer on their desks. These people believe in prayer, they believe in God, and when they see us, we represent something godly to them. It's a refreshing addition to their lives and they like it. We're always trying to give them Word gifts because that's meaningful to them.

Many of our friends keep file folders of all the materials we give them, and often share them with their friends and families, sometimes faxing or e-mailing the materials we've given them to others.

(IN A BOX:)

I Said a Prayer for You Today

I said a prayer for you today

And know God must have heard;

I felt the answer in my heart

Although He spoke no word.

I didn't ask for wealth or fame

(I knew you wouldn't mind);

I asked Him to send treasures

Of a far more lasting kind!

I asked that He'd be near you

At the start of each new day,

To grant you health and blessings

And friends to share your way.

I asked for happiness for you

In all things great and small—

But it was for His loving care

I prayed the most of all!

—Frank Zamboni (1901-1988)

Hearing from the Lord for friends

We take time to pray for people, receive messages for them, type them out, and give them to them. They're receptive to that and it's very special. We say, "We prayed for you and God spoke to our hearts," and we explain the principle. In Islam they have a similar concept called Istachara, and they believe that you can receive messages from God via dreams or visions. So they are very open to the concept of hearing from the Lord, and respectful of it.

Prayer and healing for our friends

As a general guideline, we try to say a prayer with people on every visit. In this way they become accustomed to us praying for them and with them, and they then feel comfortable to bring up prayer requests. We end our meetings with, "Can I offer a prayer for you and your family? Is anyone ill or having any particular problem?"

It's also quite miraculous to see how the Lord honors these prayers. We've had people phone us to tell us of healings of sick loved ones, or solutions to problems, which of course gives God all the glory. Although the concept of prayer is fundamental to Islam, the prayers have fixed parameters and words (similar to Catholic prayers), whereas people recognize in us a vibrant and intimate relationship with the Lord, and they acknowledge and respect that.

When we pray with them right there in the office, we often say, "We're going to put you on our prayer list at home." And we do! The outreach teamworker keeps an updated prayer list of all of our contacts' needs and we pray for them during our devotions and on prayer day. Then we'll call them, saying, "We prayed for you today. How is your wife's health?" It's that personal touch and love expressed through our involvement with them that goes far.

Mama talked about the ministry of healing not too long ago, and the Lord has said He was going to use it in our ministries in these days, that it would draw kings to us, etc. We've been seeing that happen in our work here over the years. Our friends know that one thing that made Jesus special was that He had a healing ministry, and they really respect that and it's a good avenue to witness and to reach their hearts.

It's really amazing how the Lord works in their lives in this way. Praying for healing is a big ministry we have—as usually they need healing, or someone in their family needs healing. We designed a healing tract, and it goes out well. [Editor's note: This healing tract is available on the MO site, under materials for ministering to Muslims: http://www.familymembers.com/activated/downloads/index.php3.]

(IN A BOX:)

Healing as a witness

By Jesus

You can have a ministry of healing—spiritual, mental, and even physical healing. Word of your gift will spread, and those in need will seek you out. (ML #3295:86, GN 890)

You will do the same type of miracles that I did, only more and greater. There will be more of you performing such miracles, and the news of such events will draw great publicity and attention.

Now, beginning today, I will enhance the gifts of My Spirit within you and you will see raised up from among you those who will perform miracles of healing, deliverance, casting out devils, foretelling the future, and eventually even raising the dead and calling down fire from Heaven. … The gift of faith that I have loosed within you will enable you to reach up and pull down miracles from Heaven.

This will be a key factor in the increase of the church, for those who see such miracles will follow after you—some for the loaves and fishes, but many out of sincere faith and a desire to love Me. This will also be a key factor in the increase of finances, for there will be those who are healed who will give all of their worldly possessions in simple thanksgiving. They will cast their wealth at your feet and make available to you whatever you need. They will know that their own treasures of this world are as dung compared to what you have, and they will be willing to count it all as loss, just to be in your presence and under your shadow. (ML #3349:45,47,49,51; GN 942)

Bringing them to CTPs

Something that has proven very fruitful in building our relationship with people is to invite them to visit our Deaf Training Center, or to invite them to attend one of our CTP functions, such as events we've organized for underprivileged children. Hearts can be touched there by our spirit and our love, and even by the quality of the organization of the event, as typically events here always start late and have many organizational lacks. These events help them to see that we are organized and effective and making a difference, which is something that Mama and Peter pointed out in "Reach the Rich" (ML #3400, GN 992)—donors want to see a successful operation that they feel comfortable to give to.

We've also brought people to our yearly weeklong summer camp for orphan children. Again, this is something that is very well organized and impacts positively on the lives of the children and the community, giving them something tangible to contribute towards.

Once donors have visited a project, they maintain that mental image of their visit and thus feel comfortable in entering into a long-term donor/recipient relationship with us, whether it is giving monthly, quarterly, or yearly.

Bringing them to our Home

We try as much as possible to have our friends and contacts over to visit us in our Home. In our field, if someone invites you to their home to meet their wife and children, it's a special show of friendship, because they tend to keep their wives and families tucked away. So when we invite people to visit us at our Home, it says to them that we consider them to be close friends of ours, which deepens and strengthens our relationship. Here, friendship is very meaningful to people, and gaining contacts and connections depends very much on who you know and who is willing to recommend you to others.

One king, Mr. R., has been coming to our house regularly once a week, every week, without fail for more than 12 years! We originally met him when he picked up a team hitchhiking in our early days in this field. Since that time he comes regularly every week for a Word class and prayer and he cherishes that time. And every week he brings an envelope with his gift for us.

His son, who was just a teenager when we first met, has since gotten married and now has his first child. Mr. R. asked us if his daughter-in-law could bring his grandson over for training, as he really admires the training our children get. Thus, for the past two years, she has brought her son over two times a week, while she helps at the same time in the toddlers' classroom and spends the morning in our house.

Yearly appreciation party

A yearly appreciation party has been a tradition in our field here. We have been doing it for the past six years, and people really look forward to it, often asking us early in the year if we'll be having our function and when. We try to do it at the end of the year, rolling up Christmas, the New Year, and Eid* (if it falls at that time) into one celebration. [*Eid al-Fitr: a Muslim festival that marks the end of Ramadan, the period of fasting.]

We have found that having this year-end celebration in our Home is more intimate and people enjoy it more than if it is held at a hotel, although we've done it both ways. We have a large garden area, and we provision a caterer who provides all the food in a beautiful buffet setup. The catering service puts up canopies and lights, provides a full dinner with waiters, cloth-covered tables and chairs, and it is very impressive. The Lord usually supplies all of that for free. Our show troupe puts on an hour-long show, which people really enjoy.

Last year we had 300 people attend the function and it was very fruitful. We put together a short 12-minute video presentation of clips from our work over the year, and it was very meaningful for our guests. Most of them don't realize how much we actually do in a year, and how many lives we impact. Seeing it all condensed like that can be quite impressive. The video this past year was quite rough, as we didn't have time to edit it properly and put in sound, so we simply showed the clips while I narrated it, but people still enjoyed it very much.

To show the fruit of this function and in particular of the video, we'll share the following testimony: A relatively new friend of ours had been a pledger for the past year, helping to sponsor our Deaf Training Center. His nine-year-old daughter had been begging him to please take her to one of our show troupe's concerts and introduce her to the group, but he didn't realize that the troupe was part of our team, thinking they were some new rock group on the scene or something. He wasn't originally going to attend our function, but when he found out that the troupe was us, he showed up with his wife and all his children, and his daughter was just thrilled!

Part of the video showed clips of the 35 very poor deaf children that we had recently begun teaching at the center. We'd been hiring a small van to take these kids to and from the center on a daily basis. While showing those clips I mentioned in my narration that we have a need for a large van to help provide transportation for the deaf students.

At the close of the evening, our friend came up to me along with two other businessmen who were friends of his that he had brought to the function without our being aware of it. He told us that the three of them were going to chip in together and buy us a van for our work. They were true to their word, and arranged to get us a beautiful Mazda diesel 16-seater van, which is now in our possession, PTL! This was the second 16-seater van given to us for the Deaf Training Center in a two-month period—a miraculous answer to our prayers over the previous year for this need!

Organized Feeding

The types of Word we use

As we work in a staunchly Muslim country, the Lord has led our field, with counsel from our CGO board, to use particular literature geared to reaching Muslims. This, along with a PR brochure, which we've designed for our field, is what we usually give someone on the first visit. (LNF: We now also have the newly pubbed Motivated magazine).

Thereafter, we always try to have something new to give when we meet someone on a follow-up visit. That takes a bit of thinking and praying ahead, but it's well worth it in order to hit the mark with what we feed people.

We have two large four-drawer filing cabinets organized with all the different publications and Word that we have. All the follow-up lit is labeled and organized so that the outreachers have easy access to what they need. In this way it is easy to find material to give people on specific subjects. Someone is in charge of keeping these files updated (a great ministry for JETTs and teens) and sufficient copies in stock. When new material is created or received, we set up a new file folder for it.

We also have a few of us in the Home who work on preparing the pubs to feed people.

Many of our pledgers and friends have grown over the years, and have graduated from reading very milky pubs to reading through Treasures, Endtime material, and some of the Activated booklets or portions thereof. All of them are staunch Muslims but are hungry for the Word. They keep what we share and pass it on to others, using our materials in speeches, presentations, company newsletters and publications, as well as for friends.

The outreachers each keep an accordion-type file in their briefcases with a wide variety of Word, so that they are "ready to give an answer to any man." They then have the Word at their fingertips and this becomes a very important tool in follow-up meetings, as you have what's needed at the time.

Our local newsletters

We produce a local color newsletter twice a year. It is 12 pages long, printed in color on glossy paper. We put a lot of feeding Word and articles in it, photos of our activities, and then fill up pages at the end with advertisements. It is a good presentation of our work, a way to feed people, and also a good fundraiser.

Each Home in our field uses this same basic newsletter layout, replacing the photos so that they show their own Home's activities. They raise advertising for their own newsletter. Thus only one person needs to do the layout and editing, saving all three Homes' time, but each Home can use it.

We also try to do a monthly or bi-monthly activity report, which includes a thank-you. It's a little touch-base letter, which includes a new Reflections article. We send that out to all our pledgers, occasional givers, and people who are close.

We also do larger general mailings throughout the year, which reach a greater circle of sheep. The Family in the Mideast has created the new Motivated On-Line for us in Muslim countries; it contains a very GP Reflections or Good Thots type story, usually one to two pages. It has been a super blessing to help us keep in touch with people and feed them on a weekly basis, as we simply send it out to our e-mailing list when it comes. We also send the Motivated magazine every other month, and a Christmas/Eid mailing once a year.

Summary of our feeding program

In summary, our basic feeding program to those who are close and consistent donors consists of several areas:

1. Feeding when visiting. This is best for more meaty and/or personal ministering.

2. Monthly or bimonthly thank-you letters, and feeding material.

3. General larger mailings throughout the year, encompassing a greater circle of sheep.

[Editor's note: In Muslim countries the Family isn't able to use Activated for the general populace, but in other countries signing up friends and contacts for an Activated subscription should be a priority, in addition to personally feeding them as much as possible according to the Lord's leading for each situation.]

Records and mailings on computer

We keep track of everybody we follow up on using a simple chart in MS Word. It works really nicely, because you can log in all these fields of information and have it at your fingertips. This is especially helpful when sending out mass mailings, as we can then use the mail merge feature in Word to insert the individual names into a letter to make it personal.

To keep this current and accurate, the outreachers have to log the info on their people into the database—we make that a priority. (Another great ministry for OCs/JETTs/teens.)

We have a group of files under which our sheep are categorized as to their feeding levels and spiritual receptivity. In this set of files they are divided according to whether their feeding is milky, meaty, weekly, monthly, Motivated, Activated, etc.

Organized Donors

In our records we've also created several categories according to how people give, such as pledgers, occasional givers, corporate leaders, provisioning contacts, advertising, etc. Everyone falls into a category, but it doesn't mean they're stuck in that category forever. From time to time we also have to evaluate and update our files, to keep them fresh and usable.

It's important to evaluate the lists of people we have in order to cull out the dead wood. Sometimes you might be mailing people for years, but they don't answer, they don't or won't see you anymore, and that has to be taken care of by sending a "last chance" mailing, and/or putting them into an "inactive" file.

We have about 800 people on our mailing lists at all these different levels. We keep them all on the line at least through the mail, if we are not able to visit all of them personally. When we have a special appeal project (such as a new CTP event or a special need), we can then call or see them without feeling that we haven't been ministering to them.

Every month or two we try to update our files—that's very important. All the outreachers usually collect a goodly amount of business cards during the month. We usually ask one of the OCs, JETTs, or teens in the Home to help us enter in all that information. It's time-consuming but important to get those people on file; otherwise it's difficult to be consistent with them, and to effectively utilize the human resources that you have developed.

Something to remember is that even if you can't personally meet with someone to feed them, you are showing up on their desk in the form of the mailing that you send, and in the course of a year that can be quite feeding. We've had very good responses from people that we didn't think needed a visit, or whom we didn't make time to follow up on for various reasons, but who commented back to us on how they appreciate the material we've sent them. This can be a gauge of their receptivity, and gives us an indication of how much time and effort to spend on a particular person.

Here is further explanation about the categories of our donors and how this works for us.

Pledgers

Our goal is to try to encourage the people who have given to our work, whether via a donation or by buying a tool, etc., to become a monthly or quarterly pledger. Thus, when someone gives the first time, we follow up on them a few times, and at some point discuss with them the idea of becoming a pledger.

One of our goals with the people we minister to is to ask them to commit to give on a regular basis. When we first began building up our pledge circle we would often wait a rather long time before asking someone to pledge, visiting them for a few months first. But since then, we've seen that we can ask sooner, sometimes even after just one or two visits. The key is to ask the Lord when to take this step with each person.

This category sees a good deal of change, as many times people have good intentions, but their commitment to giving doesn't always endure, so it's important to try to continually build up the roster here. We have found that pledgers often start off with giving only a small amount, but then after some time of their responding favorably, we ask them to increase their pledge. By that time they have been "fed and watered" a good deal and are usually receptive.

This is a slow process and at times can be a test of faith for us, but we've found that it does work and people are willing to commit. It's something that we also pray for at our monthly outreach meetings. At first we started with 2 or 3, which grew to 10 or 12, and we've now got about 30 or 40 monthly pledgers who give anywhere from $25 to $200 each per month.

This circle of friends gets visited each month when we collect their pledge, which also provides the opportunity to feed them regularly and more in depth. (In the last few months, after working on this article, we were convicted that we could do more. We made a special push to try to increase our pledge circle, and the Lord answered prayer, as it increased by nearly 30%!)

Occasional givers

These are people or companies that give occasionally but not regularly, i.e., two or three times a year. They like us and the Word and the work, but are either new givers or just don't want to commit to a regular gift. Nevertheless, if cared for properly (which means they don't get "over-asked and over-tasked"), on a yearly basis they contribute much to the work. Having a broad base of people in this category allows us to rotate the asking so we don't burn anyone out. Many of the people in this category, if they are new donors, are candidates to be asked to pledge on a regular basis.

We have a goal of trying to move people from the "occasional giver" file to the "pledge" file. We do this by asking them if they would like to make a commitment to give every month or quarter, rather than just spontaneously from time to time. Some agree and take that step. Others prefer not to, so you just have to take each one where they are at and work with them, and pray them into further growth. The goal is to help them all grow—first of all spiritually, and then in their giving as a result.

Less-than-occasional givers

These are similar to the occasional givers, but they perhaps will only give once in a year, and/or perhaps every other year. They like us and like what we do, but only fit us into their giving when it seems to suit them. This is still very valuable help, and with some care and watering such giving can often be nurtured into greater regularity. Even if they won't give more regularly, it's a blessing when that particular gift comes through.

Pull quote:

The goal is to help them all grow—first of all spiritually, and then in their giving as a result.

Corporate donors

In our field, these are usually large multinational companies, although we do also have some local ones that fall into this category. They often give in a large way, but at the same time take a good deal of PR and follow-up and a quality presentation, since you have to win the favor of the company and not just the individual that you are ministering to. (However, that same individual can often be the key person that the Lord has raised up to guide you through the system of donations in that particular company.)

Landing a grant from a large corporation or multinational company takes initial work in the form of drafting a solid request, as well as a good deal of follow-up and patience. But in the end, if it comes through, it is worth the effort. An example is the large gift mentioned earlier that we received from an international petroleum company. We just heard that they have included us in their grant program again for the year to come, and said that they will now continue to do so. So that's a case where persistence paid off.

Provisioning contacts

These are people who help with material goods. We don't often follow up personally on these people, but are sure to send a thank-you note each time they give, and to keep them fed through the mail on a regular basis throughout the year. In this way, if their help is needed for an item that you may not regularly request, they are open to helping because you have been in touch and ministering to them.

Advertising contacts

These are companies or individuals who don't help with direct donations, but justify their giving by utilizing funding from their advertising budgets. They provide banners that we can hang at events and seminars for a fee. Another way they help is by purchasing an advertisement in our bi-yearly color newsletter.

New friends

These are people who have potential but haven't yet given to our work. These are also new contacts we've made that have not yet been met or followed up on.

Schools

As we have a very active ministry doing educational seminars as well as musical shows, we keep a large file of schools. These receive our regular mailings, particularly the principals, and in this way we maintain good relations with them throughout the year. Many send their teachers to attend our seminars, and they also call us when they need our show troupe to do a school show.

Contacts and friends

These are people who are connected in some way, have helped and done something, but they're not willing or open to growing too close. We make sure they get something from us at least twice a year, such as a newsletter, or new Word, and a Christmas card.

PR/media

Our file of PR/media contacts is a very important one that we didn't pay much attention to earlier, but have since come to value. As our work has grown in our city, we have had favorable press articles that have gone a long way to enhance our credibility in the community. We have these media people on the mailing list to receive feeding materials, which helps to keep them favorable and open to cover events that we hold.

Last year I attended a seminar held by a multinational NGO entitled "Resource Mobilization"—a fancy term for fundraising. Instructors stressed that one of the weakest areas for most NGOs is that they don't cultivate good relations with the press, nor do they use the media to highlight their cause. They pointed out that good publicity is worth its weight in gold, and that the businesses of this world spend huge amounts on advertising to achieve credibility with the public. So it's worth it to go out of your way to try to gain favorable media for your projects.

They said that in many countries the press is very skeptical and unfavorable about NGOs or charity works, thinking there is some scam involved. But if you cultivate the media, they can be your best promoter once they see that you are really doing a good work.

In the past, based on certain mindsets and attitudes, we tried to avoid the limelight and shied away from involvement with the press. But in light of this advice, and as a result of the Word over the last few years where the Lord says the public will see and recognize our good works, we now actively seek the attention of the media when we hold events. We send out a press release inviting the press/TV to cover it, and make friends with them. As a result, we have had numerous very favorable articles about our work over the past few years. This has gone a long way in winning many new friends, who, in a field such as ours, are quite skeptical of foreign social workers and their projects.

Someone recently told us, "You guys get more good press than most any organization I've ever seen!"

(IN A BOX:)

(Jesus:) I call on the forces of David to begin to show their faces, to make themselves known in the media, to begin to cry aloud from the housetops of My salvation, to sing loudly of My praise, so that all might hear that there is yet hope in the land! … Proclaim My message and truth on TV, on radio, in print, and through the distribution centers of the media. For only there will those who have been captive so long, and who are so, so deep in captivity, hear of the hope that is yet alive on the Earth. (ML #3354:45­–46, GN 947)

(Jesus:) You will be thrust into the headlines. You've experienced media coverage before, and many people have heard of you, but in the near future you will become more famous than ever. You'll have more publicity than you've ever had. (ML #3349:88, GN 942)

Inactive file

These are all those who once were in one of the above categories, but who for some reason have since become "frozen books." We still don't entirely drop them, but we at least send them a Christmas/Eid mailing and/or some other mailing during the year in hopes of a potential revival. "For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again. … Though the root thereof wax old in the earth … yet through the scent of water it will bud and bring forth boughs like a plant" (Job 14:7-9).

(IN A BOX:)

how we set up as a registered country-wide work

By Gideon and team

In the years after the Charter, our field had only three Homes spread out in the three main cities of the country, with each Home operating independently and indigenously as far as ministries and projects. But in 2001 the Lord showed us to get registered officially with the government, and to unify our work by operating as one entity with three branches countrywide. (The name of our foundation reflects the counsel given in the "Conviction vs. Compromise" series, Part 4, ML #3364, GN 960, in pars.123-154.) This step took much prayer and counsel, and was the result of years of discussion and investigation into the idea. But we were encouraged with all that Peter shared along these lines in "That Banana There" (ML #3313, GN 917), and we took the plunge. Thus, for the past year now we are an official foundation, with three branches operating in the three major cities of our country.

Doing this required hiring legal help as well as an investment of funds and time in terms of setting up and fulfilling requirements, but they are steps which we believe will go far in helping to increase our impact and witness in the country.

Taking this step has created greater credibility, recognition, and acceptability, which is especially important because we are foreigners operating a charity organization. As a result, and due to further applications and much desperate prayer, we have now also received tax exemption status from the government, which has already opened the doors to greater funding opportunities.

There are many advantages we have discovered in working together in greater unity this way. One is that we are all part of the same organization, and thus can speak freely about the projects that each Home is carrying out as if they were our own. "Our colleagues in the northern part of the country recently conducted a training seminar for 100 teachers. …" We can thus have a more well rounded presentation when making requests for assistance, as our work is indeed reaching out to the whole country.

This has also bred greater unity between the Homes, and we try to help each other as much as we can in such things as sharing provisioning. Also, we recently made a grant request to a large multinational company that, if it comes through, will benefit all the Homes in the country, not just the one Home that made the request.

LNF: As I was writing this article, something very miraculous occurred. Due to the credibility obtained by getting registered as a foundation with tax exemption status, every member here on the field has now been granted a three-year, multiple-entry, renewable work visa by the government! This is a tremendous answer to much desperate prayer! Our request for visas had been pending for many years now, and we were basically here all this time without status, which made it extremely difficult to travel or to have legitimacy.

An additional dimension gained from our registration process and the fight for our visas was that we were compelled to obtain letters of recommendation from top people to show that we are indeed a credible and transparent organization here. As we had been cultivating and ministering to many people of this caliber over the years, each Home went on the attack, and we obtained over 40 letters of recommendation from prominent and influential people in the country who were willing to speak up positively for our work, which we then submitted in support of our request.

Meeting these kinds of people—government officials, intelligence agencies—is not something that we would have gone out of our way to do in the past. But this process has resulted in us making new friends in high places who are now willing to give us their stamp of approval. Again, this is a fulfillment of what the Lord has been promising over the past year or so, as we follow Him and His new leadings.

(END OF BOX.)

Tools of the Trade

Presentation album

It's imperative that each outreach team has a presentation album and that it is updated from time to time.

We have a cover page with a large title and introduction, and then the subsequent pages consist of good photos with very easy-to-read captions, not overly crowded to the point that it's hard to figure out what the action is.

We do a write-up of our projects in understandable language, so that in a short simple presentation people get a grasp of what we do.

It's also good to have a closing, as well as some recommendation and appreciation letters from existing organizations and individuals, thanking you for or acknowledging what you've done.

Color three-fold presentation brochure

Even though we have the 12-page color newsletter that we print every 6 months that shows our most recent activities, it doesn't explain so clearly what we are. So we created a small glossy four-color brochure that simply and succinctly explains our work. We had this done by a professional and it has been a great help in our presentation, explaining ourselves, and showing our face to the public.

We made a professional, seven-minute presentation video, which has been very helpful to show people. It took quite some time to make, but has proven a very useful and effective tool.

Uniform letterhead/envelopes/business cards

All three Homes in our country use the same style letterhead and business cards, which projects a professional look, and a countrywide work. This is important, as many times we show up in people's office first on their desk, via our letters, requests, then in subsequent mailings.

Stock letters on letterhead

We have various stock letters that we have designed for the different levels of donors. First is a basic request letter that we can give to most people. We also have a longer letter with more financial details that we give to multinationals or large companies. Then we also have a project overview letter.

Our teenagers help a great deal in this letter-writing part of the follow-up ministry, as the basic request letters and/or mail ministry letters are already created and formatted. They just need to mail merge the letters and addresses and do the mailing.

Mobile phones

An outreach tool that we have begun using over the past few years is mobile phones or cell phones. Although costly to use in our field, they have helped our outreach to be much more fruitful and efficient, as we can get in touch with people while we are out, confirm appointments, arrange meetings, and so on. Having our own vehicle and cell phone makes us a "businessperson" for the Lord—bringing our ranching up to date.

Often we have a real problem in our field with people we're going to see not being so diligent with appointments. You show up at their office and they're not there! It's very frustrating and wastes time and money. So having a cell phone has enabled us to call people ahead of time to confirm appointments. The cost of the phones and their operation is more than offset by the improved communications and time saved.

Vehicles

Another helpful investment was to get more vehicles so that the outreach teams have a car to travel in rather than just going on a bus or in a taxi. Things can be somewhat rough here transport-wise, since buses are not safe, and often the heat, dust, and dirt can be real hindrances, so this need may be particular to our field. The vehicle gives a place to pray and counsel, phone, eat lunch, and becomes that team's mobile office for the day.

Databank

Each outreacher has his or her own databank to log their contacts and phone numbers on (with a key code for security) because they can lose track of so much info. So besides the computer files, they have their personal records at their fingertips.

They each also use a small weekly calendar diary notebook in which to write appointments and any other notes.

Video camera

A digital video camera is best, but anything is good. We try to get clips of all the events that we do during the year, such as the Deaf Training Center, seminars, our Orphans Summer Camp, shows, etc. Then at the end of the year we put together a small visual presentation of our work for our friends. Seeing it all flash before their eyes in a ten-minute show really gives them the vision and touches their hearts.

Tips for Fruitful Fundraising and Follow-Up

Avoiding the "fellowship follow-up" rut

A pitfall to doing so much follow-up is the "fellowship follow-up" rut. Sometimes it can be easy to do follow-up, as opposed to hitting the streets or asking the Lord for a new spot to go for the day. The appointments are fixed, people know you're coming, they're already friendly, you're going to have a cup of tea and chat—no sweat! Sometimes this can get very comfortable, and it's easy to settle into a mode where you are meeting the same people often, but it's not bearing that much fruit.

So it's important to always be evaluating where things are going with your friendships and follow-up, asking the Lord about the direction He wants it to go in, and the depth of the witness He wants for a particular person. What can sometimes happen is that outreachers find themselves losing the faith to step out into new territory and pioneer, but they keep themselves "busy" full time—seeing people over and over again, some of whom are not really worth that much time.

This is an area where it is important for the outreach teamworker to get involved, and check on who is being seen, what progress is being made with them, and what new areas can be developed in order to meet and minister to new people.

An abundance mentality

We've found that we have to fight the "scarcity mentality" and replace it with an "abundance mentality." We need to be like the shoe salesman in Africa who saw that "everybody needs shoes!" and thus ran out of stock and had to reorder, as opposed to his predecessor who wrote home that "nobody here wears shoes" and thus gave up and quit. (See Good Thots #2, pg.1577:474.)

One concept that we've had to overcome in our follow-up that Mama talks about is that sometimes we're out there with the mentality of, "Oh, excuse me for living! Can you just give us a little help, please?" We have to remind ourselves that we have the best work in the world. Look at professional fundraisers! They go out and raise millions of dollars—and our cause is better! So we have to have that kind of faith and conviction.

We pray and we counsel together in the Home about our sheep: "What about Mr. So-and-so? Do you think we could ask him to change from an occasional giver to become a pledger?" "How big of a donation can we ask of that company?" It's all about having that kind of boldness and not being so shy about talking about money. They know that if you're doing a charitable project, you have to raise funding for it.

FCF has set a good example of having this bigger vision, and via their sample, newsletters, bulletins, and other communications they have helped us, as an FCF project, to view our work as meaningful and relevant in the broad picture of the NGO/volunteer world, and thus worthy of support. Their Fundraising Video, as mentioned earlier (pg.13), has some very good practical tips, but more importantly, it helps to create a bigger vision, and from that vision comes additional faith.

We also try to have a "whole area" vision when asking for goods or even funding, especially when approaching a large business or multinational company, keeping in mind to ask for all three Homes in our field. This has brought unity and also increased our faith to ask big, resulting in helping to meet the needs of all three Homes in the area.

Time to pray, prepare, plan, and phone

A challenge when majoring on follow-up is making full use of the times in your daily outreach schedule when you don't have fixed appointments and you don't know where to go. We've had to get out of the mentality of "We have to be out of the door by this time to start outreach no matter what." That might have the appearance of efficiency in terms of having the motor running, but it is very inefficient if there is no direction to channel all that energy—and thus ineffective!

In the past, when we were doing a daily tools-to-any-open-door type of outreach, it was important to get out the door and get to work. But in a follow-up type of ministry, it's more important to stop and pray and counsel together and plan the work for the day. At times this might involve staying at home and working on the phone to set up appointments, and/or preparing for appointments that are upcoming so that they will be quality time with the sheep.

We usually try to have at least one person daily on the phones, as so much can get done in preparing ahead for the teams that are going out. We usually have an average of two teams on outreach daily, but sometimes we find it is more fruitful to have one team out and the other doing work at home. Of the two people at home, one is on the phone and the other is working on preparing materials, organizing, making request letters, etc.

On the first day of the week more often than not both teams are home phoning and arranging appointments for the week, praying and getting organized. This time spent sharpening the scythe is very effective and fruitful in terms of overall results.

When there aren't appointments to set up, then we work on calling the people whose business cards the outreachers have collected but have not had time to do anything about. We have different envelopes set up for these business cards, such as: "Follow up," "Not met yet," "Potential advertising for newsletter," and so on. There's tremendous potential there, because a lot of times you get a card and you don't even remember where it came from, and it lies fallow without getting attended to.

We've found it works best to be very straightforward on the phone as to our reasons for wanting to speak to the director or CEO. "Hello, this is Margie from [your Family branch name]. We do a volunteer work here in [city name], and we've been meeting with business leaders in the community to discuss some of our community service projects. We'd like to see if it'd be possible to make an appointment." You say that first to the secretary, and if she refers you to the boss, then you say the same thing to him. You've called him a business leader by inference, even though you don't know what he is, and you're letting him know he is important.

If we don't have their cards, sometimes we call cold from the telephone directory, again with the same approach. When using the directory, look for the big ads because they are most often the big companies. The same applies to keeping an eye open for companies that advertise in the newspaper, especially new ones that are opening. We have found that the advertisements in the local magazines are a good source of new contacts.

The importance of little people

An important point to remember in reaching the top is not to neglect the seemingly little people the Lord places in your path. We always carry with us Motivated mags, Reflections, tracts, and try to make sure to give these to the secretaries, assistants, and others we meet along the way. They can often be the key to getting in to see the boss, and/or instrumental in bringing through a donation or request.

For example, not too long ago we received a donation of a used Toyota Corolla car in excellent condition from one of the large petroleum companies operating here. This was the result of a sweet meeting with a seemingly insignificant secretary in the company who we took time with, and later submitted a request letter for assistance via her. We didn't ask for a car; we didn't even know they gave cars away. We simply turned in our general request letter for her to pass on to the country manager, who we had been trying to get an appointment to see but never did. But this secretary pushed the whole thing through on our behalf. We had pretty much written it off as a closed door since we hadn't heard anything further from the company, when all of a sudden, six months later, she phoned us to say that they had a car for us! You can imagine how surprised and thankful we were.

Teaching people to give

If you're only going in and feeding the sheep, but they're not doing anything in return, that's not always the right balance. The concept of teaching them to live by teaching them to give is very valid.

We also had to come up with ways to make it easy for people to give. Having an appeal project is ideal, as our donors often get the vision to give more easily if they can see visible projects. And along with their support of the actual CTP is the support of the CTP worker: We explain to our donors that part of funding a CTP project is the support of the workers who organize the project. By explaining this at the onset, you avoid the possibility of donors thinking that you're being dishonest or fraudulent if part of the support they give for a CTP project goes to support your workers (your Home).

This is basically what happens with many NGOs who hire "consultants" to make their projects happen. We often use the term "consultancy fees" to cover our time and involvement in the project—creating, teaching, training, and providing the hands-on labor and experience that is vital to the success of the endeavor.

So we raise funds not only for the particular project itself, but also as remuneration for the expertise, time, and work put in by our individual members. NGOs, especially large ones, pay high monthly salaries for their foreign consultants, experts, and project managers, without whose input the project would never get off the ground. So that principle can be applied to us, especially as we are donating all of our time and energy as non-salaried workers. In this way CTPs are great fundraisers as appeal projects, providing good support for us who are managing them.

Our CTPs also provide a way for people to get right in there and help us as volunteers, which teaches them to give in non-material ways—of their time, energy, and encouragement.

We found that each outreacher had a different way of approaching people and presenting the work, and that often their spiel wasn't so consistent or clear, with the result that the people we'd meet didn't always understand what it is exactly that we are doing here, or what our goals and projects are. Because of this, we often wouldn't hit the mark in reaching them or soliciting their help.

In order to be clear and focused in explaining our work, we took some time to sit down together as a Home and pray and ask the Lord to help us to define our presentation. We spent time analyzing and organizing our activities, giving names and labels to the various projects and good works that we do. This resulted in our final presentation brochure, in which we illustrate and explain our projects.

Having this handle on things along with the resultant brochure gave our outreachers more clarity in their presentation and ultimately more confidence in approaching directors and company officers about the work we do and its value to the community. It took a good deal of time and prayer to boil things down to this "simple" presentation and brochure, but now, in a glance someone can see who we are and what we do, as it is presented in a nutshell.

We explain that we have our main CTP (the Deaf Training Center that runs on a daily basis), but that we also regularly organize special events, such as the weeklong summer camp for orphan children, or the benefit music concert for handicapped and underprivileged children. The special events are good appeal projects, yet don't bog us down unnecessarily with overcommitment to CTP-type ministries. From the special appeal letters to find sponsors for these, we not only raise funds which help our donors grow in their giving, but we cultivate new contacts.

Goals for visitation

Our follow-up goal is to see our pledgers at least once a month, as well as to send them a monthly mailing. We have too many to be able to see them more often than that, and sometimes seeing people too much can be overkill. We try to have one outreach team who really concentrates on that aspect, and then the other outreach team works on meeting new people and developing new contacts.

It's important to stay on the attack to meet new people, as it makes room for the Lord to work, and our ministry goes further, and in the Home it keeps the inspiration level high as well. We also try to visit our occasional givers at least once every two to three months.

[Editor's note: Getting out regularly to sell the tools and Activated subscriptions is one of the best ways to meet new contacts who you can follow up on spiritually and who can eventually become regular donors.]

Good stewardship with gifts received

Good stewardship is an important part of our ministry, and is something Dad taught in such Letters as "Kings" (ML #212, Vol.2). We give donors feedback through thank-you letters, explain how we invested their gift, and thus give them a return on their investment. It's also important to be honest with people and not misuse their gifts.

One time many years ago after first arriving in the field, a new friend whom we had recently met came into some extra funds, and he joked that he was going to bring us the equivalent of about $5,000—which for us, living hand-to-mouth, was a huge donation. He came the next day for his visit, and as he was leaving he handed me a shopping bag—a brown paper sack, with the words, "Here's your little gift!" I opened it up, and there were these stacks and stacks of bills, just like in a movie.

So we went and counted it, and found there was more than he said.—There was one extra bundle of notes. We thought, "Should we keep it?" We counseled together and prayed about it (it was a pretty real temptation at the time), and decided that it would be best to be honest, and that we'd better let him know.

We told him the next day and he said, "I'm really impressed, because I did that on purpose to test you to see what you would do!" Whew! Thank the Lord we passed the test. And He honored our doing so, because the very next day that same friend brought over a car and gave it to us to use for as long as we had the need, which we did for the next two years until we closed that Home.

Young people as professional outreachers

Here's a reaction from an SGA in our Home, whom we asked to write up a few paragraphs about getting involved in outreach:

(Matthew:) Up until about 10 months ago, in my former field, my ministry was basically handyman and filling in wherever there was a gap in the schedule. That meant occasional outreach, home jobs, CTPs, and then nursery once I became a father. I had been challenged before to take up the torch with full-time outreach and follow-up, but I was very apprehensive and tried to avoid it. I felt like I would need years of training, and frequently compared myself with the other successful outreachers in my Home, feeling that I came up quite short. My wife and friends would often tell me to take the plunge and delve full time into the realm of outreach, but I was afraid to step out into the unknown.

Changing fields was a big step, but it was very good as I wanted to break out of my ruts and I knew the Lord had new things for me. I was impressed by the way the Home here had built a solid and financially stable work—a work that was growing and expanding consistently with only a small team working faithfully for many years. Though there were a lot of funds to bring in every month (to cover not only our own Home expenses but also the running of our Deaf Training Center), I saw that it was mostly coming in from pledgers and follow-up, which was the fruit of their faithful years of labors.

Almost right from the start, I began going out as a partner with the FGA veterans, for which I was thankful as it gave me a chance to watch and learn. It was an apprenticeship that prepared me for stepping out on my own to pioneer meeting new people and contacts. The sweet and simple sincerity of the people here impressed me right away, and I learned a lot about how to witness and minister to people in a Muslim field. I have not only learned how to present our work in terms people can relate to, but I am also learning how to fundraise and follow up on the ones I've been meeting.

It's been very exciting and fulfilling, and the Lord has been encouraging me with lots of good fruit. Of course it's also a lot of work, as going out daily has its own set of challenges. But the results give me a great deal of satisfaction—to know that I am part of really making a difference in people's lives.

For example, the other day I went to meet a man whose address and number I had picked up from the phone book when calling different companies "cold," looking to make new contacts. My wife and I went to meet him, and after presenting our work and talking with him a bit, he immediately committed to helping on a monthly basis, giving us his check then and there.

On another occasion not long ago, I followed up on someone I'd briefly met, and they also committed to making a contribution, and so liked the "Mottos for Success" that they are now in the process of ordering 2,000 pieces.

Our Home was on a "gain pledgers" attack this past month, and via my outreach efforts we were able to gain four committed new pledgers, which was very encouraging for me personally.

In the End …

We have found in doing follow-up that, as Dad always taught us, quality is much more important than quantity—and to get it we've learned that we have to be willing to slow things down and invest prayer and counsel and time in our efforts.

Stopping to pray more, but then really hitting the bull's-eye with the ones you go to see is much more worthwhile than the attitude of "Oh, my God! Hurry, we have to get out the door!" But if people don't know where they're going or don't have a vision and direction for what they're going to do, they can just end up piddling along, and easily get discouraged without quality fruit.

On the other hand, if we spend the needed time in preparation, He has promised to "bring us into a wealthy place" (Psa.66:12b).

Dad on Follow-Up and Fundraising

(Dad speaking:) They that preach the Gospel shall live of the Gospel. That's God's Word on it and that's the fact. If you are faithful to actually do God's work of ministering His Word to the hearts of those He leads you to, then those very same hearts will minister to your need too. It's nothing to be ashamed of.

Everybody has to work for a living. And your particular work is to feed hearts, to comfort hearts, to heal hearts, to give answers to hearts, to help hearts grow, to help them become happier. That's your job, that's your ministry, and if you are faithful with that ministry, God's Word says you will be supported for it.

So don't be ashamed either of what you do or of the fact that you have to get paid for it. If you are faithful to sow the seed, then to water and nurture that little plant, then the time will come when it will begin to bear fruit. Then what do you do? Do you let that fruit rot and fall to the ground? Of course not! You pick it. You harvest it.

Remember, after every time of planting comes a time of reaping, a time of harvest. So neither be ashamed of what you do, nor afraid to pick the fruit when it shows up. It is yours! It's yours for the picking!—But be faithful to do the picking. Be faithful not only to sow, not only to water, but also to pick that fruit. Keep your priorities straight; be sure you pursue your main goals first—that of feeding and watering hearts. But then hand in hand with the feeding and the watering is the reaping.

Be faithful with those first goals, and then when the time comes, be faithful with the secondary goals, and you will have a fruitful ministry that supports itself. That's the way the Lord made it! "They that preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel," and "The laborer is worthy of his hire" (1Cor.9:14, Luk.10:7). Just remember those two things when you go out ministering.

But most of all, remember what your main job is—to reach and save and heal hearts. And while you're remembering, remember also that you are amongst the very few who have this most important ministry of healing hearts. So really, amongst all the businessmen and wealthy people of the world, amongst all the jobs and everything a person can do with his life, you have chosen what is the most important, essential thing that a person could possibly do—to help hearts.

Be proud of it. Realize the importance you have on the world scene. Do your job faithfully and well, and you will be rewarded with abundant resources and supply, not only in this life but also in the life to come. However, it doesn't necessarily always happen automatically or magically. Just as with anything in this life, you have to work at it. But if you are faithful and diligent at your jobs, the Lord will definitely bring the increase. Praise the Lord! He never fails!

Cover by Jeremy

(Family members use pen names for their contributions to this article.)

Copyright © 2003 by The Family

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