Mission Housing – Part 5
Missionary Housing Budgeting
If you have missionary housing, recognize that things are not going to go as planned. There will be a time when a missionary does not clean the rooms to your standards, a towel is going to mistakenly find its way into a missionary’s luggage, something is going to be broken, a wall is going to get scratched, and the carpet will get stained. Repair, replace and repaint will always be an issue, just like it is with the rest of the rooms in the church. When things go wrong, remember missionary housing is worth it. Every night a missionary stays in your rooms, they are saving hundreds of dollars. The money you save them helps them stay on the road to raise the funds to get to the mission field or to return to the mission field.
My children are grown now, but I remember what family vacations were like. Our three children were in the back seat of a car filled with as much stuff as we could pack into it. To begin the vacation we drove all day, or for two or three days, to get to our destination. We stayed in cheap motels where we were all in the same room trying to sleep on lumpy mattresses. We got up and drove the next day tired and cranky. We were always glad to get home to our house with our beds and our routine. Even with those memories, it is hard for me to imagine what it is like for a missionary to be on the road for two or three years! When I became a pastor, I wanted to provide our missionaries with the best accommodations I could. It wasn’t that missionaries were complaining about being on the road or about bad treatment at churches. For the most part, I only heard good stories of great treatment from missionaries. I just could not imagine being on the road with my family for that long a time and still being sane. So, when missionaries came to my church I just wanted to be as big a blessing to them as I could. We did not have the perfect or the best missionary housing available to missionaries, but we did get better.
We put our missionary housing in our budget so we could do all the repairing, replacing, and repainting as needed. We recruited volunteers to clean the rooms when a missionary left and to do the touch up needed just before they arrived. Our volunteers were thrilled to get to be the one to clean rooms for people who had given their lives to reach people around the world. It was a ministry to them.
These blogs have not covered everything, but I pray that they have helped you in your desire to be a blessing to missionaries by providing the best missionary housing you can. If you have any comments or ideas to share, please contact me at aboundms@gmail.com