questions on supporting a missionary

[gym_class_hero]

Hello. We've never supported a missionary personally before. A young man visited us last night and we are going to support him to Africa but I was surprised when he said he has to raise 4800.00 per month for support. That seems high but I don't know much about it. Is that in line with your experience? Thank you.

 

[Radagast]

Hello. We've never supported a missionary personally before. A young man visited us last night and we are going to support him to Africa but I was surprised when he said he has to raise 4800.00 per month for support. That seems high but I don't know much about it. Is that in line with your experience? Thank you.

That doesn't seem high at all. The support amount has to cover living expenses, transport, health care, and all the resources needed to do the job.

 

[Sarah G]

That seems high to me. I tried to google it a bit and I could go on a six month missionary trip to Africa for $2600 plus my flights, vaccines, visa costs, travel insurance. Maybe you can google a little and try and see what is average. It seems like some of them are really just profit making schemes where people are paying $1800 for eight days to dig holes in a country where the average daily wage is $2. I am pretty sure they have people that can dig holes! I guess people are paying for the privilege of the experience and to be able to tell people they did it. I feel like supporting something like Open Doors which trains native people already within the country to preach the Bible effectively or begin churches is more worthwhile but heyho, that's my opinion.

 

[Radagast]

I feel like supporting something like Open Doors which trains native people already within the country to preach the Bible effectively or begin churches is more worthwhile but heyho, that's my opinion.

The most useful missionaries to send are probably the ones with specialised skills that are difficult to find in the local church. But there are still substantial unmet needs in that category.

But to put finances in perspective, Missionary Aviation Fellowship sends pilots to fly doctors, local pastors, and other missionaries in and out of remote areas in Africa. Necessary support is around $8,000 per month.

The average American missionary family needs between $4,000 and $5,000 per month. This would cover living expenses, housing, transport, health care, education of the children, and the resources needed to do the job (medicines for medical missionaries, computers for Bible translators, schoolbooks for teachers, etc.).

 

[Sarah G]

The most useful missionaries to send are probably the ones with specialised skills that are difficult to find in the local church. But there are still substantial unmet needs in that category.

But to put finances in perspective, Missionary Aviation Fellowship sends pilots to fly doctors, local pastors, and other missionaries in and out of remote areas in Africa. Necessary support is around $8,000 per month.

The average American missionary family needs between $4,000 and $5,000 per month. This would cover living expenses, housing, transport, health care, education of the children, and the resources needed to do the job (medicines for medical missionaries, computers for Bible translators, schoolbooks for teachers, etc.).

Oh yes I see. I hadn't realised we were talking about a highly skilled individual travelling with his entire family or the costs of computers or medicines. I had more the idea of personal living and travel costs for one individual. I can see how the costs could be very high in the instances you give.

 

[Radagast]

Oh yes I see. I hadn't realised we were talking about a highly skilled individual travelling with his entire family or the costs of computers or medicines. I had more the idea of personal living and travel costs for one individual. I can see how the costs could be very high in the instances you give.

To be honest, I'm not sure whether the missionary in the OP is in that category. Not much information was given.

I'm just saying that the dollar numbers are not unrealistic. Once you get to a place like Africa, a lot of things that we take for granted become expensive. And some of those things are necessary to get the job done.

 

[Tolworth John]

Hello. We've never supported a missionary personally before. A young man visited us last night and we are going to support him to Africa but I was surprised when he said he has to raise 4800.00 per month for support. That seems high but I don't know much about it. Is that in line with your experience? Thank you.

Questions to ask are:-
What organisation is he going with?
What churches are recommending him and supporting him, financialy, prayerfully, letters, food parcels etc
If there is no misionary agency sending him.
Don't get involved, refer him to your minister to check out his suitability.

 

[Radagast]

Questions to ask are:-
What organisation is he going with?
What churches are recommending him and supporting him, financialy, prayerfully, letters, food parcels etc

Those are good questions.

 

[Tolworth John]

Those are good questions.

Just thought of another couple.
What skills does he have or what is he going to actually do?
What is his language skills like?
and how active has he been in his church?
( someone who's never been active in the church is not going to suddenly become active.)

 

[GuusVA]

As I work as a missionary, 4000 seems a reasonable number! As we have to pay a lot of expenses that are work related! We buy our own supplies, we pay our own transport, we have to afford everything ourselves!

If he is going to africa and he will need to pay for flight costs visum costs.

If he will go t remote africa 4000 is little as he needs to afford all the necessary supplies of food and water to survive normally to still have time left for outreach activities!

 

[Boogaloo]

Maybe the next statement is unfounded, but will it not be cheaper to train a person from the country in Africa to do the mission work there, it will mean a much smaller amount needed and the person understand the culture and speaks the language, just a thought.

 

[Radagast]

Maybe the next statement is unfounded, but will it not be cheaper to train a person from the country in Africa to do the mission work there, it will mean a much smaller amount needed and the person understand the culture and speaks the language, just a thought.

That's what a lot of modern missionaries do - train locals.

 

[Boogaloo]

That's what a lot of modern missionaries do - train locals.

My comment was tongue in the cheek.