support

I thought I would follow up the last post, where I mentioned the notes I'm writing on support-raising for SIM France, with a quick post about our own support-raising.

I didn't realise how complicated it would be to calculate where we had got to in raising our monthly support. At the moment, we have about 60% promised by people who have given us a definite figure, and most of whom have already started to contribute each month. (The money we currently receive is held in our SIM account to be used for moving costs and necessary purchases on arrival in Benin.) But we also have a church and several individuals who have pledged to support us but not yet given a figure. If you are among them, expect to hear from us soon!

Another thing which makes it complex is that our support is calculated in Euros, but part of it is given in pounds by UK supporters. Apart from the fact that any fluctuation of the exchange rate will have an effect on how much we actually receive in Euros, the recent strength of the Pound means that if someone pledged to give £30 a month a year ago, at the time that gift would have been worth about 45€ ... but on today's exchange rate it would only leave us with 33€ - quite a difference!!

Of course, no one in the UK is earning more because of this, so our solution is not to ask our supporters to increase their giving, but to find more supporters, and this will be our task over the next few months.

Despite this sounding very technical and dry, support-raising has been an exciting time as we've seen so many people interested in becoming partners with us, not only in financial giving but by their prayers and practical help. It's been wonderful to see our team coming together, made up of friends, family and even people we didn't know before! On our side, we want to do our best to make sure that we communicate well with our partners, through our newsletters but also through personal contact. We would like to be able to support them in prayer as they also seek to serve God in their daily lives.