Support
We received an e-mail from a supporting church asking for details of our support account needs. Below is John's response to that e-mail:
We are currently as follows on our support needs and other needs as we reach
the field.
1. $1100 monthly support, this could change either way as we have lost
some and gained some over the last couple of months. (sometimes it feels
like 1 step forward, steps back)
2. Our one time need to get to Honduras is $12,000. Included in the
figure is travel, visas, and outfit/set-up cost related to the move($$ to
buy furniture, etc to help get settled in).
3. A vehicle. Due to complicated tax issues, we can't use any support
money from MTW to buy vehicle. This will have to be done separate from MTW,
which in a way is a good thing because then the vehicle is ours not MTWs.
From the limited amount of research I have been able to do a 14 passenger
minivan would cost anywhere from $20k-$24k. This would be used for ministry
as well as there is no mission vehicle to transport short-term mission
teams. Right now there is a 14 pass. Van and a truck, both belong to the
missionaries there. We will have hopefully half of the $$ we need to buy a
car from selling our stuff before we left Harlingen and from any $$ we get
from the sell of our minivan before we leave. We thought about driving our
van down, it would take 4 days or more, cost a lot of $$ in taxes and parts
are expensive and hard to get.
4. Some other thoughts: The education cost of our support is around
$500/mo. This is what it will cost for all 4 kids to go to a private
school(compared to the US and even Mexico is a pretty good deal), which the
only other option is home-school and if we need to, will be what we do.
Public school is not good. The $$ for the kids education is put into a
reserve acct within our support account. This expense could be funded as a
one-time gift in an amount of whatever(one year, four year, etc) and put
into the reserve to be used for the kids schooling (we would have this
expense with homeschooling, too). This would then be subtracted out of our
monthly need to get us to the field. That is just a real need number that
is included in our support. It could come in as a one-time bulk that we
could designate to go towards our education need and thus reduce our monthly
need.
To put some real figures to this: $500/month for 12 months = $6,000 one
time gift; for 1 term(4 yrs) it would be $24,000. For whatever less than
the 4 yrs (after 4 yrs we have to come back stateside on HMA) we would have
to come up with the $500/mo when the education reserve is depleted. This
type of thing would allow us to subtract $500 from our current shortfall of
$1100 per month.
5. A similar thing can be done for our monthly need with a large
on-time gift. We can put it in a 'dumby fund' in our support account and
can designate it as a monthly. Example: $50,000 one-time can be designated
to support us at $1041/mo for 48 months.
6. Any other things, like the plane vouchers, etc. would help reduce
our one-time costs. Any one time $$ that is not used, stays in our MTW
account and will be available for use later when needed.
the field.
1. $1100 monthly support, this could change either way as we have lost
some and gained some over the last couple of months. (sometimes it feels
like 1 step forward, steps back)
2. Our one time need to get to Honduras is $12,000. Included in the
figure is travel, visas, and outfit/set-up cost related to the move($$ to
buy furniture, etc to help get settled in).
3. A vehicle. Due to complicated tax issues, we can't use any support
money from MTW to buy vehicle. This will have to be done separate from MTW,
which in a way is a good thing because then the vehicle is ours not MTWs.
From the limited amount of research I have been able to do a 14 passenger
minivan would cost anywhere from $20k-$24k. This would be used for ministry
as well as there is no mission vehicle to transport short-term mission
teams. Right now there is a 14 pass. Van and a truck, both belong to the
missionaries there. We will have hopefully half of the $$ we need to buy a
car from selling our stuff before we left Harlingen and from any $$ we get
from the sell of our minivan before we leave. We thought about driving our
van down, it would take 4 days or more, cost a lot of $$ in taxes and parts
are expensive and hard to get.
4. Some other thoughts: The education cost of our support is around
$500/mo. This is what it will cost for all 4 kids to go to a private
school(compared to the US and even Mexico is a pretty good deal), which the
only other option is home-school and if we need to, will be what we do.
Public school is not good. The $$ for the kids education is put into a
reserve acct within our support account. This expense could be funded as a
one-time gift in an amount of whatever(one year, four year, etc) and put
into the reserve to be used for the kids schooling (we would have this
expense with homeschooling, too). This would then be subtracted out of our
monthly need to get us to the field. That is just a real need number that
is included in our support. It could come in as a one-time bulk that we
could designate to go towards our education need and thus reduce our monthly
need.
To put some real figures to this: $500/month for 12 months = $6,000 one
time gift; for 1 term(4 yrs) it would be $24,000. For whatever less than
the 4 yrs (after 4 yrs we have to come back stateside on HMA) we would have
to come up with the $500/mo when the education reserve is depleted. This
type of thing would allow us to subtract $500 from our current shortfall of
$1100 per month.
5. A similar thing can be done for our monthly need with a large
on-time gift. We can put it in a 'dumby fund' in our support account and
can designate it as a monthly. Example: $50,000 one-time can be designated
to support us at $1041/mo for 48 months.
6. Any other things, like the plane vouchers, etc. would help reduce
our one-time costs. Any one time $$ that is not used, stays in our MTW
account and will be available for use later when needed.
Thank you for your continued prayers!
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