The letter

Dear Friends,
As some of you may know, I began to do mission work several years back. I’ve traveled to the Appalachian Mountains, to a Navajo Indian reservation in Gallup, New Mexico and for the last 4 years, to Juarez, Mexico. Most of the mission projects I have participated in were building projects, however during each one there were people met along the way and lives changed forever, mine included. Now, I feel I’m being called to South Africa. Why South Africa? This year World Vision brought a traveling African village to my church. They talked about the children who have lost their parents to AIDS and how their own family members, aunts and uncles, wouldn't take them in because they were afraid that the kids had AIDS and would infect them. I would like to think that my family wouldn't do that to me! These kids then are left to fend for themselves. Upon entering the exhibit, you were assigned a child and given an MP3 player to listen to your child tell his or her life story. These were actual kids telling their stories, not actors playing the part. Hearing the story was heart breaking, to say the least and personally, I was moved. I kept asking myself, what can I do? Right then, sponsoring a child was not an option for us, but I did not forget and knew that God would provide an opportunity to serve. In November, the opportunity I had been looking for and praying about appeared in the newsletter from our church and I felt God telling me to GO to South Africa. I feel in my heart that I am supposed to serve the people of South Africa by building homes through the Mission South Africa work project. I am asking you to partner with me, so I can help a few of the millions that are hurting.
The goal of the mission is to build houses on land owned either by a church or a non-profit organization. The houses will be built in a circle, with a courtyard in the center. Since a lot of households are child led, meaning no adult is present (most likely due to the death of the adult caretaker from AIDS), the hope is to have one of the houses be for a "mother" figure who will help lead any child led homes. The houses are built here in Iowa, disassembled and shipped to South Africa where we will re-assemble them. If you are interested in learning more about the houses, the website address is: http://myabod.com/.
There are several ways you can partner with me as I prepare for the mission work in Africa. First and most importantly, I would ask for prayer for the participants, the details and planning of the mission, and for the people of South Africa that we will meet and have the opportunity to serve.
Secondly, in order for me to go, I need to raise $4000 for the 13 days I will spend in Africa. I ask that you prayerfully consider this opportunity. Any help you could give to this trip financially, ($25, $50, $100, etc.) would be greatly appreciated. If you choose to support me financially, please make your check out to Lutheran Church of Hope. The contribution is tax deductible as long as my name does not appear on the check. It can be mailed to my home address at the top of this letter no later than May 15th, 2009. If you have any further questions about my mission trip feel free to contact me by e-mail: sendmarktoafrica@yahoo.com or in writing. I would love to hear from you!
Lastly, you can help me spread the word about the South Africa mission to anyone you know that might be willing to help by way of prayer or financial support. You can send them directly to my blog spot or share this letter with them.
Thank you for prayerfully considering this opportunity to support me on my journey to South Africa.

In His name,

Mark

And it begins

Here we go, the fund raising letters are now being sent. I agonized over what to include in the letter and what to leave out. I wanted it to only be one page long, so people would read the whole thing. If I put everything into it that I wanted, it would have been 5 pages long and I'm guessing most people I sent it too would loose interest after the first page. I'm passionate about my missions, so I may tend to bore people with the details. I'm reading a book now about South Africa, that is a bit dated, but gives a lot of history of apartheid and race relations. As I read it, I find it hard to believe that people were treated in the way that native Africans were treated by the European settlers. I know the US doesn't exactly have a stellar record on how we treated people (African Americans, American Indians), so I guess I shouldn't be so shocked. I hope to find a few more current books to tell me how things are going now. I'm looking for websites as well and will post them on this site when I do. I'm also including the letter I'm sending out, just in case someone happens upon this site and wants to see it. Thanks to everyone who has passed along their encouragement, it means a lot. A big thanks to Marcy for helping me not sound like an idiot, in the letter that is, she can't help me on this blog:) She is my number one supporter and has worked as hard as I have to get this thing rolling.