The Joy of Giving!

Dear Partners in Ministry,

Every year at this time, more money is given to charitable causes than any other month. And with the economy strong, we may see more money given to charity in December 2006 than any month in history. That is wonderful! America is the most generous country on earth!

My ministry is about giving. I see both sides. I see a country that the Lord has blessed with abundant resources, unlike any country ever in the history of the world. Yet I frequently see many missionaries living at near poverty conditions. So I would like to present you with three reasons why we should give generously.

1) The Lord commands that we give generously: Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote to Timothy these words, “Instruct those who are rich in this present world…to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed,” (1 Timothy 6:17-18).

2) The cause of Christ needs laborers: In my travels across Eastern Europe I see doors opened wide for the gospel but no one is there to go through them. I see missionaries who want to bring the gospel to their countrymen but just don’t have the resources to support their work. I see excellent outreach strategies that never get past the proposal stage. There are many reasons why this is so, but always top among those reasons is a lack of funding. In one of the most influential New Testament passages to me, Jesus says, “the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few…” (Matthew 9:37).

3) The words of Jesus: “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” (Acts 20:35). THIS VERSE IS RADICAL! Many of the national missionaries I work with are scared about asking American Christians for financial support. I answer by showing them this Scripture; they are a blessing to their donors! It is more important for the donor to give than it is for the missionary to receive! I believe that the biggest competitor to missions is not Muslims, secularists or foreign governments; it is materialism. When we give to the cause of Christ we are choosing to divorce ourselves from the idol of materialism. Giving, if done in the right spirit, is a high form of worship to Almighty God!

But the sad fact is that very few Christians are giving. The “Rule of 3s” helps to explain this: 1) the average Christian gives only 3% of their income to Christian causes 2) only 3% of Christians tithe and 3) of the money that is given only 3% goes to the international mission field. Yet most Christians complain of financial problems. Is there a connection? Imagine where the cause of Christ would be world-wide if merely half of us tithed!

However, I must say this: EB and I have received undeserved attention for the financial turn around of our ministry in Hungary (they still have needs but are now pointed in the right direction). We don’t deserve credit; YOU do! When we began to help our Hungarian staff, we went to THOSE ALREADY SUPPORTING US! And you all gave generously again and introduced our beloved Hungarian staff to your like-minded friends. Even recently in an email I quoted our Polish director that it will not be a happy Christmas for many of our Polish staff families due to poor support. And YOU took the initiative (I never asked). Over $20,000 thus far has been given to our needy Polish staff. Wow! YOU MAKE EB AND ME LOOK GOOD! Keep up the excellent work; you are an example to the cause of Christ everywhere!

EB and I want to live with a “kingdom mentality.” If you will be giving extra this Christmas, then please consider the needs of national missionaries (with ANY Christ-exalting ministry) before our family’s needs; also EB and I would like to recommend Samaritan’s Purse (http://www.samaritanspurse.org) Through their humanitarian work, they get the gospel into areas that mere evangelists and church planters cannot go.

Giving benefits you, it empowers the missionary and brings the Lord glory. Name another use of money that does all that! Giving generously is a WIN-WIN-WIN opportunity!

Serving with you,

Matt and EB

PS: this is a link to a talk I heard by John Piper. No other theologian has influenced me like Piper. This is classic Piper and it is a “go into all the world and lay down your life for Jesus” message. http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByScripture/10/11_Let_All_the_Peoples_Praise_Him/

Do not seek a painless death; seek a purposeful death.

Warsaw's Tragic History & the Death of the European Enlightenment

I was caught off guard with how modern Warsaw is. Plenty of reminders that I was in Eastern Europe (including cold and grey winter weather) yet Warsaw has skyscrapers that Budapest doesn't have.

It was July 1944. The Polish resistance, outgunned and outnumbered, was battling the Nazis for control of Warsaw. The Poles looked up and saw on the opposite side of the Vistula river, which flowed through Warsaw, the Soviet army lined up on the banks. The Poles cheered! “They have come to rescue us! They will cross over and drive out the Nazis!” But the Soviets did not cross. They stood there. Watching. And waiting. They waited until the Nazis greatly weakened themselves by pounding the Polish resistance and destroying Warsaw. Once both the Poles were decimated and the Nazis exhausted, then did the Soviet army make its move. The Nazis retreated leaving death and destruction behind. Hence, the Soviets postured themselves as the liberators of Warsaw (much like they did in Budapest). Little did the Polish people realize that they were about to be enslaved by the Soviets for the next two generations.

250,000 Poles died during World War II as the Nazis and the Soviet armies battled over Warsaw. Before the war, Warsaw had a Jewish population of 400,000. After the war, there were virtually no Jews left. During my brief tour of Warsaw, I saw a wall that marked a boundary of the former Jewish ghetto. And many of the same emotions came over me that I felt this past summer at Auschwitz: emotions of terror, disbelief and disgust mixed with anger. There is nothing left of the 400,000 Jews that lived in this city 65 years ago. (Wikipedia’s page on Warsaw is a great, quick resource about the World War II battle for Warsaw: www.wikipedia.com)

This wall in Warsaw is essentially all that is left of the Jewish ghetto built by the Nazis.

The Soviets desired to colonize and make slaves out of Poland and all of Eastern Europe. On the heels of the Jewish holocaust, the Soviets either killed or shipped to the Siberian Gulags all the intellegencia of Poland, regardless of religion. (The Soviets did this as well as in the other Eastern Europe countries). They didn’t want any skilled workers, thinkers, entrepreneurs, leaders, problem solvers, or wealthy people in any of their European colonies; all they wanted was a mindless working class of slaves that they could manipulate and extract goods from on behalf of the Soviet Union.

Like our Campus Crusade staff in Hungary, our Polish staff can all tell stories from the previous generation of relatives that simply vanished or family that were ruthlessly killed. I stayed with Robert and Beata Kowalsky, a Campus Crusade Polish staff couple with 3 beautiful young girls. Of Robert’s father’s family, only Robert’s father survived the battle of Warsaw as a 15 year old boy constantly on the move to avoid capture; the rest of his family was captured and killed. Beata’s grandfather was shipped off to Siberia because he was a blacksmith and the Soviets didn’t want him making bullets or weapons for the Polish resistance.

The Enlightenment began when on a wintery day in 1618 Rene Descartes sat next to a fire and articulated the words that not only changed Europe but world history: “I think therefore I am.” At that point an era began where the shift of authority was no longer based on the Bible and the church but based on human wisdom and reason. Man set out to build an earthly utopia that was void of God and any other authority except man himself. The Enlightenment didn’t end, I personally believe, until the fall of the Berlin wall in 1991. That symbolic act was the curtain closing on the final scene of the European Enlightenment that chronicled man’s multi-century failure to build a utopia on earth.. The harder man tries to build a man-centered Christless utopia, the more tragic are the results.

The quest for societal utopia is all but gone (albeit the Muslims today think that a world-wide society based on seventh century Arab culture is the answer). Unfortunately the vacuum left by the Enlightenment in Europe is not being filled with a return to Jesus Christ; it is being filled with Post-Modern thinking that embraces a world view that is nihilistic, fatalistic and materialistic. Shopping malls have replaced universities (which had replaced churches) as the center of society. The pursuit of materialism (i.e. the pursuit of self) is what occupies the modern European mind. The tragedies of World War II are told today by the grandparents, listened to with one ear by pre-occupied parents and pronounced boring by the children. Unfortunately, the words found posted in Auschwitz by George Santayana take on a special meaning: “The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again.”

These are the Kowalsky girls. Their parents, Robert and Beata, are on our Polish Campus Crusade team. I work closely with Robert in addressing the financial needs of our Polish ministry and staff. Above, these girls are (from the left) Carolina, Victoria and Eunice.

I almost forgot! Thanks for praying for Elizabeth! Here she is flanked by her mom and grandmother in a Budapest doctor's office moments after waking up from surgery for having her wisdom teeth pulled. There were no complications and she only took pain medicine the next day.