A Liddle Good News – Page 22 – The Wycliffe ministry of David and Katherine Liddle

“Whatcha got?”

The title comes from a sermon that Mark Gungor preached to the congregation at Celebration Church in Green Bay a few weeks ago. I like to listen to his daily Internet radio show on marriage, and I tune in to his sermons and Bible studies as well.

In this sermon, Pastor Mark talks about how we and God interact when it comes to life and plans and His will. Christians often wrestle with these things. In fact, we’re wrestling with them as we try to figure out how this transition from Texas to Germany will happen. Our house hasn’t sold yet, and that fact has weighed on our hearts and our heads. But as I listened to this sermon, I could hear God’s voice coming through Pastor Mark’s and feel it reaching into my mind.

The sermon focused on the accounts in the Bible in which we read about God’s eliciting ideas about how to approach the situation at hand. One such time is found in (and around) 1 Kings 22:19-22, in which God is looking for a good way to entice King Ahab to go to war. He apparently rejects other suggestions until one is proposed that He knows will succeed. Pastor Mark emphasized through this example, and others, that God is often watching us for our reactions and ideas. God chooses to work through us humans on purpose. (Consider 1 Corinthians 1:26-27.)

That’s the background for our decision to try a different approach with our house. Pastor Mark asked, “Whatcha got?” and I had to answer, “A house.” This thought dogged me. I had noticed fliers at the office advertising that someone from Wycliffe was now working with a real estate agency in the area of rental property management. The agency is owned and operated by a fellow we know from our homeschool group. “But Lord,” I said, “we don’t want to keep our house.” There are some phrases that you should avoid using with God, and “But Lord …” is one of them.

After looking into requirements and details of renting property with this rental agent, Katherine and I decided that we’ll put it up for lease while we move on toward Germany. We’re offering it up to God, trusting that He’ll approve this idea. Our plan is to work quickly on sorting through the remaining “stuff”, move out of the house into a Wycliffe apartment, and then have a few massive household sales. The house will then be emptied and readied for rental. When that’s done, we’ll leave Dallas and start on the road to Germany.

When you pray, please remember us and our struggle to free ourselves from the things that hold us back from serving the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. Pray for efficiency, perseverance, and good renters!

A preview trip to Germany

One of my favorite parts of going to a movie in the theater is watching the previews. Really. I enjoy those film snippets of films. They’re long enough to give you a sense of the plot, but they’re short enough to whet your appetite for more. Right now, I’m experiencing a “preview” of the work that I will be doing long-term in Germany with Wycliffe Europe.

Last month, my colleague Martijn de Vries (of The Netherlands) invited me to assist him in providing IT support for a conference being held in a town about one hour away from the office here in Holzhausen. The conference is for people working in languages that are spoken in places where it’s not so easy to distribute Christian materials. In those situations, people have devised broadcast and distribution methods that work around the difficulties in clever and ingenious ways. Most of these methods employ electronic media such as the Internet and mobile phone systems.

So I arrived yesterday (9/23) so that next week we can help the people gathering for this event with all of their computer and Internet needs. We don’t want technical barriers to exist in their meetings, which itself exists to remove barriers to distributing the Gospel. And, of course, the Gospel’s purpose is to remove the barrier between us and God.

It’s good to meet many of the people whose names I’ve heard but whom I had not yet met. And being in the place where we will be living and working strengthens my eagerness and motivation. There is much to do, but there are too few people to do it all. May God remove the barriers to our coming and take us from the “preview” to the “feature”!

Where does it all go?

The livelihood of every Christian worker depends on the other members of the Church at large.

It’s a very similar situation to the position of the Levites, who were set apart by God from the rest of Israel to serve Him. This tribe and its clans were supplied from the offerings and gifts brought by the other twelve. The cities they lived in were designated out of those in the territories of the other twelve. The Levites belonged completely to God.

The priests and their duties are well known. Those who did not serve as priests, on the other hand, had seemingly menial tasks. Most of them were responsible for the care of parts of the tabernacle, including transporting them when the Israelites moved from one place to the next. (See Numbers 1:50-51.) Once the temple was built, these people were assigned to other tasks in the care and administration of the temple, which supported the office of the priests (the descendants of Aaron) as well as the service of the king. (See 1 Chronicles 24-26.)

In these times also, there are many of us who serve God in support of those who are in positions better-known than our own. Yet we are as dependent on the Church as they. Our needs are not very different from your own. But what are they? Here’s where our support goes:

Description	Percent	Note
Basic living	40%	Vehicle purchase is not included. It's a separate cost.
Housing	21%	Household setup costs are separate from this.
Social Security	12.8%	As religious workers, we pay 100% of this tax.
Health insurance	8%	Thankfully, we'll get more coverage for less cost in Germany!
Wycliffe Global Alliance (Europe Area)	5%	Wycliffe members contribute to the expenses of the offices they work in.
Wycliffe Bible Translators USA	5%	Every Wycliffe member helps cover the costs incurred by the mission on our behalf.
Retirement savings	3.7%	There is no expectation that Wycliffe missionaries will be supported after retirement, so we each must save.
Life and other insurance	2%
Return airfare for furloughs	1.5%	We do plan to return someday.
Communications with partners	1%	We spend this to let you who pray and give know how we're doing, to send pictures of the kids (and the work), and to warn you before we come back.

Wycliffe USA processes all of the donations to our ministry, and handles some of those line items as well. Once we’re in Germany, the Wycliffe office there will process the health insurance cost and transfer the funds for our living expenses to a local bank. I’m glad those people are there to take care of such details, so that we can focus on our ministry!

We need more people to join the churches and individuals who are praying for and supporting us right now. We need a little less than $2000 more each month before we can go. Jesus does not shun “small” gifts, so please don’t feel that you can’t make a difference. You can! If you want to help support Bible translation work in Europe, Africa, and western Asia through our ministry, just use this link to get started:

http://www.wycliffe.org/Partnership.aspx?mid=ECCA8C

There you can choose to pray, give, or both. We can’t do this without you. If you can’t give, please recommend us to your Christian brothers and sisters. Please give us a call if you know of other ways you can help us reach our goal. Thank you!