For the past couple months, I've been meeting with a missionary from Africa who has been off assignment for the past year or so. I first met him last Spring at the Neighborhood Church Men in the Hill's Annual Retreat at Alliance Redwoods. Though there are many great experiences I took from that trip such as hours of volleyball, the shooting range, a zip line canopy tour through the Redwoods, knife throwing, swimming at the pool, board games, etc., meeting Mike Squires was definitely one of my highlights.
Encounter with a Kingdom Servant
Mike was first to strike up a conversation with me. Immediately it was apparent he loved to socialize. As I sat with him and learned more about his story, I noticed that Mike thought in a very particular way. He has a Kingdom mindset. He is interested in building the Kingdom of God starting with educating community leaders. This is why he is a great missionary. He teaches influential community leaders in Africa the principles of leadership through the Word of God. Not only do they learn an elevated understanding of leadership, but many are saved by grace in the process. Much of the principles that Mike teaches comes directly from scripture. And the stuff he is teaching is basic 101 community leadership development - economics, public speaking, agriculture, etc. It's very fascinating. And it's all rooted in Scripture. I knew then that I wanted to financially support Mike as a missionary.A Tug for More Involvement
But then Mike expressed a need that tugged on my heart. You see, Mike understands his strengths and his weaknesses and the strengths and weaknesses of others. He told me that he needed some marketing help. And even though he has become fluent in several foreign languages, marketing seemed to baffle him. Having marketing experience, I really wanted to help him make a video or start a blog or something, but I knew that I hadn't the time. At the time I had been married for about eight months and was still adjusting. Even still, I wanted to be a part of what he was doing. So I gave him my information and asked him to add me to his newsletter intending to make a monthly donation (which I still do to this day) and give him some advice on fund raising.Since then, Mike has found several people to aid him in his mission to get to Africa. Someone helped him start a blog, someone else helped him make a video, and he's pretty proficient at updating his own Newsletter these days.
From Coffee to Calling
Two months ago, I asked him to go out for coffee. He was happy to meet. I asked him how things were going with his group of Marketeers and Mike told me that they weren't. He said that he's having trouble with getting help. Many of the people that had helped him get some things set up, had moved on.I hadn't really planned on joining his marketing efforts, but Mike had another idea in mind. He pretended that I was coming to assist him in helping him get to Africa. He expressed that he needs $4,500/month of recurring donations in order to fund his trip to Ghana, Africa. He had about $1,300/month in support. So in this meeting with me, he had tasked me with some homework. I graciously declined the homework and told him that I would pray about helping him. My heart went out to him and I wanted to help.
I prayed about it and I felt God's call in this direction. Mike was not at all surprised when I gave him the news - as if it was obvious that this was what I was supposed to be doing with my time. So I started assisting Mike with some marketing material for his fund raising. I told him that I'm very pressed for time due to my full time job, a new wife, a home group that we lead through our church, and a few side projects. So we agreed that I'd dedicate 1 hour of work per week to assisting him in his fund raising efforts. Also I agreed on taking him out to breakfast every other week. I told him that I'd help him organize his story and assist him with his blog, and I'd work to help him raise his funds so he can go on his mission to Ghana, Africa.
I fully intend to assist him with raising funds until he's able to raise enough support to go.
What We've Accomplished Together
So Far So far we've met about 4 or 5 times and we've been working on a "Case Statement." Basically this is a 12 page document that gives information about himself and his mission to Ghana. It's a fund raising aid to give to anyone he meets with more information. This case statement has been a pretty big project, and I've gone a bit over my hours on assisting him with it, but it's been a fun project for the most part. So far, Mike and my partnership together has been very good. Mike writes the content and I format it in a digestible way. We just finished the final draft of his "Case Statement" and I'm very happy with it.For the "Case Statement" project, Mike did the majority of the work. His part of the project was the following:
- Supplied me with hundreds of photos
- Wrote and compiled the vast majority of the content
- Cut the content into blocks of thought and organized the blocks of the content in a sequential way
- Added headings and subheadings to the blocks of content
- Chose and placed pictures
- Chose styling, font, colors, captions, etc.
- Created a direct "The Best Way to Contribute Financially" section that walks supporters through how to set up recurring donations
You can download a copy of Mike's Case Statement here if you'd like.
Next Steps
I still plan on meeting with Mike every other week and putting in 1-2 hours weekly of work into helping him get to Ghana, Africa.Next steps for helping Mike get to Ghana are as follows:
- Create and write a "Donate page" on his blog site
- Edit his Support Video to include a call to act at the end
- Create a YouTube channel for Mike to host the video
- Format (creating headings and subheadings) and post drafted blog post for Mike
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