The Death of Magic

What follows is from a letter to the Ephesian church from Ignatius the Bishop of Antioch in Syria while he was on his way to be tried and executed in Rome for his faith in Jesus. The voice, here, is of a leader of churches, probably mentored to some extent by the apostle John, speaking around 100 AD. As I read these words I honestly kept picturing the long night at the stone table in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe where the death of Aslan (the Christ figure) undoes the magic of the White Witch with a deeper and older magic… but I'll stop there and just let you listen to an ancient and godly voice.

"Now Mary's virginity and her giving birth escaped the notice of the prince of this world as did the Lord's death -- those three secrets crying to be told but wrought in God's silence. How then were they revealed to the ages? A star shone in heaven brighter than all the stars. Its light was indescribable and its novelty caused amazement. The rest of the stars, along with the sun and the moon formed a ring around it; yet it outshone them all, and there was bewilderment where this unique novelty had arisen. As a result all magic lost its power and all witchcraft ceased, Ignorance was done away with, and the ancient kingdom [of evil] was utterly destroyed, for God was revealing himself as a man, to bring newness of eternal life. What God had prepared was now beginning. Hence everything was in confusion as the destruction of death was being taken into hand." (Cyril Richardson, "Early Christian Fathers", p. 93)

Painting of Ignatius of Antioch from the Menologion of Basil II (c. 1000 AD)

The editor of this collection of translations from the early church fathers, Cyril Richardson, notes that the early church fathers had a somewhat developed doctrine of the "silence of God." By this what is meant is a context for how to understand God's apparent inactivity in world affairs. Ignatius describes Jesus' incarnation and sacrifice as "wrought in God's silence" meaning that God had planned and was bringing about his earth-shaking program through activities that were largely unremarkable and unintelligible. This is a great comfort to me as we have been in process of becoming missionaries for several years now and it often feels like lost time, but I know that it is God's pattern to do important, meaningful work in the unremarkable and unintelligible.

Sticker Shock

You know that moment. The one where you know there is something you want but you don't know what it costs, and then you see the price and suddenly everything gets a lot more serious. Yeah, that moment. Personal Support Grid was one of those moments. The Personal Support Grid is where the missions organization in collaboration with field leadership in the country that you are going to be working takes a stab at how much you will need to raise to be on the mission field in ministry. And the numbers get surprisingly large. We are going to break down those numbers in at least a general way so that we can be transparent about our financial support needs, and share with you our sticker shock.

The totals that started our sticker shock are this:

Monthly Financial Support Needs: $7,377

One-time Financial Support Needs:  $77,821

[double-take] Wha…? Seriously… We are talking ministry here, right? That career you don't do for the money… that is what it takes?

Well, it turns out there are a few things that it is easy to not consider.

This is not just or even primarily take-home income. In a job with a corporation they provide you with benefits (health insurance, etc.) and retirement programs because it turns out that people need these to be able to stay productive. Those things cost a fair amount of money. Also ministry work involves some cost (materials, transportation, etc.) so what is raised is also money specifically for the operation of ministry. In addition this ministry is in a different country and you need to be able to handle immigration (visas, etc.) as well as travel back and forth every few years. These are the sort of things that most of us are aware that our employers are doing for us, but in the missionary world, the burden is on the individual, or more specifically the body of Christ sending the individual or family, to finance all of these expenses.

So to be more specific I have broken down dollar amounts into some categories so that it can be more clear. 

Monthly: $7,377

Income and related expenses: $4,852

Which include...

Standard income (goes to things like housing, children's schooling, groceries, gas, clothes, etc.): $2,960 per month 

Health/Disability Insurance (and taxes on insurance) : $1268 per month

Retirement savings (and the ever relevant taxes): $624 per month

Ministry Expenses: $1,455

This covers things like equipment, travel and hospitality in-country, travel back to America at the end of the several year term, if you think about ministry like a small business these are the business expenses.

World Team Administrative Fee: $1,070

This is a gentle, almost euphemistic way of referring to the issue that managing HR, Accounting, IT, and all the other details actually costs money. And actually more than what is seen here because the administrative staff actually raise their own support. The formula here is 14% of monthly support will be the monthly administrative expenses (you will see this again in 1-time expenses).

One-Time: $77,821

Pre-field Expenses: $8,960

Which includes...

A two month intercultural training that missionary appointees go to right before leaving to go to the field: $5,310

Travel to the Pennsylvania office and Partnership Development expenses: $3,650

Vehicle Purchase: $13,000

Trying to ship a vehicle over to the Philippines and then paying for customs is likely to be as much as purchasing a new car, and we would have to do it in reverse several years later when we come home for home assignment. So the only reasonable alternative is to purchase a car in the Philippines.

Equipment/Outfitting: $20,000

This includes things like appliances and light remodeling in the place we will live (renting or purchasing a home in the Philippines will likely have significant gaps from our perspective and need basic things like a working air-conditioner or a paint-job within the last 10 years, or basic appliances like a washer and dryer. We will also likely have to get all new furniture (again shipping would be more than the cost of new furniture).

Travel to the Field: $4,800

Four plane tickets to the Philippines… not cheap.

In-field training: $9,200

This includes the year or more of language training I will need, as well as regional conferences, etc.

Shipping, Immigration: $5,200

This involves shipping the essentials for a family across the Pacific ocean, paying for visas, immigration for four people for four years

Support account buffer: $5,177

What is this? This is the essentials for one month as a buffer in case something happens. Sudden expenses, emergency evacuation in case of a political coup, natural disaster, or a political embargo that prevents bank transfers from happening into the country (this sounds crazy and wild but this is real and possible and happens in missionary living).

Administrative Fee: $11,284

14% of One-Time fees, just like it is with monthly.

So there you have it, sticker shock… still shocking but hopefully more understandable.

Changes in life and direction

We finally made it! OK if you see the other blog posts you will realize this has no blog-ly context so let me tell you all the really great life things that have happened since early 2010.

In mid-2010 I graduated seminary woohoo! With a very beastly Th.M., 120 semester hours of bible and theology culminated with a 60-page thesis looking at literary unity and ties between 1 Samuel and the book of Judges.

This was followed by taking more seriously the next steps in ministry direction. We had been researching missions agencies but started doing that more seriously, trying to find a group that is doing work in the Philippines that would be open to us working in the Bicol area of the Philippines.




Along this path later that year we went back to the Philippines to visit family, see some beautiful beaches, and help teach classes in the just-starting bible school in Naga City. This was a great break and reminder of why we were heading down the path of vocational ministry. It was also a great opportunity to work with Pappa and Dr. Waters on a set of classes and get more of a taste for how working in a bible school in the Philippines will work.

In 2011 Joy got pregnant. Yay!!! With twins. Double yay!!! (with slight panic on top).

In 2012 we had Josiah Durland Nacion Crank and Caleb Nicomedes Nacion Crank.

 To answer the next and very reasonable parsing question: is that a double last name, middle name, or first name? The more convoluted than you imagined answer is no, yes and yes. 

In America their legal names are:

First: Josiah or Caleb

Middle: Durland Nacion or Nicomedes Nacion

Last: Crank

In the Philippines (because the tradition and government practice is to retain the mother's middle name as the middle name):

First: Josiah Durland or Caleb Nicomedes

Middle: Nacion

Last: Crank

Will this keep them, us and everyone confused for the rest of their natural lives? Yes. But what do you expect from the people who have four marriage dates with three weddings in two countries for one couple (a different convoluted story).

In spring of 2012 we went to the RACE (Reciprocal Assessment and Candidate Evaluation) event with World Team. We have been actively looking for a missions agency with which to go back to the Philippines long term. it has been a long road where we met a lot of great godly people, and found partnerships that almost worked... but the complexity of having such strong ties and wanting to make the most of those opportunities has kept us on the sidelines looking for a group that will enter that complexity with us. After being in this process since 2010 our conversations with World Team really established that possibility. So we went to this 10 day affair where we were presented with a very full picture of who World Team is, got to talk to a lot of both leadership and missionaries, and also went through some very grueling assessment that was specifically designed to put us under stress so that both our "behaved" demeanor and our "stressed" demeanor was more clear. The result of this was an invitation to become a missionary appointee with World Team, that we accepted.

The rest of 2012 is mostly a blur of: lack of sleep, watching the boys go tiny infants to walking, climbing, curly headed, cute, destruction machines, doing additional training and prep-work for partnership development, and often crazy work tasks and schedules.

So now, while the boys are definitely the biggest thing that happened in the previous 2 years, we were too insane just trying to keep them fed and alive to blog about that... but now we are finally started on partnership development. We are starting to send out letters and will then be calling people, etc. We will post on this blog how things look from a prayer support standpoint and from a financial standpoint along with a basic breakdown of where we are trying to reach so that we can make the big move to the Philippines.