I know, I know
I know, I know another post by Bobby asking for money is what you might be thinking. I completely understand that and probably agree with you on some level. I mean, asking for money is my least favorite thing to do as a missionary. In fact, I struggle with it every single day. In all honesty if it were up to me, I would love to be working normal hours at a job making good money, living in the country club again, raising my daughter near her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I would love to not have to show her pictures of her family hoping that she is understanding who each family member is so that when we get to spend a week or two with them we don't have to re-introduce her to everyone with patience as she cries unending because her little mind can't remember how much her grandma loves her. If it were up to just myself and my desires then I would gladly get to watch my nephew play sports and watch as he improves each game instead of hearing about a lot of his accomplishments through text or a phone call. I would love to be at all of my niece’s birthday parties, school assemblies and all the other activities that she is doing that I might not even know about. It would be amazing to have my other nephew know who I am when I walk in the door every time, and smile and laugh with me because he knows that his uncle bobby is not some stranger that shows up 3 times a year for a short time before he is out the door and gone for months again. I would love to spend more time with my aunts and uncles, because this time that we spend a part we will never be able to get back. If it were up to me I would love to spend as much time as possible with my mother and father, especially when day after day I see people younger than them leaving this earth. But I CAN'T, not because I don't want to, because believe me I do.. But I CAN'T. I can't because my heart is broken for the people in this country that do not know how much God loves them. I cannot go a day without thinking about the at-risk teenagers who feel unloved so they do everything they can to push people away and keep them at a distance so there is no risk of them ever being hurt again. I give up my comforts and live in a staff house because the young girls stuck in prostitution with no hope for a better life is out there getting further and further into a trap that she never intended to be in. I sleep on air mattresses and travel over 8,000 miles in four months to try to reach out to the guy who grew up in church but could never hear the gospel because he could never understand what it meant to someone like him so he gave up because he thought he is way to corrupt for anyone to ever love him. My heart absolutely breaks for the Iraq war vets who come home from serving our country by fighting in a war only to find everything they ever knew is gone. They live on the street, not because they don't want to work but they are tormented by so much pain they cannot function in society. They hide during the day and sneak out to a waffle house at 2 am to try to grab a meal and associate with as few people as possible because they do not know what kind of peace the love of God can bring them, so instead they try to live invisibly among us. They are the reason that we leave everything behind, they are the reason that we dedicate 10-12 hour days (sometimes more) 7-8 months out of the year to plan a tour that will travel from city to city to go to them and tell them about this unfailing love of God in a way they understand it. They are the reason why I have to deny my own desires and focus on the calling that God has placed on my life., the calling to be a missionary to the counter culture here in the United States of America. Don’t get me wrong, I love this life God is allowing me to live. I love being used for His glory. I love getting to share the message of hope only found through Jesus Christ with an entire culture that lives right here in our own country. I never imagined I would ever be picked to be someone who gets to do this. It is an absolute honor to be chosen to carry this love from city to city, but to say that it is easy would be a lie. This is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Every day I have to die to my flesh and seek His plan for me. Every day I have to humble myself and present our needs to people and allow God to provide them through the ones He chooses to use.. Living by faith gets TOUGH. It is never the rich guys that God leads to support us. I mean, it would be so nice to have a donation of 25,000 dollars come in and cover all of our needs for an entire year. I would love to not have to blow up your news feed multiple times a month to ask for financial support. In all reality though, most of the time God uses people who are just getting by themselves to keep us able to do what God has called us to do in order to prove His faithfulness to us and them. Just know this, I am not asking yall for money so that I can have the things of this world. I am merely trying to present our needs like I feel we are suppose to in order to raise the funds needed to have housing, gas in the car, diapers on Arabellas bottom, and other basic areas of need each month. If you have read this far, I appreciate you. Whether you feel led to partner with us is between you and God, but the fact that you didn’t just scroll by and complain about another post asking for support means so much to me. I ask that you please keep us in your prayers. Please add us to your church prayer list or your individual prayer list as well. We are getting close to the time where we will be out on the road, and we will without a doubt need as much prayer as we can get. Please also sincerely consider partnering with us if you haven’t yet. Every $20 a month gift, every $100 a month gift, every one time donation will help us tremendously. If you cannot give, please share this with some people that you know that feel called to support missionaries. You never know what person God will use to fulfill His plan. If he can use me , He can use anybody. Thank you all so much. Please follow the link below for a safe and secure way to become a partner of #theWESTFALLS and help us to go demonstrate and declare God’s love to those who we are called to reach… Much Love, Bobby, Stacy, and Arabella. https://actinternational.org/donate_to_ministry.aspx?min_id=285