1/7/2009 12:34 PM 1 of 4

<-----Original Message----->
From: Bob Braswell [bob.braswell@agmd.org]
Sent: 9/25/2008 12:08:24 AM
To: Idonna Braswell
Subject: Open letter from a missionary to his mom

Dear Mom,

It has been a long time since I sent out a general newsletter to our
friends and supporters. It's a hard thing to do sometimes, partly
because we are busy traveling. This is my first day at home since Sept.
10, and I need to get this written down and mailed out before we leave
again in 2 days. It's hard to get started when I need to say something
that will apply to a big group that includes pastors, friends, family
members, and so on. When there is no specific face in my mind to talk
to, sometimes I sit down to write and nothing comes out. So on this
occasion I'm writing to you and letting everybody else listen in.

Today is a good time to write, as we have just come from a very

encouraging trip. As I think you know, we have had some trying times
this time around, and our itineration hasn't seemed as easy as the first
one. The week we spent stranded in another state while the transmission
of our car was being rebuilt came at the end of a month where we drove
3000 miles, but due to circumstances of some old pledges dropping off
faster than new ones came in, we actually lost ground on our pledge
budget that month. But God knows about these things, and it is an
experience that I think He allows and even designs to teach us faith.
It seems like a very biblical thing to go through a period of testing
between hearing something from God and seeing it fulfilled, and we
believe that God is still calling us back to Tanzania.

When we visit churches, we pretty much go to minister and preach

missions and leave the money issues up to Him. He has called us and it
is up to Him to provide the means. I don't know whether people think we
are trying to sound noble when we say that, but really it's a matter of
emotional survival. I feel it is right and proper that we should take
this approach. People don't owe us anything. We can't go out there and
beg for dollars or try to "guilt" people into supporting missions--it
just doesn't ring true to who we are as people or our understanding of
what we have been called to do. So, when support doesn't come in in
proportion to the travel and work we are doing, we hold onto our
conviction that it is God's problem and not ours. In that way we have
actually been enjoying the trip and waiting to see what He would do.

It is good to be able to report that He has started doing things, and in

a very unexpected way. We haven't yet achieved raising all our budget,
but we have really been encouraged, especially by the last missions
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convention we were privileged to participate in. We were invited to a

sectional missions convention of the Gulf Latin District in and around
Fort Smith, Arkansas. When we were invited, we were excited about the
opportunity to help that district expand their missions vision to
Africa, but we really didn't expect anything financially. Nine small
Hispanic congregations in Arkansas got together to have a missions
convention. They treated us like royalty. Sometimes (and it is
probably due more to our own insecurities than the way anyone has
treated us) we feel we are on trial as to whether we deserve to be
supported by a church that's new to us. But this group from Arkansas
had already decided before we came that we were missionaries that had
been recommended to them, and we were going to be /their /missionaries.
And that's the way they treated us from beginning to end. We cooperated
in every way that we could, and they really worked us--but no more than
they worked themselves! It's hard to even imagine "normal" churches
putting themselves out in the way these churches did. Some of the
participating congregations were 3 hours away from the main events, yet
they participated, they drove or brought people in vans, so that numbers
were there from all these churches. On Sunday, Jackie and I drove more
than 6 hours total to preach in two different churches and then
participate in a wrap-up meeting that started about 9 p.m. Sunday
night. Even at that meeting, there were pastors and leaders from all
the churches. They had to drive just as far as we did, and they did it
joyfully because they were excited to be a part of what God was doing.

One of the amazing things about it is their heart for missions is

connected to their understanding of sacrifice and their understanding of
struggle. Maybe that's part of what many of us in the US have gotten
away from? At one of the meetings, I talked to a man who came to the US
from Mexico 25 years ago. He has been working at Tyson for 25 years,
beginning back at a time when he was one of only two employees there who
spoke Spanish. He has four kids including a son with Down's Syndrome.
He knows what it means to struggle. It is humbling, sobering, and very
encouraging that he is giving something from his income to send us to
Tanzania. He understands a reality that I wish I could adequately
communicate in Assemblies of God churches everywhere we go: this is life
and death. This is God's business, with eternal consequences, and it
demands our full commitment. The Great Commission will not be
accomplished out of the surplus of the comfortable, but God's kingdom is
built on the sacrifices of those who choose to identify with and partake
in the sufferings of Christ.

On a related note, when I stood in the pulpit and gave the statistics
about the average annual income in Tanzania and the number of people who
are trying to live on about $700 per year, you could hear people all
over the congregation suck in their breath. That is not a reaction we
get elsewhere. In many churches it's just a statistic, it doesn't
register what it must be like to try to live on that, it is so far
removed from the world of the people in the pew, but here were people
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who could actually imagine living on that kind of money and how hard it
would be. Although they may not yet be what I would call full partakers
of the American dream, they know where they are and where they have come
from. They know God has blessed them, and they are moved to give to
help other people.

At least three of those small churches (maybe more, we don't know yet,
but three of the pastors told us specifically) are making significant
pledges to our ministry. Not only that, but these nine churches
collectively gave each of the four missionaries who participated in
their convention a check at the end for about $5000.00. They had saved
and planned all year in order to be able to put on this missions
convention, to be able to bring in missionaries, and to be able to send
them out with this kind of encouragement and support.

It had been a while, really, since I had seen that kind of partnership
in the suffering of missions, and it was a very encouraging thing. I
don't know if missions without suffering is really missions? Because
the gospel has to include identifying with Christ in his suffering,
otherwise it is not the biblical gospel. I think when we give to
missions out of our abundance, and it becomes kind of an optional
program of the church, it has ceased to be what it is supposed to be.
But to be a partner and to know that their sacrifice is in keeping with
our sacrifice in leaving our kids and grandkids and the comforts of the
US, that we are really partners in something that is WORTH that kind of
commitment--it's so encouraging to feel the partnership.

When we came home our pledge budget went up, mainly due to some
contributions to the shared field operating funds that as veterans we
are now eligible to participate in. Between the increases and
re-raising the 10% that had fallen off while we were overseas, we needed
about $2000 per month in new pledge support. We still have a ways to go
in realizing that but it feels like the momentum is building, like a
snowball that has started rolling downhill. Pray that people will hear
from God and be inspired to partner with us.

I guess that's all I have time for at the moment. I need to get this
sent off tonight because tomorrow we pack for the next trip. Maybe we
can have lunch before we leave town?

Your loving son,

Bob

PS-- On the previous trip, we stayed with Jackie's sister Judy and did
laundry at her house, and somehow my cell phone went through the wash.
If you have the old cell number, delete it. The best way to get hold of
us, other than email, is through our main number, 417-595-4458. That
one will forward to our cell phones if we aren't home or take a message
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if our mobile phones are off or out of range.