Thank You Cards

Around Christmas, Sasha and I send out thank you cards to all of our supporters.  We have 19 churches, and over 40 individual supporters who gave to our work in Bulgaria this year.  They will each get a hand written note from us thanking them for making our being in Bulgaria possible.

I love sending out these cards because it reminds me of all the wonderful people around the world who care enough about the people of Bulgaria to sacrifice their own finances to help share the message of Jesus with them.  Sending these cards also serves as a reminder of how seriously I need to take my job.  I have about 60 donors that I'm accountable to, and I want to do the best job possible to make sure their donations are used well.

This year as I was writing the cards I thought about the envelopes.  (For our younger readers, an envelope is a sleeve of paper that covers a letter or card to protect it while it is transported great distances over several days.  The envelope also contains the address information of both the sender and the receiver.  This was the primary means of sending mail before the computer era.  Still confused?  Ask your folks.)  When I get a letter in the mail, I care very little about the envelope.  I look at it to see who the letter is from.  I then open it, remove the letter, and throw the envelope away.  All the envelope is for is to make sure the message makes it to its target audience securely.

In a way, I'm like an envelope.  I have a message that I carry inside me.  It is a message that is vitally important to deliver.  My main purpose in life is to deliver that message.  I am not responsible for whether or not that message is accepted or rejected.  I merely have to deliver it.  Perhaps this is what Paul meant when he wrote about us being jars of clay in 2 Corinthians 4:7.  We are ordinary, but the message (or treasure as Paul put it) is very valuable.

Please pray that we will all be good "envelopes" for the message of salvation through Jesus; especially now as Christmas approaches and we remember His coming.

Merry Christmas!