Finances [Man Talk]

It has taken way too long, but I'm finally getting around to the man talk on finances.  Ricci and I are right in the middle of the Radical sermons/book so I may have a Finances part 2 talk afterwords.  We're reevaluating our financial situation right now. In the mean time I wanted to talk about the basics. I'm going to use "man" language so if you're a girl reading this, don't be offended.  There's no swearing, I just not gonna sugar coat anything.  Man Talks are meant to be honest whether or not they make you feel good.

  As a Christ-follower, we are called to tithe.  I think a lot of people are not properly explained what this means, so I'll attempt to break it down here.  Tithe literally means a tenth (or ten percent).  If you receive income, you owe God ten percent back through the church.  This helps provide for the needs of the church and the pastor.  When I say "owe" I mean that ten percent is the baseline minimum that we should be giving.  If you don't tithe will it keep you from salvation?  Will God send plagues to eat your flesh?  Um...that's silly.  I mean God has the power of plagues so He could do it if He wanted.  And honestly if you are unwilling to give God back ten percent of what He has trusted you with, you might want to really question your salvation, but finances tend to be more a question of obedience and your attitude toward God.
Note: I'm going to talk about our family's finances a little here. Not with numerical detail but in regards to things God has laid on our heart and how we've responded.  None of this is to brag, but just an attempt at transparency and what God has done in us.

See, God gives us everything we have to begin with.  Our jobs, the money from those jobs, the food, clothes, cars, places to live we pay for with those jobs, etc.  We don't own any of that stuff.  The Bible says that you and I are stewards of it.  God has trusted us to use those resources wisely.  When you shift your thinking from "God why do I have to give you my stuff?" to "God thanks for everything else you provide us with!" it makes it a lot easier to give.

This is where we start to really be tested. Ready?  When you see that God is still providing for you in spite of that ten percent, He will often challenge you to give more.  This is what we call "offerings".  He commands us to give ten percent to the church, but often he wants us to give more.  It's very easy at this point to once again say, "No God.  That's my 90%. You said you only needed 10%!"  How selfish of us!

We cannot outgive God. Try it.  Ricci and I give our tithes from the gross on our paychecks (before taxes, etc.).  I don't say this to brag, just to share our conviction.  The point of the tithe is like the first fruit offerings from the Old Testament.  God wants our first and best, not the rejects and leftovers. God then laid on our hearts to give a higher percent than ten for every paycheck.  It made us nervous.  It made me sweat a little, because we don't make that much when you count up the cost of rent,utilities, etc.  But we obeyed, and you know what? God provided for us.  He gives us enough to live on.  Another reason we give tithes and offerings on the gross is so that if there's a tax return we've already given God his share on that.

I had this idea that "Hey since I've already tithed, that money back is ours to spend how we like".  We were thinking about getting a nice new computer.  Ours is getting old and Ricci could use the new one for some blog design and photography processing. God laughed at me.  I didn't think that was very funny.  I had already given God his due and more right? Shouldn't we get to spend this on whatever?  Apparently not.  God laid a cause on our hearts that used most of that money.  At first we were frustrated but God totally blew us away.  Besides providing for our needs (this wasn't really the question since we were going to buy a computer), He allowed us to help someone out and in turn be encouraged and blessed in spirit beyond what we could have hoped for.

Some of you may be saying, "After I pay all of my bills, I don't have ten percent left over for God." There's a couple of things wrong with this picture:

First I don't know that God demands we give out of our gross (though you would then have to tithe from your tax return or the money you owe the IRS), but if these are part of our first fruits to God (besides our hearts, attitudes and other intangibles) then we have to make tithes and offerings non-negotiable. No question, we do it.  The easiest way to do this is to give tithes and offerings as soon as you get paid.  That way what you're left with is what you get, and you don't have to worry about spending what's God's.  Sometimes Ricci and I forget the check book at home or something like that.  We're not the perfect example.  But we make it a point to remember and not spend our money down to the point that we cannot give to God.  Factor it into your budget so that it's already taken out of your expendable money.

The second problem with the previous statement: If you've given God what's his and then paid your bills and you're finding that it's hard to make ends meet, you might need to reevaluate your spending.  I'm not saying it's always easy.  Sometimes God will put people in situations where we have to rely on others to help us.  But before you put yourself in this category look at what you're paying for.  So much of what we spend the money God has entrusted to us is unnecessary.

Going out to eat? please. Cable? come on. Internet? not essential. Cell phones? you could go without it if you needed to.

There are other things too, but there's no way I could write everything here. I'm not saying these things are bad or sinful, just that you wouldn't die if you gave it up. Sometimes we are doing great and then God asks us to give to something up.  If you can't afford it, chances are you're going to have to sacrifice something.  We recently had to give up netflix.  We didn't want to.  I drug my heels. But the Holy Spirit kept telling me to get over it.  That's just one example, but you kinda get the idea.

These aren't just suggestions for married people either.  In fact if you're a single guy and you don't tithe now, what makes you think marriage will change that?  You need to be an example to others and if a godly woman looks at you and sees you aren't tithing, she should move on because you are not showing her that you can lead your family in the area of finances.

So in closing:
Give God what's His: At least ten percent, but possibly more.
Make giving non-negotiable.  It's a command so do it. Simple.
If you're giving properly and the ends don't meet, see what you can cut.

 I could give lots of other advice on saving money, but that's a whole other subject.

Orevwa (Haitian for goodbye)

Haitian Creole

So with the team recently coming back from Haiti, and reading more about Mosaic Village I decided to see what resources were available online for learning Haitian Creole.  Don't freak out, we're not moving to Haiti.  Actually I haven't even felt a call to be part of a trip to Haiti.  But I also haven't heard God say "Oh by the way, Josh, I'm never gonna call you to do anything in Haiti so you can just mark that one off the list."

My point is, I checked it out because knowing a language is simply equipping yourself in case God calls you somewhere.  Especially for us because we know that we will be involved with missions at some point.  I've seen on the website for Doctors Without Borders the need for French speaking aids for work in Chad, Niger, DRC, and Haiti and it got me thinking.  So then when I saw that the Hendricks were learning Creole prior to their move to Haiti I decided to see what resources were available.

The first place I turned was to Rosetta Stone.  I could never actually afford Rosetta Stone, but from what I understand it is the best and fastest language learning software and the Texas A&M libraries have copies of Rosetta Stone in several languages.  So I looked, but they do not have a version for Haitian Creole.  My next attempt was the TAMU libraries to see if they had RS in French.  Haitian Creole is based on French with a mix of African languages and some others as well.  So French would be the next best thing. Unfortunately TAMU libraries did not have French Rosetta Stone. I made a purchase suggestion that they buy it, since they do have Spanish, German, Italian, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese.  But that could take a while, so I started looking online.

And that's when I found Byki. Byki is a division of Transparent Languages and offers a lot of different languages.  For all of their languages they have the "express" version, which is very basic and the "deluxe" version which is more in depth.  The great thing about this is that the "express" version is free.  If you decide you like their method and want a full knowledge of whichever language, you buy the deluxe version ($50-70 as opposed to $130 for lesson 1 with RS).  I'm really excited because they have Afrikaans, a derivitive of Dutch/German used Namibia and South Africa. But that's off topic.  The best thing I found though, is that right now the full amount of resources for Haitian Creole are available for free. That's right.  For freeeeeeeeeee (thank you Bedtime Stories).

So if you're interested in learning Haitian Creole head over to Byki.  You can either download the express version of Haitian Creole which right now has the full thing, or you can register for Byki Online which allows you to use the same materials from the web without using hard drive space.  Byki also has several Twitter accounts for daily phrases in some of the languages. Sorry I know it sounds like I'm gushing but I'm really excited.

I think everyone should have to learn more than one language. I really do.  Go to Europe or Africa and as any random kid how many languages they know.  They may not be perfectly fluent, but I'll bet they can converse in at least two if not three or four. Heck, go down to south Texas where the population is mostly Hispanic.  In America, most of us don't live near an international border so we get this haughty attitude of "If you're gonna live in this country, learn the language!" That's an acceptable attitude if you aren't a Christian.  I'm not saying we shouldn't have an official language, but as a Christian we are called to look out for aliens and treat them like any other person.  It's hardly Christ-like to have the attitude "I'll share Jesus with you if you'll learn English first!"

Don't get me started on the political hot-button issue of immigration. If you really want to know my opinion I'll talk with you about it.  But this is not the venue.  Basically I think everyone should obey the established laws.  That said, people from another country are still PEOPLE. Not trash. Not dogs. They need Jesus just like we do. 

So check out Byki, download some software or follow a twitter account, learn a language, and be equipped for God to use you in a cool way.  I don't think Byki is a Christian organization I just suggest them because they have free resources.  If you have resources that allow you to still be wise with your money go for it.  See if your library has a copy of Rosetta Stone or other tools.  If you know anybody that works for the DoD and had to learn a language they probably have a copy.  It doesn't matter what you use, the point is to let God use you.

Radical dude!

This was a phrase often followed by "Cowabunga!" when I was younger.  I was a big fan of Ninja Turtles.  But that is not what this post is about.  If you've been to our family blog you've seen that we're about to start going through the "Radical" series by David Platt.  We put this off for a while because everyone who recommended it was changed.  That sounds dumb, but what I mean is, we weren't ready to give up our selfishness.  We could see this series made people really question a lot of things in their lives and we weren't ready to that yet.

One of the families that it really made a difference on was the Hendricks. They talked about it a lot.  And not only because of Radical, but definitely out of a series of God-orchestrated events which included Radical they are now moving to Haiti. See what I mean?  Anyway I was reading through their blog, as well as the blog for their new mission-community-connection-whatever organization Mosaic Village and I finally stopped fighting it.  Ricci and I are going to start going through this series and I'm pretty sure it's going to rock our nice little boat.  I told Ricci this feeling is the spiritual equivalent of knowing you have to go get a shot.  You know it's gonna hurt. You might cry. And it might even be sore for a while. But you also know that it's good for you so need to just suck it up and do it.



In unrelated news, Ricci and I were in HEB getting hot dogs for my work party for the 4th of July.  I grabbed a package of Hebrew Nationals, because they aren't horrible for you.  Basically they're kosher dogs.  Upon flipping the package over I counted how many franks there were so I'd know how many packages to get.  "1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Okay there's...wait...seven?" I counted again, because it was an odd number. There were definitely seven. "Why would they have seven?" I asked. And then simultaneously Ricci and I looked at each other and said "It's a perfect number!" and then couldn't stop laughing in the meat section of the grocery store.

So there you go. Something serious and something light. Have a great day