Water From The Rock

When the Israelites were wandering in the desert, they never lacked for anything. Quail bombarded them from the heavens when they missed meat, daily bread awaited them each morning as they stepped out into the new day, and water gushed from a rock when they were thirsty. Their shoes and clothing never wore out in forty years.

We see the miracles and we think how incredible it all is, and it is. But what a journey in surrender these people were walking! There was no stability except the knowledge that God is faithful, and able, and mighty to save. Yet despite His track record in proving this, we are still sinful, human, fallen creatures who hate it when things are out of our control and there is nothing we can do about it, don't we?

Our journey, too, has been full of incredible Only-God provision moments. We have learned and are learning what it means to live a life of full surrender and trust. We have come a long way, but by no means have we arrived, we probably never will. The spiritual life after all is one of continuous challenge and growth in faith, in surrender and in holiness. No pain, no gain as they say.

So as I lay my stones on the altar and share the highlights of our journey, I also must sometimes take a moment to lay down a stone of burden that we carry, to confess that like Pilgrim, we too sometimes find ourselves with a heavy pack that we must lay down at the cross. So here are my stones, I lay them down, I raise my white flag, I surrender all to Him.

When we first arrived in Italy we were classified as independent contractors for tax purposes. This is because we are not technically "employees" of MSC Canada. This puts us in the worst possible tax bracket in Italy because 1. it does not let us claim any ministry expenses so we must pay full tax on 100% of our income, and 2. it does not allow us to qualify for any benefits at all.

Because of this, we started questioning whether it wouldn't be in our best interests financially to join a paramissionary organization here in Italy that would give us "employee" status to the Italian government. Yes it would cost us a 4% admin fee but that would be made up from the child support checks we would then qualify to receive AND it would allow us to have a separate expense account and therefore lower our income, thus lower our taxes. With the green light from our leadership team in Canada we went ahead with this.

Bureaucracy in Italy is not easily avoided. Complication after complication has met us since we made this switch. Besides the 4% admin fee we need to pay another 6% to make up the "employer contributions", because as a missions agency, they don't have income so of course this money has to come out of the missionaries own support. On top of that, we learned that unlike in Canada, we can not file all our ministry expenses, but only Pietro's portion. So for example, if and when we come home on home assignment we can only claim Pietro's airfare. Also, we won't qualify for child support until NEXT year because LAST year more than 30% of our income was as a non-employed status. Lastly, we just learned this past week that our Italian agency can not pay us more than x number of dollars per month paycheck. About 1,000 euros less than our monthly living expenses. What does this mean? Our income is less, and our expenses are substantially more. So the pressure has mounted and stress has ensued.

Different "solutions" have been presented to us. Our Italian agency can take over our rental contract and utilities and pay them out of our expense account rather than us paying them out of our paycheck, it would still be claimable income, but not funneled through our paycheck (does your head hurt yet, ours does). The problem with this is that to change all our contracts will cost us 1,000 euros and if later we decided to leave the Italian agency it would cost us that much again to change it back. We just did this twice in the past year because of our move. Then we have the looming cost of furlough flights that add another huge expense and yet we know furlough is as much an important part of this journey as getting here was. Do not worry, fear not, be bold and courageous. These are the words that play in our heads and that we try hard (white knuckle hard) to live by.

That's the physical practical explanation of what we are dealing with, mentally  and spiritually we feel like God is challenging us. Convicting us. In a way I feel like Sara when she took matters into her own hands and tried to "help" God fulfill his promise of an heir. God doesn't need our "help" to make things financially feasible any more than He needed Sara to arrange for a roundabout pregnancy. And yet that is what we have been trying to do ever since we got here. Find a  way to "save God" money.

It's a fine line between being a good steward of God's (and your) money and surrendering to God's sovereignty in the desert. A fine line between trying to squeeze water from the rock or trusting in the One who can make it flow.