Bring your tithes and offerings

Bring your tithes and offerings


During the South African mission we are asking members of “Arise O Man,” the name of the combined choruses, to share stories or thoughts about how God is great, what God has done in their lives, how he has provided a way to participate in the mission, or what has made the biggest impression on them during this this mission. Here is one of those stories.


By Bill Gosse, His Praise, Vancouver, Washington

This started about 10 years ago when I was talking to my sister on the phone and I told her that OAMC was planning to go to Africa – Kenya and Tanzania. 

[The late] Jerry Patzer was having a series of meetings in Tanzania and he had invited OAMC to come along. So I was telling my sister how much I’d like to go, and she said, “Why don’t you?” I told her “Money. I can’t afford that.” She said “Well, Gary (her husband) and our business is going well, and we just had a $25,000 sale, and didn’t you say that it would cost $2,500 to go to Africa?” I said “Yeah.” She said “Well, that sounds like a good tithe payment to me, we’ll pay for it if you decide to go.” 
So that’s how I went last time.

When I heard that OAMC was coming to South Africa again, my ears perked right up. Oh! I love Africa. It was good to be there and I wanted to come again. 

So I was talking to my sister on the phone again, and I decided that I would not mention it to her. But I couldn’t help it and I told her that OAMC was going to Africa again. “Would you like to go?” she asked. “Oh, I would, I would, I would.” I told her. “But there’s no way I can afford it.” She told me that their business had taken a downturn, and they couldn’t afford to donate this time. So I told her it was fine, I wasn’t soliciting, just mentioning it in conversation. She told me to ask Mom, because she had also helped last time. So I mentioned it to Mother, and she said, “No, I can’t do it either.” So I resigned myself to “Oh, well.” Because I would desperately love to go, but clearly it wasn’t going to happen this time. 

But that doesn’t mean that I stopped praying about it. I really wanted to go, and I made it a matter of prayer all the time. It was when I went to the festival in April 2012 that some people asked me if I was going to Africa, and I told them I’d attend it spirit only. I couldn’t afford it, and it was twice as much money as last time. 

I started changing my prayers. I would say, “Lord, I want to go, but I don’t want to go unless you want me to be there.” Money is my big problem. I’m self-employed so I don’t have trouble taking time off, but this is my busiest time of year. I’m backlogged with work, and I’m trying to retire in a few years so I was praying, “All the gold and silver is yours, and you have all the tithes and offerings in the storehouse, so I’m going to let you do what you do best. Things I never could.”

In addition to my tithes and offerings, then, I also started making an offering to world missions, a hundred dollars a week. Just a little bit before that, another fellow in a group that I sing in asked if I was going to Africa and I told them no. He told me I’d better think about it, because he and his wife had already donated for me to OAMC. I told him thanks, but I didn’t know what to say, since I wasn’t planning to go.

The following Sabbath we had some friends over for lunch, and a few days later we got an email from them saying that they were going to put some money in for me to go to Africa. I found out that the more I donated to missions, the more came in, and I never asked a soul for a dime. I thought,“This is amazing!” It came up to the day we were supposed to leave; July 25th, and I was still $500 short. My wife was telling me that she thought that OAMC told everyone just to go, even if you were a few hundred dollars short, it won’t matter, but I was $500 short, not one or two hundred dollars.

A little bit later my wife called me in and said to come read this email. So I did; it was some people who had previously donated and they said that they felt impressed to donate again. They were donating $500 more, and that was all of it! 

I never asked for a dime. God said to bring in the tithes and offerings to the storehouse, and he would open the windows of heaven. And that’s how I came to Africa this time.