One need only travel and visit where I live and work to see it is not unlike any 3rd world country. We deal with poverty and sin just as anywhere but we also contend with mysticism and “spirit” religions, as well as many “traditions” just like so many groups of indigenous peoples in other parts of the world. We are a small congregation and struggle constantly to stay afloat and active despite these kinds of monetary setbacks. Often when I attempt to solicit support we are “graded” on the number of baptisms we have had rather than our evangelistic outreach efforts.

We pray often in thanks for the few who remain tirelessly faithful of our work here and also pray in the hopes that elders and members of mission committees would rethink their stance on what constitutes a “successful” mission field. If we all had to rely on a specific number of baptisms to justify our existence and work there would many mission congregations that would have to close their doors due to lack of support, both financially…and spiritually.

Please feel free to visit our website to see the exciting things happening here in Kinlichee, AZ! We are opening a computer school to teach local residents vital computer literacy in order to survive in a technologically based world, where many people here still live in traditional hogans often without running water or electricity and only wood stoves for heat and camp stove lights at night. We are also working with a preacher training school to begin a satellite virtual campus here for the Navajo preachers that do not have the luxury to leave their small congregations for two years to attend a formal school. A congregation in Tullahoma, TN provides the expense of satellite internet for us since we don’t have DSL like folks at home do so that we can operate our computer lab. Most of our computers have been donated lovingly by people and are quite old but still able to be utilized by the folks here.

We are able to do this for support of about $2,000.00 a month (so you can well imagine my “pay scale” let alone being able to set aside a little for a rainy day!) This includes keeping up our lease and utilities each month to stay open. Were it not for a small disability pension and some blessed help from a congregation I was a member of before coming here I would not be able to stay either.

I did not come here to get rich and would not leave here because it is a “poor” congregation…because it is not. I am blessed to be involved with a “rich” congregation that is “wealthy beyond all belief” with spiritually sound members who wish to better their relation with God and other Christians.

Bud Paine
Kinlichee Church of Christ
http://www.kinlicheechurchofchrist.org

That said we should be careful not to go too far and make a problem on the other extreme.