Before I started deputation, I read that it provides you the time needed to save enough money to “set up” (aptly called a “start-up” fund) once you arrive on the field. I have to say that I could not agree more.
Think of all the things you will need to get started in your country, including expenses that come with moving to another country and setting up your home.
For example, find out costs for appliances, furniture, what kind of down payments need to be paid upfront, plane tickets, vehicle costs, visas/paperwork, rent for a year (sometimes you have to make a deposit for the year!), and any other significant expenses you may face within the first few months.
This leads us to, “Well, how will I know all that?” The best way to really know what you will be up against is to complete a survey trip. Because expenses vary from country to country it is somewhat difficult to find out accurate prices without being there on the ground. During our trip, we found out a lot of things we just assumed were in our country, either were not, or worse, were 3x or 4x the price of that of America! Also, be aware of exchange rates. For example, during our survey trip, the dollar was at a 3-1 advantage for us (meaning $10USD = $30 in our country). Fortunately, by the time we got here, it was a little over 5-1! Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way!
If you cannot take a survey trip, do TONS of communicating with missionaries in your target area.
Once you have a total cost, sketch a plan to save that amount of money in the recommended amount of time you anticipate you will be on deputation. For instance, take the total number in your setup fund and divide it by the months you expect you will be on deputation to see how much you need to be saving each month (total cost / x number of months of deputation = monthly savings).
Here is a great example of what I am talking about:
$ > Monthly Support + Love Offerings=Savings
Let’s say you realize you can live off of $2000/mth while traveling. In this case, anything greater(>) than $2000 plus all love offerings gets deposited into the “start-up” fund.
When they first start deputation, many will be living off of love offerings; you do not have enough monthly support to do otherwise. However, as monthly support comes in, paired with love offerings, you will have more money to live comfortably. At this point, a missionary could start saving money very quickly, but there is a problem: as income goes up, so can quality of life. We are all guilty of it. We live on the amount that comes in, whether it is high or low, but we never have any leftover. Because many do not live budgeted lives and are often unknowingly in the battle of materialism, they struggle to save money for a setup fund. We must be careful of this. I have heard this in passing from different pastors while on deputation.
Quick Tidbit:
For our family, the key to saving for our “start-up” fund was lodging. There are seven of us in the family. Hotels get real expensive fast! I spent many hours over the 17 months of traveling to find free lodging, namely missions houses. We used IFBMT.info to scout out lodging options.
To illustrate what I mean, here is a breakdown of our travels. Out of the 552 nights on the road, we were able to find lodging for 541 of them! Only 11 nights were out-of-pocket! Now, for a family of seven, we needed two hotel rooms every night. For the sake of illustration, let’s set the median hotel cost at $90. In our case, that would be $180 every night (not including taxes). Doing the math on that, we would have spent $97,380. That means we did not have to pay $97,380. Now, of course, not every night would have been out-of-pocket as churches typically help with lodging. For us, our breakdown was as follows: 44 hotels, 38 missions houses, 20 homes. In some cases, we were in missions houses for nearly three months!
I believe it is possible to get ready to depart for the field and NOT have to ask for any additional help in expenses if you can apply some wisdom to how you travel.
