Greetings from Steve and Sandy Aholt,
We are so thankful for each and every one of you – our faithful prayer warriors and financial support team. It has been our privilege to jointly minister together with you, to reach the people of Papua New Guinea (PNG) with the Gospel of Christ, since we became missionaries with the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE), in 1990. Our faithfulness together in ministry has allowed God to reap a great harvest for His glory. We have been able to be obedient to Christ and His great commission using our aviation skills.
Since our first contact with you in raising our initial support to reach the field, twenty-nine years ago, we have never had a need to ask you for any extra funds – God has always provided. God has been faithful, and He has blessed each of you to be able to support us fully for the entire time that we worked in Papua New Guinea.
In May of 2013, the ABWE-PNG Field Council voted to close the aviation program. Sandy and I could see God’s direction from those decisions. Each and every event that followed has made us see more clearly God’s direction for our lives and ministry (i.e. sale of the airplane; peace with decisions that effected our ministry; physical needs; decreased and/or discontinued financial support). Those decisions precipitated a series of events that continue to this day, leading up to our planned retirement from ABWE on October 1, 2019 (turning age 66).
Here is an excerpt from and email that we received from the ABWE Finance office yesterday, January 30, 2019:
“. . . your account really only has about $500 in the account, and you still have multiple trips to churches and donors, as well as other ABWE ministries to complete before retirement. . . . due to a lack of donated funds your account balance has been decreasing at almost $1,000 a month and that if God does not provide the funds needed, that you will not have any funds for your ministry, including the fact that you would not be able to receive any paycheck due to lack of funds in you ministry account. If no funds are there, then you may need to retire even earlier than planned from ABWE and stop your ministry all together.”
We have had some unexpected medical bills that our medical insurance did not pay for. Our support level has also been decreasing. We shared this information with you as a matter of prayer, but there is an urgency to add additional funds to our ABWE account now.
Please pray and ask God if there is something that you can give, above and beyond, what you are already giving! Some of you may be able to give a generous one-time gift, or maybe you are able to give a monthly amount to bolster our mission account for the next eight months. We will pray and wait to see how God answers.
We thank you in advance for your prayers about this impending financial need.
Listening for the trump and praying,
Steve and Sandy Aholt
Update 2 Feb 2019
Greetings again from Steve and Sandy Aholt,
We would like to help you better understand about our ABWE financial account need. There has been some questions and we hope that this explanation will make it more clear about our low support issue.
ABWE has different sub-accounts within our individual main account. Surplus funds, in our Ministry and Furlough Ministry account, have been supplementing the other sub-account needs while we have been receiving only 76% of our required monthly support. Those surplus funds have now been depleted from those two accounts.
All of our sub-account requirements have been met through January 31, 2019. Going forward, we will begin to have reduced ministry funds and salary to make ends meet if we continue to receive only 76% of our required support. This is a short-term situation that will end in October when we retire from ABWE. Upon retirement there will be a new accounting structure put in place.
Thank you for your prayers about this. If you feel that God is directing you to give, any amount that you choose is tax deductible.
This link takes you to our ABWE online donation page if you want to donate online.
Here is the Intention to support 2019 for one-time, monthly, or quarterly giving. Below is the information that you will need from us for the first few lines:
Missionary/Project Name: Aholt
Missionary ID: 0110121
If you have any further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to ask.
Listening for the trump and praying,
Steve and Sandy Aholt