Fund raising – James & Carolanne https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com Serving God as a web programmer with Digital Strategies. Sat, 10 May 25 23:06:06 +0000 en-US Ministering In India And Expecting Twins https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/2018/03/22/india-and-twins Fri, 23 Mar 18 15:09:32 +0000 https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/?p=2697 Partnerships In India Our team has been busy the past few months, and one of the biggest developments has been the formation of several partnerships with groups and lay-leaders serving on the ground in India. ?? The nation of India is a huge potential mission-field with a population of 1.3 billion people with only 2.3% claiming Christianity as their religion.* We are in the process of building partnerships with several different groups right now who would like to use our mentoring software to reach and mentor people in their respective areas of India and Bangladesh. ? Please pray for these partnerships, that the Lord would use the folks on the ground, and the tools we provide, to share the love of Christ with many in the nation of India. Pray especially for our director Sheldon as he and a small team will be traveling out there to meet with leaders in-country and finalize some of the details required to allow this ministry to happen. * Source: Wikipedia Donation Matching Update A few months ago I mentioned that there is a special donor who has partnered with The Life Project to financially match any gifts that we are able to raise, up to $100,000. This gift has been a HUGE blessing to our whole team and we have all been working together to take this opportunity to raise funds in order to take advantage of the matching. Essentially it has meant that every additional donation we receive is duplicated with a gift to The Life Project. ? ? I am really excited to tell you that working together as a team we have raised the full $100,000! In fact, the donor making the match has been quite impressed and has pledged an additional $50,000 until the end of June. ? ? As part of this funding drive, Carolanne and I have personally been praying for and trying to raise an additional $250/month in monthly support. Though one-time gifts are VERY helpful, these monthly donations are especially critical to us, since we are still a long way from having our full monthly support. Encouraging Stories What would a newsletter be without "stories from the field"?! ? Since my role on the team is very technical, I went looking for a good story from one of our more "front-line" staff. I found this, which reminded me again why I do this work. This was written by one of our online chat coordinators:
One of the greatest joys so far this quarter is the salvation of an expectant teenager who came into the room in January, fearful that she'd be pushed into an abortion. That first evening, she accepted Christ as her Savior. The next day her boyfriend came to the room and made the decision to follow Christ as well. Soon she reported that she'd been to a pregnancy resource center where she'd joined a Bible study and was getting help. The last I heard, they had gotten married and had found out that she's expecting twins. Both of these young people come from homes where parents do not yet know the Lord, so do join us in prayer for their salvation.
Praise the Lord ? ? for how He continues to work every day through the faithful service of our team using the tools I have the honor of helping to build. Thank you for your part in allowing us to be a part of this ministry. Prayer Requests ? We truly appreciate the great team of friends, supporters and prayer warriors who stand with us in this ministry. We are reminded quite often that we couldn't do this job without you. Please continue to pray for us in the following areas:
  • Sheldon's trip to India (see above)
  • More technical staff We are looking for a few more people to join our technical team. Specifically a front-end designer and a back-end programmer.
Lets Get Together! If you have any questions about our ministry, or would like to hear more, we would love to connect further. If you live somewhere in or around the Fraser Valley, BC, we could easily get together for coffee, pie or a meal. ? Why not drop us a note? Click here to leave us a note on our website form. It goes to both Carolanne and I (James). Or, if you got this by email, just hit "Reply". We would love to hear from you.]]> Global Daily - August 2017 https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/2017/08/18/global-daily-august-2017 Fri, 18 Aug 17 12:10:58 +0000 https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/?p=2615 * GlobalDAILY is the monthly prayer calendar of Central Heights Church global workers. Each month a question is asked of us in order to facilitate discussion and inspire us to share new and interesting facets of our ministry. The question: September is a time of change so, how can we pray specifically for you, your family and ministries? Please pray for our family as we ramp up for this new school year. We are choosing to homeschool both kids again this year and so are always on the lookout for new and interesting learning opportunities for them. Please pray also for our ministry and personal fund-raising. Pray that the Lord will bring to our minds people who we should invite to support us, as well as for us to be on the minds of those He is challenging. Thank you for continuing to keep us in your prayers. Visit our ministry site for more information and stories about us and the ministry at ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com]]> New Hardware https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/2017/07/20/new-hardware Thu, 20 Jul 17 16:57:17 +0000 https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/?p=2601 Doner Dinner We (The Life Project) recently held a special dinner for as many donors and friends as we could gather. It's purpose was to help encourage and inform everyone about our ministry activities and future direction. We also hoped to raise some additional funds for staff and the ongoing ministry expenses. We had great food, and many from this team who attended expressed to me how much they appreciated the chance to see a bit more clearly what we do and the real impact we have. In my opinion, it was a great success. Thank you so much to those of you who were able to make it. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to follow up in any way from that event. I also have a more personal request that I would like to share with you. My laptop is beginning to show it's age and will need to be replaced. Since 99.9% of my work involves my laptop, usually running very heavy loads, I will be needing to get a new one. The machine will be bought for me by Power to Change but I would like to raise some funds to help cover the cost of the purchase. I would be honored and very grateful if you would consider donating funds to help with this purchase. You can give on The Life Project's secure giving form at: https://thelifeproject.com/give/?designation=980280 You can also give by cheque mailed to:
Power to Change Ministries Attn: Partner Care 20385 64 Avenue, Langley, BC V2Y 1N5
Be sure to include a note or memo indicating that it is for me, or with my staff number 980280 attached. For the more technically minded, I'll be getting a new MacBook Pro. I made the switch to a Mac back in 2013 and have really enjoyed the power and stability it has offered. My current MacBook has been a great tool for application development and I am looking forward to the newer/faster model. Most of the development tools that we use in building the websites and applications are built to run best on a Mac so it has been a very good fit for my development needs. Unfortunately, lately it has begun to have some hardware issues such as freezing and rebooting at random and inconvenient times. Thank you so much for considering this. Please do not feel pressured in any way. We really do appreciate having you on our team, and are so grateful for what you all give in funds and prayer already. Thank you for your time, James W.]]> Feb-Mar 2016 Newsletter https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/2016/02/22/march-update Mon, 22 Feb 16 15:48:12 +0000 https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/?p=2399 I hope you receive this. It has been incredible how God has used you in my life, particularly in the seasons of deep need. I have seen God be instrumental through you to reveal His hand of healing truth, love, and comfort. I will miss our times of communication, you mean a lot to me. Thank you for always being there to listen and give wisdom and discernment, especially to pray for me. My life has changed for the better for having your support and encouragement. Thank you so much for praying for and supporting us in this ministry. It is amazing to see how God uses my small part in this to touch the lives of people literally around the world. We even receive messages from people in places such as Iraq, Syria, India and China. It's so cool to be able to play a part in that sort of impact. Thank you for allowing us to continue to be a part of this ministry. Thank you for your prayer, and thank you for your financial help. Some Numbers For The Statistically Minded: For the 2015 fiscal year (July 1, 2014 - June 30, 2015) we saw the following: Incoming Messages Matched To Mentors: 83,537 Active Mentors: 1065 at fiscal end Chat Room Participants: 122,585 Indicated Decisions for Christ: 13,271 Organization Updates: As you may have heard, for the past while Power to Change has been searching for someone to fill the role of President. Rod Bergen was previously holding the Interim President position during the search, and has now accepted the full role of President of Power to Change. Additionally, Sheldon Kotyk has taken the reins of Director of The Life Project which is the ministry that I serve. Our mission statement is The world is online. We help them know Jesus. Read more about our team here. Support Status Update: As many of you know, my work with Power to Change is funded by monthly financial donations given by people like yourself who stand with me in the work that I do. I am very grateful for this team of donors and prayer supporters who allow me to continue working with the ministry. To date, my support level is around 50% of what it should be based on Power to Change guidelines of my salary and expenses. In light of the deficit, The Life Project has generously contributed a portion of the remainder to cover my ongoing salary. (being a non-profit, this basically means that someone else has had to raise the money on my behalf) The expectation is that I continue to try and raise the remaining amount as monthly donations. Please continue to pray that God will provide for our financial needs. For the past year or so I have also been working a second job (in addition to my full-time at PtC) to help with our family finances. Family Update: As a family, we have been doing very well. Carolanne continues to homeschool the kids and meets regularly with other homeschooling moms and groups in town for field trips and socializing times. We have quite a variety of homeschool related projects that take place around our house such as rock collections and research, hatching baby chicks, math assignments and lots of trips to the library to check out the latest reading materials. The kids are growing fast and have been quite excited about the prospect of going to Disneyland in a few months. We wanted to take them while they were at the right age to enjoy it, so we have been saving as a family for a few years now, and plan to go down later this spring with Grampy and Grammy. We hope to also visit some of our other family members and supporters in San Diego while in the neighborhood. Final Thoughts & Prayer Requests: Thank you again for standing with us in this ministry. Both Carolanne and I are very encouraged to have such faithful friends supporting us in prayer and financially. Please continue to pray about our financial situation. God has been so very faithful in providing for all our needs, and yet it still always seems to be a point of stress in our lives. Maybe He is still teaching us patience and reliance on Himself. Please pray also for our core team. (The Life Project) There has been quite a lot of change lately with financial cut-backs, and people being let go or moving on to other fields, and systems requiring changes, and leadership changes. Please pray for unity in the team and for God's provision for our ministry as a whole. Finally, please pray for our mentors. They truly are the front-line of the ministry, serving the people who come asking for help, and walking with them on the next steps of their spiritual journey. Please pray that they would be encouraged in their relationships. Often the mentors write to visitors and never get a response. Other times the "prayer requests" are so shallow or short that they almost seem to not be worth responding. And yet in some cases, some of our coolest salvation stories have come from short (or even empty) messages we have received from people who turned out to be in some far off country looking for help but unable to express it clearly. Thank you again, All the best, James & Carolanne Ben & Julia]]> Post-Indonesia Update https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/2014/02/06/post-indonesia-update Wed, 12 Feb 14 16:38:17 +0000 https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/?p=2113 For those who didn't know, Sheldon (my supervisor) and I (James) went to Indonesia for a week in January in order to meet and coordinate with two programmers who have joined our team. Marcel and Shierly will be working with us for at least six months in order to help with some of the technical work needed for our upcoming projects. It was really helpful to be able to get to know them face-to-face and to help them start getting up to speed with the software and technology we use for day-to-day work in the ministry. Since being back in Canada I have been working fairly closely with the Indonesian team to help get them going as efficiently as possible. For me, this means working a split-shift so as to partially overlap our timezones. (they start work at 8 am their time, which is 5 pm in BC) Thank you for your prayer for us during the trip. I think we all felt that it went really well and was a great opportunity to build some rapport with this Indonesian team. We even got a bit of R&R while we were there, courtesy of our generous host. (thanks Dusty!) Other Ministry News: In addition to our trip, these past few months have been packed with activity for everyone on our TruthMedia team. The film team has been busy with the Treasure series.  The chat team has been very active in leading discussions and devotionals.  The writers have been working on a new devotional series.  And the programming team has been building a new and easier mentoring system.  This report was sent in recently from Winsome, one of our primary chat moderators:
A major focus in 2013 had been the development and release of ”Treasure: Jesus Is Worth Everything.” This material has been introduced into our coed chat room this month, and God is using it to stir some exciting conversations with eternal impact! During the first two weeks one of our moderators was able to talk with two ladies who had not yet given their lives to Christ, and both have now been adopted into the family of God! Four other individuals have prayed TheLife commitment prayer. Thanks to those who worked so hard to produce a quality tool. God is at work and we rejoice!
Praise the Lord for such dedicated staff and volunteers who are constantly at work helping people take the next steps in their journey of faith. One funny story came up recently in our weekly staff meeting.  A staff member mentioned he received a message from someone off facebook who said he wanted to know Jesus.  His response: "Well, isn't it great he came to the right place!  We do that here." I love being part of a team that "does that".  It's the core of why we exist!  To show people the way to Jesus. Thank you for helping me to be a part of this team. Your prayer and support has been critical in helping me to continue in this ministry. Prayer Requests:
  • Please pray as we continue to raise our support.  Last year was really great. We passed the 50% mark in spite of a few setbacks. Our biggest support raising hurdle right now is knowing who else to ask.  We have already talked to many of the people we know and so finding new people who might be interested is a challenge.
  • Please pray for TruthMedia funding. Though we have lots of great opportunities and results, funding for the ministry over-all is VERY low. There are a number of staff (like me) who are not fully supported, and this puts an extra drain on ministry funds as the ministry covers a portion of the remainder so that we can afford to stay.
Thank you so much, James Warkentin]]> The Lion's Den https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/2013/11/29/the-lions-den Mon, 10 Feb 14 11:02:22 +0000 https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/?p=2096 Special Request https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/2011/11/29/special Tue, 29 Nov 11 15:50:35 +0000 https://ptc.jamesandcarolanne.com/?p=1471 Right now, TruthMedia is experiencing a major financial crunch. There are a number of staff who are in similar situations to ours where they have some of their support raised, but not all of it.  This means that our director has to go out and raise more funds not only for the ministry itself (big websites cost a lot of money to run), but also for the staff shortfalls.  If staff don't have all their support in and TruthMedia can't help with the extra, they only get paid what they have raised.  In our case, if that was to happen we would most certainly have to quit and find other employment. We would like to ask you to consider giving a special gift this Christmas or consider joining our financial support team on a more permanent basis (if you're not already). Alternatively, if you would be willing to consider giving a large special gift to TruthMedia, that would also be very much appreciated. Giving Options: Thank you very much for listening and considering us in this matter.  We also want to give a special thank you to those of you who have been giving already so faithfully towards our ministry. We have both really appreciated it and been encouraged by your generosity.    Your faithfulness has allowed us (and our team) to see 500,000 people come to the sites in the past month and have conversations with over 16,000 of those people. Thank you. Wishing you all the best this Christmas season, James, Carolanne, Benjamin and Julia]]>