For a lot of years, Sowers4Pastors has been a family mission organization and everyone who supported them knew them personally. This was in stark contrast with the larger mission/child sponsorship organizations. Now, there are a lot of sponsors who know very little about the Sowers family, what brought them to Honduras, and how they operate. But Sowers4Pastors is still a family mission organization.
Think of this as the difference between purchasing a book from a local independent bookstore on the corner and placing a book order on Amazon. Both endeavors will end with you happily reading a book. But, one employs almost 800,000 people and one is run by some guy you went to school with and his family. You don’t expect them to operate the same way. Amazon can give you a 24-hour customer service hotline. The independent bookstore can give you hands-on personal service, but it might take them the better part of a day to get back with you.
In case you are wondering what the Sowers4Pastors office space looks like, it closely resembles Allen & Trish’s and Russell & Iris’s kitchen tables. The customer service department is also known as, “I need to check my email.” This is not to imply that they do not care, nor that they won’t respond as quickly as possible. Quite the opposite is true! Someone from Sowers4Pastors or Manna 4 Lempira will personally look into your concern and get back to you as soon as they can. Just like the guy at the independent bookstore isn’t pulling in Jeff Bezos’ salary, the Sowerses, Kelsea, and the Halls are doing this for the love of it and their support staff is limited.
A few years ago, Trish had an online encounter with a sponsor who didn’t know them personally. The woman sent an email saying that she had decided to cancel her sponsorship. That is not a problem. Sponsoring a child isn’t a hostage situation and you are always free to cancel, for whatever reason. When three hours passed and she had not heard back from Sowers4Pastors, she was angry. More emails followed until, at the end of the day, she was threatening to report the ministry to the Better Business Bureau. That’s when Trish finally had time to sit down at the kitchen table, open her laptop, and read the first email that she hadn't even been aware of until she opened her email. This wasn’t about avoiding a task. Trish could have been busy with any number of things, from shooing a cow out of the kitchen to finding the location of the latest litter of kittens. Whatever she was doing, it wasn’t because she didn’t care about the woman on the other end of the email.
It’s also important for Manna sponsors to realize that Kim Hall does a lot of things not promised in the sponsorship agreement. These are her love gifts to sponsors. They are unexpected perks. They’re bonuses you didn’t see coming. They’re country gravy poured over an already delicious biscuit--yummy when you get it, but not necessary.
During the last couple weeks, Kim set up a video station at a backpack event. Out of the goodness of her heart, she made short videos of children thanking their sponsors for the backpacks. If you did not receive a video of your sponsored child, it isn’t for a lack of caring. Maybe your child slipped past Kim. Maybe she had to take a bathroom break. Maybe she hasn't gotten to posting it yet (she is doing several thousand of these, mostly during her own time). Whatever the reason, you still have everything you were promised. Don’t let the fact that some of our friends are tasting gravy prevent you from enjoying your biscuits that were made with love. And please don't forget that Sowers4Pastors still operates as a family run organization, without a lot of staff. If you want to get to know them better - please read back through this blog! Trish has posted all kinds of stuff over the years about the ministry and family life as a family running a ministry!
- posted by Christi B.
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