Praying for specific things. Seeing what GOD does.

Gathering online is more of a challenge now.  It was my plan in the beginning to start there and organize each country's resources.  Now, I am not sure.  The internet has become the battleground for everything.  It is not a safe place.

I have thought it might be better to be our own host, not part of Yahoo or Google or any other major hosting platform.  I thought we might be able to protect ourselves better.  I'm not sure that is true.  I would need to find out.

These are things I still think about, in case GOD provides the funding for Working Together (WT) while I am still alive.

And I pray about my replacement -- someone who will protect the people of GOD through Working Together.

It seems like my life has been wasted because I haven't been able to build anything.  Then my Faith kicks in because I know GOD can do anything that He needs done, and I don't know what His Plan is.  I KNOW He wouldn't have started Working Together unless it was part of His Plan for our time.

Recently, I have been listening to a lot of Joel Osteen YouTube videos (sermons).  I think he reminds us that GOD is the One in charge.  He helps us remember GOD works in very mysterious ways to accomplish His Will in our lives and in the world.

When I started trying to build something to help Christians, we didn't face the technology we face now.  The microchip wasn't in anyone's body.  We didn't know about digital currency.  The problems we faced were not so global and frightening.  Spiritual warfare was not something I thought about.

It's hard to think about all the things that have happened in my life.  I guess I expected GOD to just provide what was needed to slowly build the places of refuge I envisioned... and felt were His leading.  It didn't work out that way.

I am now trying to make a new set of notes about all the things involved in building Working Together.  I am calling it my Prayer List.  I hope to check things off as GOD provides for them.

I have heard of others doing this.  I have attempted to start lists before.  This time is more important.  I am at the natural age for death and I am seeking GOD for what to do with Working Together.

I watched an animated story about George Muller by Torchlighters at the Vision Video channel ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7jUlzZtyEQ  ).  Muller is the man who trusted GOD for every detail of saving the orphans forced to live on the streets of his city.  

He made lists.  He recorded the dates when GOD answered prayers.  I think he also recorded what they prayed for but, right now, I don't recall all those details.  What I have always remembered about George Muller was his faith.  I don't know that my faith is that strong.

My plans for Working Together were different.  My faith was that GOD would provide the funds and I would use those to build what we would need to survive without money.  I expected to build everything using Membership funds and then other products and income sources.

Membership funds created the Tithe (10%) as a Benevolence Fund, a Reserve Fund (10%) as savings for emergencies and costs in the future year, WT financial needs (about 20%) , and various Program Funds (about 40%) for their operating expenses, and the last 20% for taxes and unexpected needs.  I have it all in my notes.  This may not be the exact percentages, but it is the general framework.  

Each program has its own breakdown.  Every part of Working Together was planned to create its own products and services to create more income to build itself.

All Working Together wages would be equal, paid by the hour.  In other countries, wages would be figured on the area housing and food costs.  Either 30% housing or 20%food using full-time wages as the base.  

People would keep their own incomes outside of Working Together.  WT wages are meant to support the individuals and families that are part of its workforce, members and non-members, equally.

We would build the houses and other spaces for each community, we would grow our food, and these would be part of the wages we paid. 

An example: the charge for housing and utilities would be 30% of full-time wages, food is figured at 20% of full-time wages.  This is as far as I could plan.  The work would be all the tasks we need to survive as a community.

There are a lot more details in my planning notes.  It wasn't meant to be a commune, more like a regular community.  People keep their own incomes, if they have any, and WT wages are equal because we are One Body but have different tasks within the Body of Christ.

Someone in Washington state set the equal wages by a yearly amount.  I felt it was important to set it at an hourly amount. 

Everything would not belong to everyone, but everything would be used to help as many as GOD allowed.

I wonder if we have time to build anything.

12MAR - Marketing to find ONE MILLION supporters!

I actually spent $10 to buy a marketing ebook I saw on Etsy … yesterday, I think.  Time is so crowded I have a hard time remembering what I did on what day without my notes!  After downloading it and browsing the Table of Contents, I decided to see the Appendix topics, starting with building email lists.

That is one of my current challenges... how to do it, where to share the links to have people sign up, etc.  In reading some of the instructions, I realized I might just need my MailChimp (.com) account to do the "landing pages" I have read about elsewhere... big help!  I was trying to figure out how to make one! Soon I will head over to MailChimp and see what I can find.

The big problem was there was no publication date, and the shop was pretty deserted since 2018 or 2019, and the blog link had a top year of 2012!!!   So I left a message at the Etsy shop and will wait to hear back.  Knowing when something is written helps you to interpret the writing... if it is still useable.

ONE section shared the definition of "vulnerable" -- and that was very moving to me.  I would never have looked up the word myself, so finding this section was worth the book to me.  Her definition came by way of  dictionary.com (I search words now but I think it is still available).  Here are the three parts of the definition she shared ::

-- capable of or susceptible to being wounded or hurt, as by a weapon
-- open to moral attack, criticism, temptation, etc.
-- (of a place) open to assault; difficult to defend

It meant so much to me because of Working Together, the business-ministry I have tried to build for Christians in the End Times.  It meant so much to me because of all I have endured for some years.  It meant so much to me because our world is becoming more angry, more violent, more criminal, more unfeeling, more focused on "me" and money and whatever it takes to get "mine."  Some of the news stories I have been reading make me cringe...I can't imagine some of the things people are doing to each other, innocent kids, elderly people, people with disabilities, and more.

Right now I can't recall what she compared it to, but it may have been how vulnerable we are when we try to market our dreams to the world.   This section was on page 100, according to my notes.  The book is called "Marketing Playbook" and it is written by Lisa Jacobs.  --  It looks like it was published in 2017, found on a page when I was looking for her Etsy shop name.  :-)  I think you should be able to find her shop by searching her name at Etsy.

I still need to read the main chapters, but my mind is find ideas on how to reach that many people over this year.  It is such a huge idea, but I know others seem to do it.  I may not be worth all that attention, but I will still see what I can do.  I will try to read more over the weekend and find some ideas that will work for me.

I almost bought another older book about reaching people for support, but I need to read this one first... time is so full I hardly find time to read at all... well, important things, I guess.

I am finding the need for DESIGN software is becoming more critical.  It takes time to learn any program.  I worked in MAC when I first started using computers, at a college I went to. Then Microsoft took over my activities with creating things.  I have spent a long time now learning Open Office, mostly the spreadsheet option.  I think learning ADOBE may be the next step.  It seems to be necessary for all, or almost all, of my designing goals.  The "vector" image I have learned about recently is the one I have been needing for so many years... I think, I hope, I need to find out!  I will need to make a decision about that soon.

I made a design at Printful on a 6-12 month onesie to see what I could do for the baby clothes goals I am working on.  It is due to arrive tomorrow.  Here is the mockup of the design I made.  I hope it turns out the way I created it.

That's the best image I have so far. try to click on it to see if it gets larger for you.  I can't do that here.

I am trying to use the PRINTFUL design option and find a way to make it work for me better.  So far, text is the easiest tool to use, but it has great limitations. I tried one of their clip-art hearts here.

I want to find a way to create ONE design that can be placed on lots of different products.... it seems that vector images is that path.

In other moments I have continued my efforts to organize my notebooks and recordkeeping.  I am getting that done.  It's my effort to have my goals for review each day, my records of what I have to do and what I get done, my costs, my budget and how well I keep to it (or not)  --  I guess these are part of the whole year's learning curve.

My new Patreon tiers have helped me to find the place to put my goals... big goals and small goals.  I hope to achieve these and move into more of the things I have tried to accomplish all my life.  If  GOD  allows, I hope to reach a point where my "Bucket List" items are also checked off, maybe shared with my Patrons, and others.

Well, my head is full of things I am want to do and don't want to share with you yet. Pray for me. Help me to become who GOD made me to be.  Be a part of my efforts to save as many vulnerable people as possible.

In Christ,
Deborah Martin

work2gather.us
patreon.com/DebsRetirementPlan
etsy.com/shop/work2gather

and more
getting updated every week
hoping to catch up with this BIG Challenge  :-)

Tuesday, 20 February 2018

The snow has been gently falling ALL day!!!  I am amazed!  The news I just heard is that it will pile up overnight, so the ground will be white again.  I love watching the big flakes fall down in the light of street lamps... but, any light will do.  :-) 

Dinner is cooking, I figured I might as well get to this now.  I'm trying to return to my scheduled life of blogging now that I found it is the best option for the long term.  I haven't worked on my big schedule yet, but it is on my desk.

I did watch the first video in my mini-course today...twice.  There wasn't a way to stop and back up the video to see a part more than once.  I decided to time the presentation on the second time through.  I may watch it again, or save myself for the next one... on money management.

After seeing the kajabi.com presentation, I am wondering what kind of courses I might think of doing.  I have to figure out video first... but it has been on my mind since I discovered NiceNet.org so many years ago.  I still have an account there (as far as I know) and have been trying to reach the point of presenting links to class efforts there.  It's a free site, long before Khan Academy, but it wasn't very enhanced back then.  I don't know what it is now.  I will have to rediscover it when I get there.

I have been wanting to do a lot of things I see on the internet... and hope to soon.  I am using this opportunity to revisit my goals in a new way (via the Best Year Ever course and workbook) to try to make a better priority list.  I love her version of the SMART Goals formula.  She calls it CRUSHING IT.  You need to check this out.  By the end of this, I may share the formula with you and have a link to something that explains it better.

With a goal as big as Working Together, finding the first thing to focus on has always been a challenge.  If I had more resources, I know I would have done better.  I will just keep going forward the best I can.

I see the influence of other people in her materials... like Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace program and SMART Goals.  I'm not sure what else I would recognize yet.

This is what we do... we seek out answers from all kinds of sources, try them out, and make them our own. I constantly recreate my goal pages.  There really isn't one easy way to achieve anything... it is all hard work that takes years of our lives.  I, personally, think I must be more like Edison (and maybe Lincoln), because I know all the ways that don't work... and keep looking for the one that will.  :-) 

It is the process that eliminates those who really don't want to find their goals.

*
I happened to rest upstairs when a Hallmark movie on "conflict resolution" was on.  I really don't recall the name.  I liked watching their solutions to changing the way we do things... How these changes are going to affect our lives.  It is only a movie, I know, but the details can be seen in real lives.

It is like that Brian Tracy CD I have :: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life.  It is so true.  It often takes a lifetime to figure these things out... which is very sad.  When my sons began to get in trouble with the law, I wished the prisons would use their time to teach the things I wasn't able to because they left, because they wouldn't listen to me, because they were out of control.  I know they try to do state-approved materials, but there is so much more that would benefit the process.  Instead, it becomes a waste of life... all that time is wasted... they often come out worse.

*
Well, that's enough for tonight.  Dinner is done and I need to go eat it.  :-)
Until next time...
In Christ,

Deborah Martin

*
*
*
May GOD touch our lives with His great Love and Mercy and Blessings.
May we appreciate what we have.
May we find a way to share.
May our choices only be good for our world.
May life find a way to keep going... and heal the damage we have done.
May the country we love be worthy of our affections.
May we find food, shelter, love, and dreams that come true.
Amen.

Monday, 18 December 2017

My... one more week!
Christmas is almost here... and then a brand new year to plan and make goals for and continue toward our dreams.

The end of the year is always a time of evaluation and planning.

*
I went to turn on the TV to some Christmas music this morning and discovered a terrible train wreck had happened, on my favorite train system, the Cascade run.  I started crying every time I sat to watch it.  Christmas is such a hard time for tragedies to happen.

*
I think I have watched almost all of the Christmas movies at Hallmark's stations.  I tried to watch a few of the offerings at other stations, but they get so raunchy I have to turn them off.  Some of the Hallmark movies are objectionable these days, so I am nearing the point of not watching them anymore.  Not sure what I will do.  I like to buy the ones I can deal with, but they are getting to be a pretty short list.  Morality shows up in so many ways... we often get it packaged in more "digestible" ways when you compare SNL and Hallmark, but the issues are still being presented to us.

The loss of a godly influence is more impacting than most believe.  I think some of the "good" people who don't want GOD in this world think that having everyone just like them is not going to make the world bad.  Christians are people who are learning how to be better than they use to be, good people have only their own moral ideas to guide them.  If everyone has their own idea of what is moral, it could be a very wide boundary.

*
I continue to post at my Working Together Inc page at Facebook.  I am learning about daily posting, PayPal.Me/WorkingTogetherInc , and what I need to do better for next December.  It has been decided that the way to achieve a yearly income budget (foundation) is to have the Membership Drive for the next year in December.  (I finally decided that was the way to stay dependent on GOD for His provision and His boundaries.)  This year I am trying to post every day about it.  I decided to share some of my goals and plans for WT as part of this process.  Membership is the main goal of Working Together.  It will give us the connections to Christians and other interested people, and it will limit our activities to our members needs, with eventual outreach to those outside our membership in the local communities we are established into.

I suppose it would be too much to go into here.  I discovered again that I had created a PayPal.Me account for WT so I started using it as a payment method.  It isn't perfect, but it is an option.  I can take donations from people who want to help me get this effort better established, and I can apply a membership to those who pay $100 for an individual one-year membership.  It will automatically be registered as a PUBLIC Membership, with email delivery of the monthly newsletter and other digital deliveries.

I am not able to offer the installment plan via PayPal yet.  By next year I will be offering that.  The installment plan is for those who want to pay monthly instead of in one payment.  It is $10/month.  As it is now, I can only offer a "subscription" option through PayPal, and I need to figure out the benefit structure better with that option.  My plans are all dependent on the full payment of a membership fee, so I need to break the benefits down into monthly parts... that will accrue as payments are completed.  The installment plan works better after more than one year has passed as some benefits increase as each year of renewed membership passes.

*
My PayPal.Me account registers me in Portland, Oregon, but I want to set up the offices for Working Together in Eugene, Oregon.  It is a complicated process for me because I don't have the money to do all these things myself.  I was able to update the presentation for those who go to the link for payments.  I added a photo of my logo-type thing.  I reworked the statement about what we are doing.  It took a lot of tries, but I hope it finally stays the way I wanted it to present.

My logo-type photo is a design I also want to make into stickers for various uses.  I like to put the Operation Christmas Child shoebox sticker on my letters (envelopes) as seals, so one day I will create a sticker for Working Together.

*
I think I know how Abraham and Sarah felt after waiting on GOD for all those years.  We expect GOD to do something right away.  When He doesn't, it is a challenge to keep believing.  I decided to use this blog for my posts because faith and prayer are my life. 

GOD doesn't tell us all the details of what He is busy doing, He just works out His Will.  I thought about at one point in my search for answers and decided it is because Satan would know what He is doing and try to mess it up.  Prophecies are a challenge for us to understand, but they are also a challenge for Satan.  That is why Satan thought he won the battle when he killed Jesus... but, actually, he was achieving GOD's Will, making it possible for us to be saved, making it unnecessary for us to have to sacrifice animals at the temple to forgive our sins.

GOD doesn't work the way we think He should.  We have to trust Him, to believe that the end will show us why things happen the way they do.

*
Well, I need to go write my Facebook post.
I will be back tomorrow, GOD willing.

In Christ,
Deborah Martin

*
*
*
May GOD help us all to trust Him through the hard times,
through the things we don't understand,
through the questions and the doubts and the dreams.
May GOD be kind to those who are suffering tonight.
May the angels be sent to comfort those who are hurting because of tragedies that have come into their lives unwanted, and unexpected, and undeserved.
May our lives be filled with hope and love and peace and joy and goodness.
May we all give more than we get, and share our bounties with those who have nothing.
Amen.