Remember we credit your year-end giving by the date of your check, NOT the date we receive it since mail is slow at this time.

Free Ways to Support Balm
1.  Please! Use www.goodsearch.com for your search engine.  If you select Balm Ministries in your “Support” box, they give us a penny each time you use the search engine – & it’s free to you, just like google!!
2.  Register your supermarket cards on escrip to support Balm – that way every time you buy groceries, they donate to us
3.  Just about any site that supports local charities has Balm listed.  eBay’s Giving Works & iGive.com will support us if you assign Balm as your charity of choice for that site.

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Prayer List
• Praises that my voice stayed strong & healthy on the road.
• Prayers for the $1500 necessary to get the once-a-year newsletter out so people know what we are working on in ministry.

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What You Have to Say
(note from Marsha: I must tell you that this email was especially encouraging to me in the midst of the hate mail!)
“As a conservative Christian, a heterosexual & at least a partial homophobe, I have viewed the liberal churches that allow gay clergy as a really bad sign of the times we live in. I have always automatically linked “Gay” & “Lesbian” with “porn” & the darker side of my own struggles as a Christian…. But I am confident that you are a Christian & a servant of the Most High God. And over the years you have reached out one hand to the Lord & with the other… you have brought many friends to Christ who are rejected by the conservative church.
 Marsha, I cannot say that I agree completely with all your claims but I am taking a closer look on account of you. You can’t separate yourself from whom or what you are & yet you still find yourself in the love & acceptance of Jesus Christ. You have refused to pretend at a very high cost.   I went to the Maranatha Music site & was surprised to find not a single reference to you or the Children of the Day band. I was reminded of the 1956 movie “ The Ten Commandments” where, after Moses refused to renounce his bloodline as a Hebrew slave he was exiled & Pharaoh said

“Stricken, Stricken….. The name Moses will be stricken from every reference…the name Moses will never be uttered again….Well if the Moses timeline fits here,… You have less than five years before you are Sent back to bring your people out.!!”

“I had written you for some guidance & prayer regarding my "coming out" situation with my parents, who are conservative evangelicals & obviously unaccepting of my "choice of friendships" as they've decided to call it. I just wanted to tell you that your words of encouragement at that time were an inexplicably large blessing to me, & I remember that day very well because I was absolutely at the end of myself & was pleading with God to send me some kind of encouragement, some sort of acknowledgement that would let me know one way or another that I was heard & understood. Immediately I received a response from you which I thought was a long shot anyway, & I never forgot what you told me. :)  I've been keeping up to date with your ministry & praying for God to use you in new & fantastic ways. It's exciting to see an outreach to mainstream churches. Thanks for being such an excellent example of Christ's love--it is inspiring. I don't know if I could be as level-headed. Soon I'm going to be meeting with my I'm praying for the right words to say & the patience that you seem to demonstrate so effortlessly.”