By Joel and Kara Barkman in Spain — A massive mountain of school debt stood between us and the mission field of Spain. We had been slowly chipping away at it over the past couple of years, but it still seemed like it would take many more years to pay it off entirely. So we decided to try something different.

We held an art auction and photography sale in Newton, Kansas, at Norm’s Coffee Bar. We had live music, a missions presentation, and sold 16 original paintings by Kara, along with matted prints from her photography collection. Kara received a surprise at the end of the night when two of her most dear paintings were given back to her as gifts. What an incredible and humbling experience!

God worked through very generous donors and buyers to pay off about 95% of our remaining school debt in one evening! We even had people bidding from halfway around the world!

Even if it is somewhat socially taboo to talk about our financial situation in this way, we hope this testimony will be an encouragement to everyone and show how God hears our prayers and is faithful and can move the “mountains” in our lives. It is only because of what God has done, not us. It was incredible to see the Body of Christ come together in unity for this event. Not everyone is called to pack up and move overseas, but we believe everybody is called to have some sort of role in the Great Commission.

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