You ask for funding and donors, that your organization might bring peace and health to many. It is a noble outward aim. Yet consider: is peace a commodity that gold can purchase? Christ says, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you." Not the peace of funded programs, but a peace the world cannot give.
Recall the rich man who had abundance yet was truly poor, for he lacked mercy and was tormented in flame, while Lazarus, who had nothing, rested in Abraham's bosom. He is not rich who has many possessions, but he who needs nothing. He is not poor who has nothing, but he who desires many things. Do not judge according to appearance, as if a full treasury were the sign of God's blessing.
The Apostles went forth with neither silver nor gold, yet they healed body and soul, and made men whole. Your programs for community health, do you desire only the health of the body, or that wholeness which Christ gives, making a man entirely sound? Circumcision was partial health, but Christ makes a whole man. So too your conflict mitigation: if you seek only outward truce, you have built on sand.
Peace is the Mother of all good things. The peacemakers are called sons of God because the Son of God came to reconcile earth and heaven. But where there is discord, all is overturned. So before you beg heaven for money, beg it for that peace which passes understanding.
Let there first be harmony among yourselves, a man and his wife agreeing together, for where those who lead are at peace, all the members rest. Do you contend anxiously for donors, trusting in princes and the sons of men? Consider the three Children bound in the furnace; their bonds were loosed not by human aid, but by the dewy breeze of God's presence. Paul and Silas sang in prison, and the doors flew open.
Seek first the Kingdom, and these things shall be added. Lay hold of the good tidings: the true wealth is the Gospel, which is given with all facility, not earned by feverish striving. Do not make a mockery of prayer, as if forty days of supplication were enough to purify you, and then you return to anxiety as to a sickness. The demon of greed whispers that without human provision your work fails.
But I say, you have an Angel of peace who beholds the Father's face. Stand in awe as before a tutor. Disturbance comes from the devil, peace from Christ. If you will be a peacemaker, then first cast out the love of money, for the mystery of peace will not let you cling to wealth.
The Lord spared not Himself for you; will you spare your trust, and lavish your soul on worry? Pray, then, that the hearts of men be opened, not their purses only, but their hearts to the true peace and health that Christ brings. The real breakthrough is that sinners be reconciled to God. When that happens, earth becomes heaven.
Then, if it please the Lord, even the funds will follow, as the fish brought the coin in its mouth. But seek nothing according to appearance. Judge rightly: the wealth of the soul is charity, not coin.