A few months ago we wrote about our financial needs and about how they had mostly been met through our generous supporters. However the recent financial troubles have resulted in the situation changing again. It has been interesting to see, and then reflect on, the different effect these kind of events have on missionaries compared to people back home. Whereas in many first world countries people are losing jobs, have lost savings and/or are seeing their current 'worth' drop through house prices and investments, we are seeing something very different.
Here in Tanzania our cost of living is increasing. Despite the price of goods remaining generally constant, life here has become more and more expensive as we've watched the value of the pound drop steadily over the recent months. Suddenly the 'real' value of all the things we need to live here have gone up. To use bread as an example: in September '08 bread cost 1,100 Tanzanian Shillings (Tsh). Using the exchange rate at the time (about 2,300Tsh to the pound) that loaf of bread cost us 48p. Yesterday we bought the same loaf of bread for the same price, 1,100Tsh, however at yesterday's exchange rate (about 1,800Tsh to the pound) it cost us 61p. Now when we are talking about low cost items like bread this change can seem small... but when you multiply it up to all expenses you can see that a 20% increase in cost is quite substantial. Suddenly the support that was enough for our costs, isn't any more.
As I said before, generally the cost of goods here have remained constant. This makes connecting with the difficulties at home all the harder! I am told that the reason for less change here is largely due to the lack of connectedness with, or reliance on, the world financial market. Of course Tanzania does export lots of goods (coffee, jewels etc) that are of course effected, but since most goods used by the average citizen are grown here the knock-on effect is certainly lessened... for the time being at least. It remains to be seen what the long term effect is for developing countries like ours.
So back to missionaries. Of course some have also seen income drop as supporters have had to stop giving due to job losses or constraints in budgets, adding to the difficulties of an increased cost of living. So far for us we are fortunate that this has not been the case, however we know that changes can come at any time. So what should we (everyone - not just missionaries) do when faced with situations such as this? Try and get more money from somewhere? Worry?! I guess one advantage missionaries have over others back at home at times like this is the knowledge that despite the difficulties everyone is facing right now our needs are still being provided for. Maybe its not as much as we might like, but we know that in the face of difficulties provision is available. It is this knowledge which can help to build hope, and it is this hope which can help to build trust. We hope our experience, and no doubt your own over time, will result in this hope and trust for your own situation. The only remaining question then is: in what shall we put that trust?
0 comments:
Post a Comment