USA Today has a piece about how the weakening value of the US dollar is affecting missionaries abroad. While some exporters can thrive in these economic conditions, it’s not good news for missionaries and relief organizations:
It takes $1.47 to match a euro — a loss of more than 35% in buying power [compared to 2002]. The cost of everything from saltine crackers to the monthly heating bill has skyrocketed.In response, missionaries have cut back wherever they can.
Susan Jett, a Southern Baptist missionary to Germany currently on furlough in Knoxville, says she quit buying necessities like clothes and even sending mail. “I don’t mail anything back home,” she said. “I wait for someone who is flying back and send it with them.”
Jett said it’s the cost of small things, such as day-to-day basics, like milk and bread, that add up. “I have to think twice before buying anything.”
Ouch. Christmas does not leave most Americans with an excess of cash—but if you’ve got some lying around, it sounds like even a small bit of financial help would be appreciated. Your friendly local church can probably connect you to a missionary who could use some help.
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January 7, 2008 at 17:26
Been this way for two or three years now; they’re a little behind the times.
January 7, 2008 at 20:00
Andy – Thanks for drawing attention to the article. I had not thought about this effect of the weakening dollar. However, this does make the assumption that the missionary is coming from the United States and headed to another country, or at least is supported by US dollars. I think that increasingly the opposite is true – both that the US is not the center for sending missionaries to the world and that other countries could probably do well to send missionaries to the United States.
January 8, 2008 at 05:46
This seems to me like a good argument for changing the way missionaries are supported. I know of a missionary to the U.K. who is in exactly this situation. When I asked her what would happen if she were to get a job to help supplement her income, she said that her supporters would withdraw their support, since they weren’t paying her to go to another country to find a job. Seems to me that we should be encouraging missionaries to bear as much as possible the cost of supporting themselves. 1) They wouldn’t need to worry about the weakening dollar. 2) What better way to integrate yourself into the local population then by getting even a part time job. 3) One basic problem here would be that, as my missionary friend says, everybody would say that she wasn’t really trusting in God. Not so. Even those of us who work full time have to depend on God for our income; it’s just that he pays it to us through our paycheck. For a missionary, “trusting in God” could very well mean finding work in the area where you are sent. If missionaries are scrambling to provide even the basics of life, the simple solution seems to me to find a way to make the money to pay for these things in whatever country they are serving.
January 8, 2008 at 09:53
Jaybee’s point is good, in fact I’m conducting an email interview this week addressing such questions for the next issue of Propel.
I’ve actually done this before, worked stateside part-time and been supported part-time. I didn’t lose support (granted, I’ve never been at full-support either, sadly), but the concern is valid. Bear in mind also that having a part-time job overseas will likely effect your visa status in some way.
I agree that missions support needs to be rethunk, although not just because of a weakening dollar. I have missionary friends from Europe to China, and all have felt the pinch the last couple of years. The weak dollar is a new phenom in my lifetime, but we in America were naive if we thought this couldn’t happen.
And while there are more cross-cultural missionaries going out from other countries as Andrew points out, this does not preclude us in the U.S. from sending. And as one whose been raising support for the last five years now, I’m still convinced that giving to missions — as individuals and as churches — is not what it should be most of the time.
January 8, 2008 at 16:53
I can assure you, that we don’t need any missionaries from the US in Switzerland (not Sweden). Unfortunately, over here we like to stick to our traditional church (eg. protestant and roman-catholic) And please don’t send any money. I think there is enough of it already and it tends to corrupt people.