Alicia's economics lesson: a prayer request

For the past several months, Elsa has been trying to raise funds for the remodeling of the new church building. It's been estimated that we'll need $100,000 to finance the work, and as of earlier this week, over $88,000 had been contributed. Many prayers have gone up on behalf of this desperately-needed project, and all we can say is, "Thank you." To any of you who may have contributed, whether through financial means or prayer, we are grateful beyond words. Thank you for taking part in this effort and for allowing God to work through you.

This evening Rüdi told me when I was there to babysit his children that the money had been transferred from the U.S. and was now in the congregation's bank account here in Bremen. That is a wonderful thing. As soon as we get final approval from the appropriate office, we can begin the actual renovations, and we now have money to finance the beginning of the work.

One issue: the exchange rate. Mark, Karen, and I monitor the exchange rate almost daily. We try to transfer money when the rate goes down and wait as long as possible when it goes up. Of course we can't predict what the rates will do, but we try to make judgments based on what's been happening since we arrived, and right now it's not so good.

In the past two days, the exchange rate between the U.S. Dollar and the Euro has reached the second worst level ever, with only December 2004 being worse, from what I can tell from the charts. I just checked, and as of right now, 1 Euro = 1.3327 U.S. Dollars. That may not seem like a big difference, but it quickly adds up. Today when the $88,000 was transferred, we received only €66,000. That's 22,000 monetary units lost to the void of the exchange rate.

So, for my sake and the Abercrombies', as well as the building renovations, please pray that either the Dollar will strengthen or that the Euro will weaken. I know that probably sounds like a weird request, but it really is an issue we face on a daily basis, and life can be a lot more difficult when the Dollar is weak.