July 29

Mission Finances
This is the unspiritual part of the mission.  I thought it would interesting to know how much our mission is costing us a month. All these amounts are in US Dollars.  So here goes:
$150 Van Rental
$180 Gas and Car Washes
$36   Mobile Phone
$700 Rent and Utilities
$396 Church Health Insurance 2x$198
$1,600 Food, Clothes, and Misc. Living Expenses

So for about $2,000 U.S. a month we can pay for our mission. Our food costs are high because we eat out a lot.  Often after our classes or at lunch we will go to McDonalds if we are in a hurry, or  it we are not in a hurry we go to a sit down restaurant.  We could definitely cut our food expense if we needed to.  We also go to a store called "Cost U Less" about once a month.  Every time we go it costs me more.  They have American and New Zealand products.  Stuff we recognize and think we need it when we see it.  We go in for a small $30 (Fijian) item and come out spending $300 Fijian on lots of stuff.  How does that happen?

We have a very easy way to get cash.  All our money is automatically deposited into our bank account at home.  I then use a debit card at the ATM when I need cash.  I can withdraw $800 Fijian at a whack.  This costs me an $8.00 service fee a withdrawal.  We operate totally on cash and it works beautifully. The conversion rate from Fijian $ to US $ is take half the Fijian amount and add back 10% of the Fijian amount.  That gives us the cost in U.S. dollars.  So $20 Fijian is about $12 US.

On this budget we suffer for nothing.  I did not mention fixed expenses at home we still pay like property taxes, electricity, heat, telephone, truck insurance, taxes etc.

Has the cost of the mission been worth it?  Absolutely, undeniably yes! yes! yes!