Case Study: The Big Mac

My friend Mark Rood highlights the growing financial problem for missionaries in Japan:

The price of a Big Mac in Tokyo is 680 yen. (complete with fries and a coke!) This has increased in the past several years by a few yen. No problem. The problem comes when in the same period the value of the dollar has dropped from from $1 = 120 yen in 2007 to this month’s rate of $1 = 82 yen. Ouch. That 680 yen burger at McDonalds which did cost $5.67 now costs $8.29! For the Japanese the change in the past few years has been a percent or two, but to us whose income is from the states, there is over a 30% increase.

Of course the same is true of our rent, gasoline, food, water, electricity, and everything else. It has all basically has increased by about a 30% in the past few years.

Please pray for us and for the many others who are in the same situation.