04.18.08
Posted in Ancona, culture, finances
at 5:17 am
In fashion concious Italy, it’s hard to find a place to get a cheap haircut. I’m a “Great Clips” kind of guy in the US. I just want the hair to be shorter, and look somewhat like I didn’t cut it myself. I decided I was tired of paying €20 ($31) for a haircut, and a while back decided to try this barber whose shop is about a block away on my street.
And I met Sergio, an 82 year old Anconetano with a two-chair barber shop (but the second chair only holds the used drape cloths from the day).
He charges €6, moves as fast as an 82 year old can, and entertains me with stories about the war and “kids these days.” He uses an old fashioned straight razor to trim the hairs on your neck. His clippers look almost as old as he is. He’s left me in the chair, hair half cut, so he can go home and take his blood pressure medicine. There is hair from decades ago in every nook and cranny that his broom doesn’t reach. His nervousness about the immigration boom in Italy shows when he asks me in all seriousness “where they bury Chinese people when they die?”.
You can’t beat the price he charges. But for a foreigner like me, I can’t beat the language and cultural lessons I get when I’m in the chair.
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03.15.08
Posted in Team, finances, ministry
at 1:27 pm
The exchange rate is a cruel, cruel thing. It’s one of those things that I never thought about before I moved overseas. But now I watch it way too often.
Here in Italy, we use Euros, which happens to be a very strong currency right now. Our “paycheck” is in dollars, which happens to be a very weak currency right now. Put those two facts together, and my average, three-bedroom apartment which used to cost around $850 is now over $1,000. And that’s over the course of just a few months!
I think we’re hit doubly hard here in two areas: housing and groceries. Both of these are things that can be trimmed only so much. A family of nearly 6 can only cut out so much food and so many bedrooms!
Jason emailed us a link you may have seen which basically indicated there is no end in sight to the dollar’s drop.
So when do we start worrying? Does a point come where we all pack up and go home because it costs too much to live here? Do our supporters even understand how horrible it feels to raise all of this money and watch it disappear just because of some silly world currency market? The thing that really bothers me is not so much that things cost a lot of money, but that I feel like our supporter’s donations just go right down the drain because of something none of us have any control over.
I think Jason had some great advice for us in his email, “Read it. Be aware. Don’t worry. God is big. Keep praying and cinching your belt. Let’s be more generous.”
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