Update - Financial troubles

May 4, 2006
Dear Pastor,

I am having some very serious problems these days, and I would appreciate your prayers for us. Financially we are in a lot of trouble. Right now I only have about $30 cash left. I normally get cash advances off of my US credit card to get money down here from the states. I have plenty of credit on the card, but I cannot make any cash withdrawals. This has gone on for a month now. We went to the border last month to purchase a used car. When we did I had to withdraw in cash advances about $5000 dollars to pay for the used car, and I had $1000 (for repair or whatever) in cash to come back on. We have lived on that since then. Apparently they did something to my account when we were up there, and it has messed me up horribly. I cannot get any money out of the ATM machines from my credit card.

Our problem is not needing money (that somebody could donate to fix) because I haven't touched what Ferndale has put into my bank account this month. We have plenty of money but in my bank in the states. My problem is that I cannot get a cash advance down here any more. After years of everything working fine, they switched something when we were at the border, and my cash advances at ATM machines are denied. I called Chase Bank, and they take the hold off of my account. But the next time I try it gets put back on by their computer automatically because "it is a charge from Mexico". I am frustrated. I have been denied, call the Bank, they take the hold off, retry to be denied again, etc and I have gone through this cycle for about 15 times in the last month (not once did I get any money out of the ATM machine), and I am not much better off now than where I started off at. All this talking with the Bank in long distance on my nickel.

I am trying to get somebody down here to take one of my checks (like I did the first years I was down here) and that is not working either. I am having to borrow money from our church's building fund to live right now, and still try to get cash somehow. Yesterday I got the credit card to accept a charge at Walmart which was a small success. I need cash because a lot things down here (like gasoline, car repairs, rent, my tithes, my participation in our churches expenses, etc.) won't accept credit cards. Our church and ministry is getting hampered greatly by this. Our literature ministry and evangelism is heavily based on our literature, which I print up on my printer. I have three printers on my desk right now, and all three are broken. I will have to go to a internet cafe just to print my sermon for Sunday. I cannot take the printer in to fix it until I get cash to do so.

We are trying to keep Roberto (which is on church staff) out with me, his son, his wife, and sometimes Tule and our kids on evangelism, but without literature, it is difficult. Probably 1 in 10 doors answers our knock, and we leave tracts at the rest. The last batch I printed up was 600 last week, and they are all gone. (God's Simple Plan of Salvation, but I print our Church contact information on the back).

We seem to really be taking a lot of attacking recently. I have talked to some about my desire to put Carlos on church salary so he can join in the evangelism also, and that seems to be when everything started happening against us. (Which I don't know why Satan would be so upset, because we cannot pay Roberto as is, and we will start paying rent on top of Roberto's salary in July, so the money is just not there. I suppose because I am making up the different out of our personal budget beside our tithes.) I talked it over with Tule and we are going to restrict our budget even more than normal so that we can see what we can do about Carlos. But now I cannot get any money from the states down here to pay anybody anything, and not even for our own personal expenses. Pray for us that God would open an avenue to get our money, and that it would not be with any large fees. (A Western Union bank wire socks you with about 20% in fees when all is said and done. They charge fees on your end up there, and down here they charge me a fee, and then the common exchange rate is around $10.90 pesos to one dollar. For Western Union wires it is around $8.75 to $9 which is a horrible exchange rate.)

Please pray for us.