Would You Help Us?

At this time of year, and as we are approaching “Giving Tuesday,” would you partner with us in ministry in Croatia? It has been an especially challenging time financially this year in Croatia. Read below about why, and about ways you can help.

This fall we need to raise $15,000 toward these expenses for next year:

Camps, Youth Meetings, Youth Magazine, Ministry Website, and Personal Discipling

Please also contact me if you or your church would become a regular, monthly financial partner with us. Some additional regular ministry partners now would be a great help. Read about why at the end of this post.

We also have a significant need for funding for our co-worker, Iva Matijević.

Iva is in the photo above, with the group of Ukrainian orphans who we have hosted here, and whom Iva has faithfully served, over the last 3 1/2 years. Iva not only serves the house of orphans as a care-giver, she has also been of invaluable help, and often in sacrificial ways, to the other Ukrainian women and their children whom we have been serving. In all these ways, and because she is fluent in Croatian, Ukrainian, and English:

Iva is invaluable in helping us serve our Ukrainian friends.

At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, almost four years ago now, we were given a significant amount of money to help Ukrainians. In total we have helped 27 individuals since then. That money is now gone. This fall we used the last of that funding to pay Iva for her hard work.

Now we need to come up with about $2,400 monthly to keep employing Iva.

This gives Iva the average Croatian, monthly take-home wage of about $1,700, after taxes. We already have $360 of this amount pledged, and the organization where the Ukrainian orphans come from, Jeremiah’s Hope, is also working to raise some of these funds. Would you also be part of the answer to this need?

It has been a challenging year financially in Croatia, especially for those of us whose funding comes in US Dollars. This is largely because of three factors:

1) Since Croatia started using the Euro in 2023, prices have ticked up a bit in general.

2) Since the beginning of this year, Croatia has often been either #1 or #2 (depending on the month) among all the Eurozone countries for the highest inflation rates.

3) We also are currently dealing with a very unfavorable exchange rate between the Euro and the US Dollar. That rate has been gradually getting worse. At the beginning of the year it was about 1 Euro = $1.07. As of today, it is 1 Euro = $1.20.

The basic net effect of all this is that the US Dollar now goes only about 20% as far in Croatia as it did at this time last year.

Would you help us overcome this challenge, as well as help with the other needs mentioned above? Click the “Give” button in the sidebar at right, or scan this QR code: