As stewards of the resources God has provided, we are always looking to contain the costs of missionary operations. Our resources are simply “on loan” from God. We hope to steward them in the very best way possible. We also recognize that God has provided these resources through you, our donors, who have given faithfully and sometimes sacrificially, out of love for the work that we share. The work of meeting physical and spiritual needs around the world is serious business. We hope to accomplish it together as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.
It is good for us to be reminded of the importance of these things from time to time. As we look over our financial statements, particularly the line items on our expense statements, we must ask ourselves whether our expenditures are necessary, and if we are handling them in the most effective way possible. We must be constantly on the lookout for better ways of doing things. It gets frustrating, however, when we face expenses over which we seem to have little control. Things like government regulations, for example.
The cost of employee benefits, in particular, has been taking more and more of our resources. Benefits are approaching 50% of the cost of fielding a missionary – driven primarily by the rising cost of health insurance. The cost of insurance has grown for years at a rate that exceeds the rate of inflation – more than 6.5% per year, over the last several years. This has led us to periodically “shop” insurance companies to get better rates from time to time. The savings are only temporary, however, as new carriers will renew the upward climb the following year. Like many organizations in the U.S., we have been lulled into the false premise that we can do nothing about this upward climb in insurance costs.
We have recently met an organization offering creative strategies to help us find a way off this insurance premium escalator. Slowing the increase in the cost of health insurance requires reducing the cost of health care delivery. In order to do this, we are considering new ways of providing benefits – a combination of education, cooperation and partial self-insurance to fight this drain on our resources. Over the next few months we will continue to study this concept, which could result in savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the next few years. Please pray that the Lord will give us wisdom! – and make us always more effective stewards.