Inflation

Ok so how many people have complained about inflation over the past year? I know I myself have on Chipolte Burritos and Gasoline to name a few. Now Chipolte ok was only 10 cents but Gas that has jumped a dollar or more depending on they day seeing it was $2.50 a year ago Labor Day. Now that is a lot, but is this real a lot. I have heard about corn, rice and some other grains going up and even hay. I received a letter in the mail from an Organization that buys rice in 2000lbs. bags. They have seen the price jump from $340 a bag to $700 thus the cost of the meals they make have jumped from 15cents a meal to 17 cents. Now multiple that by the millions of meals they make. I think you get the idea. This led me to contact a friend and ask him about the price of corn. He has seen the price of corn in the last two years go from $2 a bushel to as high as $7 a bushel to where it currently sits at about $5.74. Now here is a quote from him, but I am not going to use his name for privacy sake “Because of the government ethanol mandate, global demand and a weak dollar corn prices have gotten higher than ever in the last two years.”

So my thought was this is kind of affecting me but I knew more because of past experiences and trips. See the boy in this picture? Well, he also has a type of inflation in his life. It is his stomach. Now I doubt this is because he ate to much like I did in the Boundary Waters this past weekend. No it is probably the start of Malnutrition. I met with a couple very smart people the last day or so to probe and find more information on a problem I already knew existed in a country I care about greatly. Well, this is what I found out. Corn in the Borana region of Ethiopia where I have visited both in 2007 and 2008 and where this boy is from, usually ranges from 50-150 Burr (their currency about 9Burr to 1 US dollar) depending on the drought and production and such. This guy has lived there for years and said this is the norm. I take him as a creditable source for this information. When he left Ethiopia this year corn was at 600 Burr. Now granted I don’t know the units of how much for this but I don’t care as of now. I thought about this, my gas that I complain about going from $2.50 a gallon to $10.00 a gallon or maybe even $15.00 a gallon that is 6 times as the corn in Borana is. Now this gas problem for me is an inconvenience if it got worse and would probably change some of my living habits to riding the bus, carpooling and other extra curricular activities would go away, but for the Borana people group and others like them it is a life or death sort of problem as they can’t afford to eat three meals a day maybe not even two some maybe four a week who knows.

So I asked more questions and probed farther. Like how do to support this region to prevent this and reach kids the kids for Christ? The options and answers are out there we just need to find them. Other areas of the world have problems also and you can see some on my links on the right of the page of projects and ways to help. I particularly have a passion and a heart for the Borana because I visited there and have friends there and maybe many of you do also or would like to hear more. Just contact me and let me know and I will go deeper into what I have learned. I am extremely blessed to live and be given what I have to this point in my life.

Here is some information and articles I have read as of late.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1834334,00.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-08-17-ethiopia_N.htm?loc=interst

http://www.compassion.com/sponsordonor/global-food-crisis/default.htm

This is a new one. Check out some of the articles really made me think.

http://www.neueministry.com//onesabbath/