Editorial

This, I hope, will be the last time I'm writing to you late. But a have you noticed that we are catching up? And, though you are now getting issues late, they are coming MONTHLY? I Why is this issue late? Well, I just couldn't let this go to press a _, few days ago without letting you know how we did with our April 1st $300,000 payment. At the final moment only $160,000 had come in. That is a lot of money for which we are profoundly grateful to you, our readers, and to the Lord, who makes this project this meaningful to you. Last December 31st when we had $210,000 toward the January 1st payment, two businessmen in Chicago called up and asked how we were doing. / told them we were short $80,000 but that we could cover it temporarily by borrowing internally. They said, "No, we don't want you to have to do that... we'll pay it."

This time, no one called us up at the last minute. But we weren't presuming anything. (Such a thing has happened twice before in 9 years.) So, in the final few days before April 1st, we moved into a "count down" mentality not only being sure to open all the mail, but having reports called in from every department.

We found $30,000 in our housing repair fund, an average of $220 per rental unit. We could wipe that fund out if we had to.

We found $45,000 in a fund saved up over many months from staff income funds designated for staff education, special travel, etc. We could wipe that out if we had to.

Finally, we could take $65,000 in basic (very rare) undesignated, operationalfunds these we would like to use toward a necessary $150,000 repair of the roof of our auditorium. We could wipe that out... if we had to.

Well, you add it up: 30... 45 65 .. . that makes the missing $140,000. Would we have to do it?

Yes. We took those funds, added the $160,000 which all you good people had sent, and mailed a check for $300,000.