Driving & Bookkeeping Change

Normally I don't drive a mission vehicle even if I have access because where I live it's near a miracle to ever find a parking place. It's gotten worse over the last year as well due to new buildings and police barricades for the embassy there.

However, the end of July and August are the exceptions as the city has emptied out for the people's "Годишен Одмор" or "Annual Vacation." Most people get a month off so right now the city's really really quiet... so much so that I can actually hear the "call to prayer" in the mornings and evenings from all the way across town.

Having access to the mission vehicle is a decent and welcomed option this week (and saves $2 a day) as since returning from vacation in Albania I'm buried in work and staying very late at the office each night working on on the accounting details associated with the changes to our field leadership structure. Having the option to drive home has been such a blessing... and your giving to the GCF makes it possible for me to drive it. Thanks!

Yesterday marked a huge milestone for me and the field books and I'm very excited to see things coming together. As you know, we are still one field but now made up of three teams. We still submit just one field report that includes all the details, however, each of the teams desired to have individualized reports specific just for their team. The most important one being the budget reports. We've been given a budget amount for our field from the GCF and that number subsequently gets divided between field-wide expenses (like for the field office) and then to team-specific expenses. Well, to make a long tedious Balkan-bean-counter story short, I was able to get all the budget information in yesterday and balance all four budgets! And thanks to QuickBooks (shocker that I'm admitting this, I know) the reports came together perfectly and I'm excited to share them with the team leaders!

Thank you for your prayers for me, the field and for this whole process that began back at Field Forum. The revised trial balance (sub-dividing things by team) and the individualized budget are significant steps for the field and the teams as they move forward and consider autonomy in the future. With these individualized budget reports they will now have a team-specific, accurate and detailed monthly reporting of their budget and expenses and how they are doing with regards to the bottom line. This information will be key in the budget planning for next year.

Thank you again for all the ways that you live this call together with us. And thank you for your giving to the GCF that makes all this possible. Thank you also to those who have committed to matching my GCF savings with giving. If you've not already, please let me know via comment (anonymous if you like) that you are pledging to match my savings with giving... it's a big encouragement to me to keep walking. :)

Day 15: $42.21 and counting