The Apple Pie Analogy

 Let's start out with a hypothetical situation, shall we?

SITUATION:

Grandma bakes and sells deep dish apple pies. Her famous recipe calls for five pounds of apples. Grandma bakes pies because it is her calling and she likes to help people. She has never sold her pies for a profit. It’s like a pie baking ministry! Last year, Grandma pre-sold dozens of pies to be delivered this year. She based the price of each pie on the price of ingredients at the time the orders were placed. Grandma had no way of knowing that the price of apples, sugar, butter, and flour would increase by a significant amount. And don’t get her started on the outrageous increase in cinnamon! 

PROBLEM:

How much more will Grandma charge for her pies?

ANSWER:

$0. Grandma already sold her pies and she will not ask her customers to make up the difference. Grandma is taking a hit on the pies! 

Why are we talking about Grandma and pies? Well, quite frankly that’s because it’s a lot less touchy than talking about Sowers4Pastors, visiting teams, and money. But, as with the fictional pie-baking granny, inflation has caused unexpected price increases for Sowers4Pastors. They have never made a profit by hosting visiting teams. That’s not their way. They do normally have a very small amount of money in the budget to be used for incidentals that inevitably occur during team visits. This allows teams the freedom to decide where they will eat each night. It also helps with repair cost for the occasional broken down shuttle bus carrying a team!

The current situation is that Sowers4Pastors is losing money right from the start. When prices for visiting teams were quoted last year, no one was anticipating such dramatic inflation. There have also been some other contributing factors. There have been some team members who had their bags all packed, but they tested positive for COVID and were unable to travel. Naturally, they are not charged. But prices are calculated based on the size of the teams. Transporting people is one of the biggest costs Sowers4Pastors has when hosting teams. If there are ten team members, they can ride in the S4P van. If there are twenty members, it’s no problem to use two vehicles. However, if there are eleven team members, there are still two vehicles going down the road with fewer people to pay for them. Last minute changes (and there have been a LOT of them this year), cause unavoidable extra costs.

With the help of visiting teams, backpacks filled with school supplies are being
distributed throughout the communities where Sowers4Pastors works.

Backpack distribution teams began arriving on January 22 and they will continue until March 12. That means that we’re smack dab in the middle of backpack distribution. Everyone at Sowers4Pastors loves to have visiting teams. Teams are an important part of their ministry vision. This post is simply a way of providing some insight into the current situation. There are a lot of teams this year and Sowers4Pastors is losing money on every one. The ministry is currently absorbing between $50 and $100 per team member. They will not be charging teams more to make up the difference, because they’ve committed to the churches that have supported the ministry for years. But if anyone would like to help make up the difference in the projected cost and the actual cost, it would be most appreciated. They want to keep hosting teams as sure as Grandma wants to keep baking pies. 

 - posted by Christi