M

any people have asked me how things are going here as far as the financial situation.  We are all familiar with what is going on in the States and we continue to hear how it is a global crisis.  

I have read a few articles about the situation in Europe and everything looks pretty grim.  Here is an excerpt from one article that I recently read,

It seems the European banking system is about to collapse. An article in the Daily Telegraph claims European banks may have to write down $25 trillion in losses. Compare this to the problems in America... Even "Dr. Doom" – NYU economics professor Nouriel Roubini – says the most American banks will have to write off is $1.8 trillion.

In other words, the problems faced by American banks are nothing but a skinned knee compared to what European banks face.

This is because the European banks lost money in two major financial implosions. They made trillions in loans to Eastern Europe and other emerging markets and they also participated in U.S. mortgage lending, possibly even more aggressively than American banks.

According to the Telegraph, "Europeans account for an astonishing 74% of the entire $4.9 trillion portfolio of loans to emerging markets. They are five times more exposed to this latest bust than American or Japanese banks, and they are 50% more leveraged (IMF data)."

The final clincher is, no European "Federal Reserve" bank exists to print trillions of euros and bail everyone out like we have in America. Now, the European banking system is about to fall apart.

If this and other predictions come to fruition, we may see some devastating things happen on this side of the globe.  

However, how does this effect Spain? Even though the countries in Europe are their own separate entities, at least financially, the European countries are somewhat tied together.  In other words, when something happens in Europe, it affects all the countries within.  

So what about Spain?  Basically, here are some hard cold facts and numbers of what is going on.  

• In 2008, the number of people that were loosing their jobs or didn’t have a job rose by more then 25%.
• 3 million people in Spain are unemployed.  1 million of the 3 million people that are unemployed lost their jobs in 2008.  This is huge considering Spain is only a country of 40 million people.
• Construction has been the hardest hit industry by the Crisis.  One third of Spain’s economy is made up of the construction industry.
• Salaries are not rising in Spain.

Things are not looking up and it seems to be getting worse day by day.  There are so many immigrants here and many of them have lost their jobs and are being forced to go home because there is no work.  Spain has even implemented a program called, “La Oportunidad Retorno.”  Basically, the Spanish Government is paying the immigrants to return to their country.  They give them a plane ticket and at least one month’s salary to return home.  

So how does this affect us and our ministry?  While the economic crisis will be at the forefront of everyone’s thoughts and conversation, a solution, an answer, something of comfort, however, will also be the rare jewel that everyone seeks.  When things go wrong, people start asking questions.  As Christians, we have the Answer for them.  The answer is Jesus Christ.  Everything could collapse around us, but if we have a relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we can have peace in the midst of the storm.  It is often in the darkest of hours that people search for light, peace, hope and comfort.  So many times in Scripture, we see God take the Nation of Israel through some sort of “Crisis” in order to draw them back to Himself.  May God use the global crisis to bring more people to Himself in Spain and around the world for His honor and glory.