Increasing costs are causing problems for mission agencies.

USA (MNN) — High costs of insurance and other benefits are costing mission organizations more than more. Vice President of operations at OC International Harold Howell says most of the costs are uncontrolable.

“In the last two years we’ve had close to doubling our costs that we have to pay for medical and benefits, life insurance and those types of things,” says Howell. He says, “the overall package has almost doubled in the course of two years. Those kind of changes, we don’t see any end in sight, but yet we have to guarantee our people a certain level of support out on the field.”

Howell says missionaries are challenged with raising money for support and so are mission organizations. Howell says while giving is staying the same or slightly increasing, it’s not in pace with the costs.

He says the run-away costs have other implications. “We’ve been able to get our people in the field in about the same rate of time that we have in the past. The problem is we can’t support all the ministry objectives they want to do in the field once they get there because the money’s not there to support them.”

Howell says it’s challenge to encourage the Christian church to give to missions. He says we need to teach this in the church. “And, I think that’s a challenge for young people today,” says Howell. He says they have, “less exposure to that, compared to 20 years ago.”

Pray that many will consider supporting groups financially to make up the difference.