Our pal Bob Smietana, now at the Tennesseean in Nashville, has this intriguing little story about how the falling fortunes of the U.S. greenback have hurt American missionaries overseas.

The bottom line: when the dollar doesn’t buy as much as it used to, people (U.S. missionaries) who are still living off American donations have to make a dollar stretch a little further.

Bob talked with Susan Jett, a Southern Baptist missionary to Germany currently on furlough in Knoxville.

She quit buying necessities like clothes and even sending mail. ”I don’t mail anything back home,” she said. ”I wait for someone who is flying back and send it with them.”

Jett said it’s the cost of small things, such as day-to-day basics, like milk and bread, that add up. ”I have to think twice before buying anything.”

Then he has this sobering note from David C. Clary, a Southern Baptist field administrator.

For missionaries in Thailand, where the dollar has dropped 20 percent in two years, something as simple as a can of Crisco shortening costs $8.33. Missionaries in South Korea pay more than $6 a gallon for gasoline.

Ouch. Bob says a cost-of-living adjustment is now on the table.