In the "Business and Economy" department:  Though President Obama's bailout plans have been met with criticism, he feels all the extra spending is necessary for future economic growth.  If fully enacted, Obama's budget is projected to raise the national debt to a staggering 9.3 TRILLION dollars over the next ten years according to the Congressional Budget Office.  That's almost $10,000,000,000,000!  And that's a number few of us can appreciate.  To try to help us wrap our heads around just what an enormous amount of money we're talking about here, I've compiled the following hodge-podge of illustrations.

How much is a trillion dollars? (you really need to check this out!)

And ten trillion?

If you amassed ten trillion dollars in $20 bills, they would fill the take-off cargo capacity (266,000 pounds) of 4,135 Boeing 747's...trouble is, as of February, only 1,412 of these behemoths have ever been built.

Laid out end-to-end and side-to-side, that same pile of twenties could cover every square inch of the entire state of Delaware - with enough left over to buy the fortunes of the world's seven richest people.

If ten trillion dollars were dispersed to the people of the United States, every man, woman and child would receive $32,900.  My family sure could use $164,500!

If the U.S Government ran a surplus of $100,000,000,000 per year and every dime was applied to the national debt, my 9-year-old daughter would be over 100 years old before the debt was paid off.

Do you think the rate of return on your savings account is bad?  If you had $10,000,000,000,000 in an account earning just one half of one percent per year, you could spend $130 million dollars per day and still see your balance grow.

And finally...
At a baby's birth a stopwatch is started...
- At one million seconds, that baby is about 10 days old
- At one billion seconds, that baby is about 31 years old
- If that stopwatch were to reach one trillion seconds, the time from Christ's earthly life until now would have come and gone 15 times over.
- And ten trillion seconds is ten times longer than that.

Are we digging a hole that we can never hope to get out of?  As the treasury begins printing new money by the boatloads - $1.2 trillion just this month - are we now inescapably on the road toward a worthless currency?  It has happened before, many times, in many places.  Here's one account.

At the height of the hyperinflation, a loaf of bread could fetch 200 billion marks.  Money was worth more as fuel than the firewood it could purchase.  With any sign of restraint overshadowed by the "government to the rescue" mentality in Washington, this kind of crisis in America grows ever more feasible week by week.

Five years have passed now, and their memory survives in the hearts of the thousands they touched.  Through their example, those who knew them saw not what extraordinary people can do, but what an extraordinary God can do in and through the lives of His children.  It is the work of the Holy Spirit and Him alone that enabled them to shine such a bright light of goodness and love.  In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus exhorts his disciples to "let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."  Indeed, that verse rings so true as I remember my parents' lives.

Today, we mark the fifth anniversary of their departure from this earth.  While it is true that my family and I have not seen Mom and Dad for five years, I prefer to look at it a bit differently.  We are, in fact, five years closer to seeing them again!