CUNOT — The man who runs the risk of losing his little County Junction Mission for not keeping up with purchase payments has just five days to meet a financial bar that the owner has moved twice as high.

Ray Strange has only until Monday to come up with $10,000 for Judith Quimby of Mooresville, instead of the $4,000-$5,000 he originally had to pay or lose the building.

Since Strange's plight became public in several area newspapers and at least one Indianapolis TV news report about a week ago, donors have contributed about $6,000 to his cause.

That would have more than covered the $2,000 per year the retired self-described ex-alcoholic and drug user who says God saved him and led him to open the mission two years ago owed Quimby for this year and last in lump-sum down payments for the grocery store.

It also would have more than covered the $500-per-month rent he owed for April plus May.

But then Quimby upped the ante — in part because of what she said was Strange's own proposal, and in part because of her own financial need.

She said Tuesday that Strange told her he wanted to come up with the more than $60,000 it would cost to buy the former grocery store on Ind. 42 in Cunot outright.

But Quimby said she doubted he could come up with that much, so she told him just to come up with $10,000 — half of his ten years of $2,000-per-year down payments on the property.

"I told him if he could come up with $10,000, that would satisfy me and he can keep the store," she said.

But if he can't come up with it by April 30, she said, he has to move the mission out.

The mission provides free food, clothing and other household items to what Strange said is a "hard-up" clientele. He said the mission serves about 50 families per week from the Cunot-Cararact-Poland area of northern Owen County plus Cloverdale just across the county line in Putnam County.

Quimby said she has a pressing financial problem of her own — the need to make her own down payment on a house she's buying because she can't afford the one she's in now.

While Strange wasn't thrilled about having the amount he had to pay Quimby by April 30 more than doubled, he also was hesitant to criticize her.

"She owns the building and I broke the contract (by not keeping up with payments), so there's nothing I can do about it," he said.

Strange can be reached at (765) 795-3807. The mission is on Ind. 42 in Cunot, about seven miles west of U.S. 231 on Ind. 42.

Reporter Kurt Van der Dussen can be reached at 331-4372 or by e-mail at kvd@heraldt.com.