Investing in Eternity
If, with $50,
you could start a business that would require no extra work on your part,
but would completely provide for a family one of the poorest nations on
earth, would you do it? Of course! Well, you can.
Mozambique,
a country in southern Africa, is recovering from more than two decades
of war, drought, and famine that drove a third of its people from their
homes. As a result of a 1994 peace agreement, a two-party parliamentary
government is offering the hope of stability to this country. But Mozambique
has a long way to go.
War has robbed
the country of infrastructures and the ability to provide for itself. More
than 25 percent of Mozambican children don't live to celebrate their fifth
birthday. Malnutrition stunts the growth of 55 percent of the children.
Thousands continue to die of preventable and curable diseases like malaria
and diarrhea. Seventy percent of the people have no access to healthcare
- of any kind.
World Relief,
the relief and development arm of the National Association of Evangelicals,
has successfully instituted an ingenious program whereby the poorest of
the poor can be set up in business and freed from the clutches of poverty.
It's called Community Banking. A
Community Bank works like this:
STEP 1: Fifteen or twenty adults form a group to request a Community Bank. Because World Relief emphasizes working through local evangelical churches, most often group members are part of the same church.
STEP 2: The group meets once a week for six weeks to learn about simple business practices, nutrition and health, stewardship, and how the bank will operate.
STEP 3: Members receive their first loan, up to $50. With the loan some might purchase flour, oil, and yeast in quantity to begin a bread-baking business. Or, a member might purchase fresh fish to sell in the market, or food staples, or charcoal to sell along the roadside.
STEP 4: Each week for 16 weeks members meet to make a loan repayment. Members pay interest at half the commercial rate. Along with the payment of principle and interest, members are required to put at least 5% of their earnings into a personal savings account.
STEP 5: When all the loans are repaid, members are eligible for another loan - this time equal to the amount they received in the first cycle plus whatever amount they have put into their personal savings account.
The
program is entirely self-sustaining after the initial capital investment
of $50 per member. In the past three years World Relief has provided more
than 5,000 loans to Mozambican families. And the repayment rate? One hundred
percent!
The key to the
program's success lies in this: Only when all loans are fully repaid can
the group qualify for a new loan cycle. Peer pressure works!
Fifty dollars
doesn't sound like much to us. However, it's a lot to average Mozambican
who lives on just $90 a year.
I watched how one Mozambican family in the village of Barringia used their
$50 Community Bank loan. Early in the morning the husband and wife mixed
flour, water, oil, and yeast in a large galvanized tub. After letting the
dough rise for a couple of hours, the woman took the dough into her mud
hut, kneaded it on a piece of white canvas, and shaped it into 120 small
loaves which she arranged onto pans.
While the loaves
were rising, the woman went back outside and built a wood fire on the top
of a piece of sheet iron. She then slid the sheet iron (galvanized roofing)
over a 2 x 3 by 1 ft. deep hole in the ground, just large enough to hold
the bread pans. When he loaves had raised sufficiently the woman moved
the sheet iron off the now preheated "oven", set a bread pan in the hole,
and slid the iron back over the hole.
Fifteen minutes
later the loaves were golden brown and a new pan went into the oven. The
woman stacked the loaves into a pyramid on one bread pan. Then her eleven-year-old
son, Mandito, hoisted the pan onto his head and carried the bread to the
marketplace about a block away.
Sold for ten
cents a loaf the bread would net $12.00 for the day. Total cost of ingredients
was $8.00! Not a bad profit margin for any business! The four dollars would
pay the bank loan, purchase rice, maize, nuts, and vegetables, and provide
clothing for this Mozambican family.
Presently
World Relief has 85 Community Banks, with 2,200 active members in Mozambique.
World Relief has instituted Community Banking programs with similar success
rates in Cambodia, Nicaragua, Honduras, and even war-torn Liberia.
World Relief's
Community Banks offer help and hope in Jesus' name to the poorest of the
poor. With the returns the Community Banks offer, few investments could
be more worthwhile for Christians [or non-Christians] in this country.
Your family or your business could easily provide an initial loan for another
family - or, perhaps, ten, or twenty families - and in so doing you'd enable
the poorest of the poor to provide for themselves.
A little really
can do a lot - if it's invested right!
|
* 60% of the adults are illiterate.
|
[Article taken from Eternal Perspective Ministries]
- "[The man of God] has scattered abroad his gifts
to the poor...." Psa. 112:9
- "If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the
poor, he too will cry out and not be answered." Prov. 21:13
- "Now this was the sin
of your sister Sodom....they did not help the poor and needy." Eze. 17:49
- "The angel answered, 'Your prayers and gifts
to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God' ". Acts 10:4
- "All they [the apostles] asked was that we
should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do."
Gal. 2:10
Faith Alone Apologetics
invites your financial gifts designated to "Community Banks" to be directed
to - Eternal Perspective Ministries, 2229 E. Burnside #23, Gresham, OR
97030, (503)663-6481, or email: ralcorn@epm.org. 100% of all money designated
will be sent to World Relief to fund this exciting project. Please
let them know that FAA sent you.
