HOPE’s newest savings and credit association (SCA) groups in central Burundi are only a few months into their first cycle, and already group members are pooling their savings to start businesses and buy land together. Ryan Severns, HOPE’s microenterprise technical advisor in Burundi, gives us a video update from Karuzi Province, where our partnership with a local denomination is seeing fruit.
On my recent trip to Peru, I met a woman who was struggling with a deep hurt. As I sat in her business, Luz (pictured on the right) shared with me and a few others how disappointed she was that she had never married or had children. Tears welled in her eyes as a friend held her close. Luz owns a costume shop in Lima, Peru, where she sells and rents costumes of all kinds, from recognizable Disney characters to traditional Peruvian icons. Her customers come to her shop to celebrate, but while she serves them, she’s filled with a sadness that struck at her core as a woman in Peruvian society.
Recently, I was in Lima, Peru, visiting a savings and credit association (SCA) partnership launched nearly two years ago. For those building their knowledge in the field of microeconomic development, SCAs are small groups of people that meet regularly to hear a message of reconciliation, save small amounts of money, and live life together—the unique blending of a tiny credit union and a Sunday school class. Members learn about reconciliation available through Christ and how to save money toward a goal. In short, members are given the tools they need to feel hope again, hope for a better future. Here is a brief description of one such SCA group meeting I was able to attend on this trip.
HOPE’s culture is steeped in prayer. Every day, staff members throughout our network boldly make requests known to God on behalf of those we serve. Yet when we seek God’s will for our clients, we don’t just envision an absence of problems. We see God moving into places of brokenness, discord, and shortage with healing, wholeness, and abundance.
Jesus himself urged us to make our requests known to God with persistence and “shameless audacity” (Luke 11). Adrienne Wanner, HOPE’s office manager, wrote the following prayer for our clients (on the right) to correspond with Isaiah 35 (on the left). We invite you to join us in audaciously asking for complete transformation and overwhelming joy for our clients.
Download a printable pdf of this prayer.
As we approach the town of Kamenka (KAH-men-kuh) on a busy two-lane road, we pass dozens of trucks going the other way carrying fruits and vegetables. Some of these trucks are transporting produce to local and regional markets in surrounding cities like Zaporozhye, but there are larger refrigerated trucks that are traveling as far away as Kyiv and Moscow.
I’m traveling with Andre Barkov, the managing director of HOPE’s microfinance institution in Ukraine, and Natasha Kurilenko, the director of marketing for HOPE Ukraine. We are traveling to Kamenka to visit our local branch, witness the greenhouse economy that has developed, and understand the ways that HOPE Ukraine’s loans are providing a catalyst for economic development in the region. Continue Reading…
I’m currently sitting on a plane, flying back from a week of experiencing Rwanda and all the beauty that is held in this land of a thousand hills. It has been a week of experiencing “beauty over poverty,” as my colleague Chris Horst describes it.
Behind Rwanda’s surface-level reputation for genocide and desolation is a thriving and ambitious country full of hard-working people and innovative ideas. Rwanda is blossoming; it is being restored. It is a beautiful thing to witness. In the folds of poverty, individuals are finding dignity. They are experiencing fullness of life. Continue Reading…
