“We can’t drive through the area where the explosions happened—security risks. The closest we can get is about 1.5 kilometers [about 1 mile] from it.” Upon my request, the staff had offered to give us a sense of the devastation in the area where explosions had rocked the city on March 4, when a munitions depot exploded in the middle of the city of Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. As we approached the 1.5-kilometer perimeter, the effects of the tragedy—even over a month later—were clearly evident. All windows were either boarded up or missing, and smaller houses with less-solid structures had collapsed altogether. As we looked in the direction of the explosion, we couldn’t make out any structures that resembled buildings. “This does not look like a conventional munitions depot exploded,” I commented. Our companion simply raised his eyebrows and nodded thoughtfully. The explosions happened at 8 a.m. on a Sunday, so most people were in their houses when it happened. Later, back in our accommodations, a friend showed me a picture of their room, with glass on the bed next to the window. “If it was not for the curtain in front of the window,” my friend said, “I’m not sure what would have happened to me.” The house was about three miles away from the explosions. Continue Reading…
Archives For Staff / Travels
Or “expert,” I should say. Malu Garcia is at the center of HOPE’s expertise on savings models that can alleviate poverty for the poorest of the poor. She specializes in training and equipping local staff who will be directly training savings groups, and she’s been traveling through Asia with me, assessing and providing additional training for our savings partners here. It’s truly a joy to serve alongside her. Here are a few more details about Malu:
• Malu has been working with savings programs since 2001 in conjunction with the Chalmers Center for Economic Development and Food for the Hungry. She defines training as “multiplying yourself in the lives of others.”
• Malu first joined HOPE’s team in October 2007 when she moved to Rwanda to help launch HOPE’s first church-based savings program with the Anglican Church. She traveled to each of Rwanda’s dioceses to promote the savings program, trained national coordinators, and built a foundation for a strong relationship with the national church. Today, the program is nearly 100,000 savers strong. Continue Reading…
Just as many were preparing for church Sunday morning, ammunition stockpiles exploded in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, collapsing buildings and killing or injuring thousands. Though official reports are much lower, our staff in-country report an estimated death toll of 600-700 or more, while thousands have been injured. Relief workers have been unable to thoroughly search for survivors amid the rubble because the blast scattered many unexploded devices that could remain volatile. HOPE operates in Brazzaville and six miles away in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, where shockwaves from the blast remained strong enough to shatter windows. This morning we received an update from one of our staff members in Brazzaville, asking for continued prayer. Please join us in praying for our brothers and sisters in Congo.
We are very fortunate that all of our staff our safe after the explosions. With that said we are still trying to assess the impact on our clients. Please be in prayer for them as we can only assume that some have been injured or even killed. Homes and business have been destroyed. I would ask that you particularly pray for two of our staff members, our loan supervisor and our senior cashier. Our senior cashier’s home was completely destroyed on Sunday, and she is now living with her uncle. Our loan supervisor’s home also received extensive damage, and she is now living in a safer area for the time being. They both came to work yesterday just to see everyone. It was heartbreaking to see the look on their faces. You can just see the sorrow and sadness that is inside them. Their hearts are very heavy. This has no doubt impacted them emotionally. Please keep them in your prayers.
I need to admit something: Sometimes I intentionally look away from photos of children living in poverty. Not the really sad ones – I mean photos of adorable kids with big eyes and bright smiles. And it’s not that I don’t like kids. I love them, actually. I’m that crazy lady who inevitably asks to hold someone’s baby, whether I’m in my parents’ church or a church in a Congolese village, and I’ve been that way since I was about four years old myself (Did you just get a mental image of toddler me carrying a baby half my size?).
Guilt is one reason I look away. If you’ve had the privilege of participating in some kind of mission trip, you probably know the simple joy of playing with cheerful kids who seem to come running from every direction. Across language barriers, we laugh and take pictures and give piggy back rides. We hold hands and give hugs and swear to ourselves that we’ll never forget their names. But honestly…I’ve forgotten most of their names. Distance and time have eroded those details in my brain, and I feel a twinge of guilt when I look at cute photos.
Pessimism is another reason. Despite all the wonderful things that are happening as God’s Church moves in the world, I know that at least some of these kids will still be living in the same slums years later, living out the same cycle of hopelessness their parents walked.
And finally, I look away out of fear that those cute kids will make me lose focus. Continue Reading…
HOPE Intl
By HOPE Intl
Staff / Travels Working with the poor
I have lived my life in comfort. I have always had enough to eat, a place to sleep, a way to get to where I need to go, a loving family. I have never wanted for anything vital for survival. The hardest decisions I have made to date are where I would like to go to college and which job I should accept. Probability would have indicated a life very different from the one I currently live. I am an outlier. I cannot ignore my location outside of the bell curve. How do I respond to this? More importantly, what is the work God has crafted me to do? Continue Reading…
Hey all – Bryan here. I’m currently serving as HOPE’s Asia and Eastern Europe regional director. Matthew did a great job describing the main purposes around the Summit as well as walking you through the best of what is currently happening in Eastern Europe with HOPE and beyond. It’s now my pleasure to walk you through what I considered to be my favorite part of the Summit —dreaming of what could be. In a world where we spend so much of our time addressing and confronting challenges and constraints, we as a team were challenged to intentionally free ourselves from them and to envision a much more fruitful future. Imagining that 10 years from now each microfinance institution in the region has become the organization of our dreams—having a huge impact for Christ—what would that look like? Continue Reading…
![Before Eveness Mulungu joined the Walusungu (“mercy”) savings group through our church partner in Malawi, she faced days where she and her family ate animal feed because they couldn’t afford human food. But that changed when she joined the savings group. Eveness used her first group loan of about $1.70 (U.S.) to start a business selling doughnuts and beans.
“By the end of my first cycle I made $140 (U.S.),” Eveness shared. “My life is no longer the same now; [I] was regarded as no one in the community. ... This was the first time in my life that I ever touched and owned big money like this!”
Pictured: Eveness, with her husband in front of their piggery—a third successful business that she operates.](https://blog.hopeinternational.org/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)