new to you friday–life on loan

You may have read my dad’s recent guest posts from his trip to Kenya with CMF. While there he was able to experience many of CMF’s projects including the microenterprise program I describe here.

Then, just two days ago, I received an update on Alice, the lady my brother and sister-in-law and I made a small loan to two years ago. This was our first update and it made my entire month.


“A Great Story of Success,” it began, then went on to share that Alice has faithfully paid back the loan in weekly installments “without pushing” and has started her own tailoring business. She has taken additional loans to expand the business and now employs two other women! Here’s a picture of her hard at work.

“You can change one person’s world, and it’s a blast,” I wrote about giving the initial gift. Seeing results like this is even more fun.

Find out more about CMF’s microenterprise program here.

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It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the poverty and disease in Africa, and to wonder if normal two-name people (that is, the non-Bono and non-Oprah) can make any difference. A variety of complex factors created this crisis, and no one solution can fix everything. But microloans are a good way to start.

Microloans aren’t new, but they’ve gained new attention in recent years. Like so many good ideas, this one is simple: reputable organizations identify potential loan recipients in the developing world and share info about these folks with richer Americans, Europeans, etc. who then loan a few dozen or few hundred dollars. The recipient uses this money to start a small business (like a food market, general store, or transportation business) and eventually repays the loan in full. The rich American can then loan the money to another 2/3 world entrepreneur, theoretically repeating the cycle indefinitely and using the same money to give freedom and dignity to many different people.

Microloans also help prevent the spread of HIV; many recipients are women and the income generated from their small businesses dramatically reduces the likelihood they’ll barter their bodies for food. (One recent study in Botswana and Swaziland reports women who lack sufficient food are 80% more likely to engage in “survival sex.”)

It takes so little money to lower that percentage–for the cost of a nice restaurant meal you can help someone eat well for a long time. And although most of us could easily afford to give that amount outright, the recipients almost always repay the loans in full.

Alice Mbithe is in that category. Despite only receiving a primary school education, she’s successfully run her own small grocery business for years to supplement her husband’s income. As I type, this sweet lady is using the money my brother, sister-in-law and I loaned her to set up a fruit and vegetable stand that will support her family of five, pay hospital bills, and provide medication for her youngest daughter.

We connected with Alice through Christian Missionary Fellowship. Their microenterprise program provides a 27-hour training course for prospective microloan recipients (covering everything from bookkeeping and saving to integrity and faithfulness) and coordinates weekly meetings for accountability and support. Loans range from $8 to $400 and the program already has 190 clients.


I make part of my living writing advertising copy, so I try to avoid the trite. But I have to say it: while no one, even Bono, can change the world alone, you can change one person’s world. And it’s a blast.

into africa: day one

On Tuesday of this week, my dad flew to Nairobi as part of a team invited by Christian Missionary Fellowship. I’ve heard from others who’ve participated in these trips how emotionally and spiritually exhausting (and fulfilling) they can be, and suggested that dad process the experience by writing his thoughts—and letting me post them on my blog. Here’s the first one.

“It is a hard trip,” Roy Lawson wrote me after spending a week in Kenya.

And, although I love to travel, my acquaintance with work sponsored by Christian Missionary Fellowship in the slums of Nairobi inspired some trepidation as I anticipated this trip.

I’m one of six in Kenya through March 17 led by Doug Priest, CMF’s executive director. He calls it a vision trip and told me how interest in Nairobi’s urban poor has multiplied in U.S. Christian churches and churches of Christ since he began bringing ministers here.


I realize now why the firsthand visit is so valuable. Even though Christian Standard has published more than one article from visitors to this work, words tell only part of the story. I couldn’t begin to grasp the desperate need faced here everyday until I encountered it myself.

CMF prepped us with facts about the slum where they work. It is packed into 1.5 square miles along the Mathare River Valley in the country’s capital city, Nairobi; 800,000 people live there. Their average income is $1.00 per day, and 40% suffer with HIV/AIDS.

And this is only one slum in this city. Keith Ham, serving with CMF here, told us 70% of Nairobi’s 5 million people live in slums like the one we visited today.

“This is the nicest slum home I’ve ever seen,” Doug Priest said of the tin-walled shanty where we sat for a few minutes this morning.

Maybe 12 x 14 feet, it is entered through a low door off a 14-inch alley bordered by similar huts jammed together as far as we could see. Jane, a single mother, lives here with her mother and two children.

A naked electric light bulb hangs from the ceiling. Sometimes power comes to it; sometimes not. A square-foot fiberglass panel on one side of the corrugated metal roof allows daylight to penetrate the dark hole. At nighttime, a government-provided light tower rising several stories above the slum banishes darkness, reduces crime, and sends a welcome shaft into this closet-home where Jane lives.

We sat on throws covering benches and some cast-off chairs. The walls were covered with an assortment of paper and cloth. A panel of see-through curtains, something like might have hung at my grandmother’s window, dangled behind Jane as she spoke to us.

“Welcome to our home,” she said. And the CMF-employed social worker who led our tour through the slum helped Jane explain her business. She cooks a stew and sells it on the street to earn her income.

I listened to her story and smiled at her and tickled the belly of her babbling toddler whose runny nose Jane wiped on the child’s shirt. And I sighed with relief as we finally stood to leave and escape back into the noontime sunshine that penetrated the narrow aisle between Jane’s shanty and those beside it.

This is our privilege, we wealthy visitors whose vision is broadened while our eyesight is blurred by the tears that flow when we try to grasp what we have seen and smelled in the slums.

I sit in the comfortable surroundings of Gracia Gardens, the guest house where we’re staying, and reflect on my opportunity to come and see—and walk out of—the oppressive poverty of these people.

Surely we who are blessed with the means to walk away cannot ignore what we have experienced, as if we could ever forget it.

And there is hope. Christ’s love IS making a difference here. I will try to describe how in my next post.

This month is going by in a blur. I’m only home in Nashville for two weeks of it, much of that time in two or three day increments, and I was bummed to miss the meditative service at St. Bart’s and the Festival of Lessons and Carols at Scarritt-Bennett. Although I still regret missing those worship experiences this year, Thursday night more than made up for it.

18 months ago a group from Fellowship Bible Church visited Kenya and left wishing they could do more for the people there. Because FBC is home to many of the top artists, studio musicians, and producers in Nashville, it wasn’t long before they decided an original CD could be a catalyst for raising money. This December the church released Ring the Bells: A Christmas Offering, with new songs written and performed by Christy Nockels (formerly of Watermark), Cheri Keaggy, Geoff Moore, Cindy Morgan, and others.

Amazingly, everyone involved not only wrote or played for free, but the church is donating every cent from the CD to their African mission partnerships.

Thursday night they took it a step further, and performed the music in two sold-out concerts—and all the money from ticket sales also went back to missions.

The thing about this project is these aren’t just nice people doing something for free—it’s one of the best Christmas CDs I’ve ever heard, and the concert was amazing. By the end, when Ronnie Freeman and Cindy Morgan sang the title track, the room was on its feet clapping, raising hands, and dancing along. There was such a spirit of celebration in the room—of the child born in Bethlehem and the children who will be helped in Africa.

So I’m resigned that Christmas 2007 will be hectic. But in the blur of travel, events, and work, Thursday night is one moment that will stand out in clear focus.