Carmen, a HOPE / Esperanza loan associate, sews some pretty amazing blanket, sheet, and pillow sets with this bad boy from Singer. I met Carmen this past Saturday on a HOPE Vision Trip in La Romana, Dominican Republic.
{ 0 comments }
I woke up yesterday morning with a knot in my stomach.
To be honest, I wasn’t excited about the day. It was my second day working in San Pedro de Macoris, and my first waking up in my new home here. Normally I’m excited about new things, new adventures, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I was tired of moving to places where I don’t know anyone. The challenges of working in a different culture had worn on me. I felt ineffective and unmotivated. I had forgotten my mission.
I passed the early morning catching up on emails as I waited to head out to the field with Isidro. Isidro is a loan officer who roves the dusty streets of San Pedro communities, his silver-speckled hair buried beneath his helmet. He’s been doing this for nearly 10 years. A quick “Vamos!” and we headed out into the radiant mid-morning Dominican sun, accompanied by the rattle of his Dominican motorcycle.
As we rode along, Isidro explained his job to me. He specializes in individual loans – larger loans to clients who have built up their credit and business over the years with Esperanza, or newer clients that already have successful small businesses. Even though individual loan clients mail their loan payments in each month, Isidro spends a lot of time visiting his clients. Just stopping by to see how the business is doing, talk about family or church. Not just a loan. A relationship. Isidro was clear on his mission – to be a partner and friend to these entrepreneurs.
We pulled over at José Lugo’s one-room mechanic workshop located in northern San Pedro. His hands greasy from working, José greeted me with a wrist-bump. You could tell he meant business, staring out at me from behind is protective glasses – but he quickly broke into a smile as he told me some of his story.
José specializes in making and repairing metal machine parts: gears, bearings, and other things with technical names I’m not sure of. He showed me a transmission gear he was repairing, while next to me his employee slowly drilled a hole in a part using a metal bore. José is relatively new to HOPE and Esperanza – this is his first loan, which he took out about a year ago. He talks about his clients – they come from all over San Pedro. He does a lot of work for manufacturers in the Zona Franca, or industrial free zone.
José pointed around his shop to the various tools he bought with his loan: a black power hand drill, a red gas tank, a pneumatic nozzle, and his pride and joy, the impressive green drill press that stands 6 feet tall at the back of his shop. None of it was brand new, top-of-the-line technology. He probably picked them up at various places – a hardware store, a friend’s shop, a factory looking to update equipment. But now in his hands, these tools are instruments of precision, creativity, and value. They honored him.
…
Yesterday, I woke up thinking of my own purposes. José reminded me that I am to be an instrument of the Master Craftsman, bringing honor to him. This morning I got out of bed on a mission, much greater than my own.
{ 5 comments }
Cool look at HOPE’s saving & credit association program in Haiti:
Off Cadiac’s main road, in a one-room rental house with no plumbing or electricity, Marimat Batis arranges chairs near two single beds and talks about saving money for the first time in her life. Batis, who lives here with her four children, sells clothes in the market. She’s using her modest savings for a long-term goal. “I’m buying sand,” she says with a smile. “I will build a house.”
WORLD Magazine, “Aid in action” (2nd half of the article)
{ 0 comments }
Today is an exciting day. Today I am going on my first Vision Trip with HOPE International.
The trip will be led by my cousin, Chris Horst (see previous post), who also works for HOPE. Chris is flying in with a group of HOPE’s friends, partners, supporters, and collaborators in the work of releasing the poor from physical and spiritual poverty. Together with my colleagues and friends Liz and Máximo, I’ll be helping out with some translating and sharing my experiences here in the DR. I’m also looking forward to what I’ll learn. Over the next two days we’ll be discussing HOPE’s work here in the Dominican Republic, visiting microfinance loan meetings, hearing the stories of entrepreneurs, and learning more about what it means to invest in the dreams of the poor.
Time to hit the road! I’ll be snapping photos and video as much as I can, so stay tuned for more in the coming days.
{ 0 comments }
A short while ago, Chris Horst sent me a great article that inspired me to write about the dignity of entrepreneurship in Cuba. Chris now has an excellent new post with his thoughts on unlocking Cuban creativity:
At the core, we believe that God—the innovator of the solar systems, mountain ranges, and human emotion—has planted a glimmer of his creativity in us. When given the opportunity to do so, people will put that gift to work. Architects, chefs, artists, entrepreneurs, electricians, florists, educators and scientists each apply their God-given creativity in uniquely profound ways. Now, for the first time in decades, Cubans have the chance to do the same.
Follow the link above for the full post.
{ 1 comment }
Pop quiz: Who said the following about entrepreneurship and self-employment?
“It is essential that we change the negative feelings that no small number of us harbor toward this kind of private labor.”
Here’s the grading scale:
- 1 point if you said Barack Obama. Wrong, but understandable.
- -5 points if you said Aaron Rogers. Not because he doesn’t know economics. Because he’s a Packer.
- 10 points (plus a gold star!) for the correct answer…Cuban Communist Dictator Raúl Castro!
After 40 years of prohibition, Cuban private employment is creeping out of the shadows and onto the map, the NY Times reports.
Some interesting facts:
- 85% of Cubans are employed by the government
- These workers earning about $20 per month plus free healthcare, education, and an assortment of rationed goods.
- It is illegal for Carpenters to build anything new, because there is no legal way to buy wood. They can only make repairs.
- There are now 178 kinds of private jobs that Cuba permits. (This is both remarkable and sad.)
- By the end of 2010, 75,000 new private businesses received government permits – an increase of 50%.
75,000 is more than a number. It’s 75,000 people, families, neighbors. Doing something new. Being creative. Improving their lives. Providing for their families with dignity. Offering a product or service that their communities value enough to pay them for. Ms. Álvarez is one of the 75,000:
“I feel useful; I’m independent,” said Ms. Álvarez, who opened a small cafe in November at her home in this scruffy town 25 miles from the capital, Havana. “When you sit down at the end of the day and look at how much you have made, you feel satisfied.”
Read the whole article here, and notice how entrepreneurship and hard work brings dignity and hope to those that previously had none. This is why I support economic freedom. This is why I work for HOPE International.
HT to Chris Horst.
{ 4 comments }
It’s good to consider others’ experiences with the US abroad. One learns a lot.
For example, what if you had been born in Egypt? Let’s say in 1981. For your whole life, you’ve lived in a country ruled by a single man, who has set up the government to maximize his power over you. He, along with his government, is corrupt and unjust. You’re pretty poor, and pretty frustrated.
Then, let’s say there’s this other nation that says it wants to help you. They are willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in programs to improve your quality of life, somehow. Even more, they say they stand for freedom and democracy.
And then this happens:
Take it away, Laura Freschi:
The categories used are from research by Simone Dietrich, who explained: “Public sector captures US aid flows to Egypt that directly involve the Egyptian government in the implementation, ranging between budget support and technical assistance. Bypass aid, on the other hand, captures aid that flows ‘around’ the Egyptian government and is implemented by multilateral organizations, NGOs, or private contractors. ”
So, has US aid been better at supporting the Egyptian government, or the Egyptian people?
You can draw your own conclusions.
Data source: AidData. HT AidWatch.
{ 0 comments }
My cousin and HOPE International colleague Chris Horst nails it (emphasis original):
Collectively, we have two options: We can vilify capitalism till the end of days, or, we can be citizens of redemption–salt and light–bringing healing to the brokenness which exists in our current broken system while also being honest about its incredible successes. We can start and run “best of class” global businesses, provide entrepreneurial opportunities to the poor, invest in businesses which do things right, and give generously to the vulnerable. This is the message which should resound from our pulpits and lecterns.
{ 0 comments }
“If we are not careful…we will have a developing nation inside a developed nation.”
Sounds a lot like a description of a lot of developing nations, including what I see in the Dominican Republic. But this is actually describing…rural poverty in the USA. The quotation is by World Vision VP of US Programs Romanita Hairston. The full Christianity Today article is here.
Says Hairston:
“It will take multiple sectors responding to fix it, but not the government. The government should stimulate social services but not be a long-term solution. This is not a country that is meant to live with government intervention for long; our economic foundation is not built on that principle.
“There is a free market solution: We need the nonprofit world—and the church—to come around and help.”
Photo by LightShaper.
{ 0 comments }
The moment (you didn’t know) you’ve been waiting for has finally arrived! No, not Verizon iPhone…I’m talking about the 2011 Index of Economic Freedom!
Where does USA rank? 9th
What about the Dominican Republic? 90th
Top honors go to Hong Kong, while North Korea is pits.
{ 0 comments }
