International (MNN) — As they look to a new year, many Christian entrepreneurs around the world lack the investment capital needed to start or sustain their businesses. Christian microfinance organizations partner with these believers, offering income generation projects and zero interest loans.
Scott Clifton of FARMS International says impoverished businesspeople have three options to obtain seed money. The first is to build savings.
“That’s certainly a good option, but in many cases it would take a decade or two decades to be able to save enough to start a business,” Clifton says.
In the absence of savings, loans are in order. The logical source for them is banks.
“Which aren’t an option,” Clifton says, “because if you’re poor you don’t have collateral. You don’t have anything that the bank can sign off against in case the business doesn’t succeed.”
As a result, many poor people turn to loan sharks, who burden their clients with extortionary interest rates ranging from 60 to 300 percent annual interest.
“And so it’s just impossible to get out of poverty when you’re in that type of situation,” Clifton says.
That’s where partnership with a microfinance institution can play a key role. Through financial trainings, zero-interest loans, and savings initiatives, believers are offered a chance to help their families thrive. Beyond practical assistance, FARMS offers its clients a commitment to operate from Biblical principles.
“We think it’s very important to focus on personal dignity: that someone is empowered, that we’re not replacing the efforts that they should be giving, that we’re not robbing them of their rights to put to use their God-given skills, gifts, and abilities.”
Courtesy of Pixabay
The team at FARMS works exclusively with believers, basing their decision on Galatians 6:10, which encourages goodwill toward everyone but especially those in the household of faith.
“If we have family members who are struggling, we should try to help them, and we really believe that these are our family members: our brothers and sisters in Christ,” Clifton says.
Working among believers produces a secondary impact into the community, he says. As Christian businesspeople are shown love through the work of FARMS, they engage their neighbors with the same Biblical perspective.
“As they’ve been helped, they’ll turn around and help others, and we’ve seen that time and time again,” Clifton says.
Principles like stewardship, tithing, and money management are incorporated into the work of FARMS. In some of the areas where this ministry works, believers are persecuted and even martyred for their faith. While the suffering is hard to endure, Clifton says it’s also inspiring to see such faith and passion in the hearts of fellow Christians.
“And that’s something that I find very humbling to work alongside,” he says.
Please pray for the work of FARMS International and similar microfinance organizations. Pray that Christian businesspeople would be helped practically and spiritually and that they would use their resources to bless those around them.
Featured image courtesy of Pexels via Pixabay
