Milestone and crumbs
I wanted to take a moment to point out a wonderful if quick event in the life of GO, we now are impacting the lives of over 10,000 people with weekly transformation education and business loans from $50 to $500. Add to that the school loans, and savings ability we are well on the way of alleviating poverty from the bottom up.
Anna and I had the privilege to see the signing and distribution of two loan groups yesterday. A wonderful experience for me. To realize that I just go down to the ATM (with much thanks to all those supporting us) and pull out for spending in a week what is a major investment in their lives. To put this to point, Anna had a zip lock bag with some corn flakes in it, she was sitting next to me eating, spilling some on the ground. A 5 year old child, not much taller than Anna was sneaking behind us and picking up these little crumbs... later I gave her an Oreo cookie, I thought she did not like it, eating it so slow, but she was savoring each little bite. This is the amazing world we live in. Should we go and savor life like her, or help lift her up to be like us that dropping crumbs is OK.
OH on a personal note: It is refreshing to get notes and emails from those that have sent, it is SO uplifting and encouraging. Please keep those letters and emails coming! To encourage everyone to visit our web page I have posted a photo of our address here in Chennai on the site and replying to this email (if you get the emails) will send a note to both Nancy and I.
I love that picture of Anna and her friends.
ReplyDeleteHey guys, I just realized I do not know what your snail mail address is... and I don't know what your website address is either....
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, one other question... have you heard of KIVA and if so, what do you think? www.kiva.org
ReplyDeletehmmm... Holly how do you comment to the site without being at it? RyanAndNancy.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteThe snail mail is in a picture a couple posts ago.
Hey yea Kiva... good idea in theory. But the challenge is if you give a loan to Vijaya in India to allow her buy a new sewing machine you want to know how she is doing, not in general but in detail, and often... so kiva leads to lots of extra work for those in the feild.. and less people helped. Or you get your funds back and you give to Osma in lebonon next still Kiva but a different on the grounds organization.
ReplyDeleteAnd also Kiva and some of the organizations they work with are secular... do you just want to give money, or do you want to change lives forever?
Opportunity International Network members have the goal to change lives holistically, using education, and loans to do that. (note that some OI network members have worked with Kiva and some still may) GO has over 10,000 clients here in Chennai, do we put all of them up on Kiva, or select one or two?
We do have stories called Transformations, several will be on the website which will be posted very soon (doing some final edits right now)
There are ways to support the poor we serve through the OI network. But for now I am selfishly directing people to support Nancy, Anna and I as our support is not from the OI network, we work as volunteers here in India, though friends can place funds into the savings account we live off of.