October 8, 2012 Kakamega

Greetings

I think it is finally over.  Today I felt the best since I arrived almost two weeks ago.  I still fear food so dinner consisted of a peanut butter and fluff sandwich, some macadamia nuts, and a candy bar.  The honey coated macadamia nuts are very tasty indeed.

Today Bishop Hezron joined me this morning to continue discussing the micro-savings aspect of the micro-finance venture.  We also spent some more time discussing Orphans, Orphan care, and how to make Church based Orphan care a success. 

We continued to talk about the issues that arise with aid money.  I continued to beat him up (in a good way) that we have to make sure that people understand the difference between a gift and a loan.  I told him that discipleship and training are key to making this a success.  All of the leadership on all the teams have to understand and work by the rules.  Today we also talked about interest rates since that was an area that had much discussion the other day.  I explained to him by using a loan calculator that we had developed for him on my last visit that ten percent is not always ten percent.  During our meeting the other day the magic number of ten percent came up and I told them that ten percent might not be enough to manage the loans.  Is the loan ten percent per month, per quarter, annual, or just ten percent of the loan value?  What people think here is that if you are to receive a 10,000 shilling loan that the loan needs to be paid back with an extra 1,000 shillings for a total of 11,000 shillings.  It does not matter if the loan is one month, three months, or ten years.  I then explained to him if this is the desire of the group to make ten percent on the loan then different interest rates need to be applied for different time frames.  A one thousand shilling return on a one month investment of ten thousand shillings is an interest rate of one hundred and twenty percent. 

If the plan is only to charge ten percent compounded annually and the loan is only for one month then only expect to receive about 83 shillings in interest.  If the loan is three months then only expect to receive about 168 shillings in interest, 293 shillings for a six month loan and only 550 shillings if the loan is for a year.  In order to get the ten percent that they feel would be fair a one month loan would be the ten percent loan.  A three month loan would jump up to fifteen percent or 250 shillings on a 10,000 shilling loan.  A six month loan would jump up to seventeen percent or 500 shillings on the loan.  If the loan is for one year to gain the ten percent or 1,000 shillings on the loan everyone seemed to want the interest rate needs to be about thirty four percent.  I had mentioned thirty five percent the other day but they all said it was too much.  I did stress to everyone that what ever is done the goal continues to cause no harm and it should be done within Biblical teachings.  More needs to be done to get them ready to start.

We also spent some more time discussing Orphans and their care.  As I might have already told you that Hezron was brought up as an Orphan.  I also believe that he spent his childhood up to his early adulthood in Uganda so he is quite familiar with Orphan care in Uganda.  Hezron spent thirty years working with Orphans in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Congo.  Many of the children were in traditional institutions run by the ministry he was associated with (Bible and Literacy League of Kenya) as well as home based care similar to our Foster Care program except it was run by the ministry.  After leaving his last ministry Bishop Hezron formed his own ministry Freedom International Ministries of Kenya, Freedom International Ministries of Uganda, and he is starting Freedom International Ministries of Tanzania.  Don’t look for them on the web this is more of a grass roots type of organization even though there are quite a few churches involved. 

The Bishop prefers the home based Orphan care concept versus the much more expensive traditional bricks and mortar concept.  Hezron told me that his Orphan care project has been declining over time since he does not have the money to sustain it.  Here in Kenya the Orphans in the ministries care is down to about thirty.  It is my understanding that Bishop Moses in Uganda has somewhere in the neighborhood of five hundred or more scattered all over Uganda.  I will know more later this week.  We have continued to discuss the Orphan Report.  On how Joe has been able to take his experience working both sides of the pond and putting them to words so all of us can learn from it.  I told Hezron that in order to make this work we mzungu’s are going to be working from the shadows.  This is their baby and it needs to be done by Ugandans or Kenyans. 

I am going to be talking with Joe some more after my return to the states.  My most nagging question continues to be how I (we) going to be in the shadows when I (we) stand out like a sore thumb.  We want to visit and our plans are to bring missionaries over from the states to help, take some pictures, etc.  We have a story to tell back home.  Sermon = Offering.  Story = Aid.  Once we arrive the cat is out of the bag so to speak.  Our mere presence invokes $$ in the eyes of the people.  The mzungu has come to visit and has not given you any money?  What did he just come over to say “how are you?’ and you want me to believe you?  Where is the money?

Speaking of cats I was reading yesterday that Peru just had a kitty cat festival in one of their towns where they prepare little kitties for dinner.  I have known and I know plenty of fine kitty cats and for the life of me I could not imagine any of them on my dinner plate.  What are these people thinking?  This is about as close to eating a family member as one can get.  It almost makes me want to go out and protest.

Well tomorrow it is off to Nairobi to meet up with Aaron whom arrives Wednesday night.  We are leaving a day early since I would like to spend some time on Wednesday with Pastor Ososo since I missed him upon my arrival last month.          

 

Take care and God bless

Dave