Limits of Power (2)

The civil government does not have to the power to eliminate poverty. In the last fifty years, western governments have taken billions of dollars of dollars from the rich and given it to the poor. However, poverty is getting worse and not better, because government programs tend to lock people into poverty.

Poverty will only be resolved by people who care. A good example is Professor Muhammad Yunus, who used his own money to start the Grameen foundation in Bangladesh.

The Grameen Bank makes small loans, usually less than $200, to individuals, usually women, to establish or expand a small, self-sustaining business. For example, a woman may borrow $50 to buy chickens so she can sell eggs. As the chickens multiply, she will have
more eggs to sell. Soon she can sell the chicks. Each expansion pulls her further from the devastation of poverty.

As loans are repaid, usually in six months to a year, they are re-loaned. This continual reinvestment multiplies the impact of each dollar loaned.

The village phone program makes cell phones available to people who would otherwise have to travel five or six miles from their homes. This can mean leaving work and losing out on desperately needed income.

The success of the Grameen Foundation shows what one person with compassion and a clear vision can do.

The odd thing is that interest free loans to the poor are a biblical idea (Deut 15:7-11). Unfortnuately, Christians have put so much effort into using government power to resolve poverty that they did not find God's way: the loan to the poor.

God does not hold people down, but gives them a "leg up". Administering loans to the poor is part of the ministry of the deacon.