First Roots
A pastor with a church in Pan de Dios (Bread of God) invited David to preach there on Sunday, and David agreed. The pastor picked us up in his four-wheel drive pick-up at 8:30 a.m. and it took us about 45 minutes to get out to the rural area where this church is. As we drove off the main highway and into the rolling hills on a winding dirt road, I thought to myself, “Hmmm, good thing it’s a nice dry morning; I’d hate to see what this road is like when it rains…” Little did I know.
In due time, the church service started and then David preached. At the end of the service the pastor picked up something beige, about the size of two footballs, and held it up with two hands. He explained that this was an offering from a local farmer of First Fruits (primicias), the very first, and unusually large product of harvest from a crop of ñame, a tuber that is grown and eaten here. It is kind of like yuca (manioc) except that it is much bigger and (if possible) has even less taste. This huge ñame was given to David in gratitude, we suppose, for his sermon.
Shortly after David sat down and the pastor stood up for the “first roots” presentation and other announcements, it began to rain, then pour, then pour some more. The service ended and the people waited patiently for the rain to stop: most of them had come on foot. After about an hour, the rain finally stopped. The mud in front of the church was about three inches deep and the exact color and texture of chocolate frosting. The people took their shoes off, rolled up their pants, and set out. The pastor told us that some of them had more than an hour to walk to get home. Would you walk an hour to get to church?
The pastor then informed us that they were going to serve us lunch there at the church and we sat on plastic chairs and waited in an open thatch-roofed area. After the rain it was nice and cool. We asked the pastor´s wife how Sunday School had gone, and she told us, explaining that many of the children (and even some adults) cannot read. The pastor added that many girls in this rural area are married by age 14.
After lunch, which was a sancocho (soup) of chicken, with rice, yuca, ñame and plaintain, the pastor announced that we still needed to wait for an hour or more “for the road to dry out.” Finally, the pastor put his wheels in four-wheel drive, and we set out. It was like driving in soft butter and just as difficult as driving on solid ice, a main difference being that ice does not throw globs of brown stuff up onto the windows. I held my breath as the truck slid softly back and forth across the width of the road, expecting at any moment to slip off the road and down the bank into a field or gully. I fully visualized having to take off my shoes and walk several miles to the paved road. But after a few minutes of suspense we got to a piece of road where (thank You, Lord!) it had not rained nearly so much. Then we got to a road that was quite steep and twisty, but it stayed dry enough that we didn´t slip.
We were profoundly grateful to get home, and somewhat mystified as to what to do with 15 pounds of ñame... but we´ll think of something.
Management Consulting in Colombia
On November 1 the oversight of the ADIN loan program was formally transferred to Colombian manager, Sael, and my (David's) role changes to "consultant." This is a good thing, and also frees me up to work on the Honduras project, and to be involved helping other organizations, such as a CMA project in Bogota that I visited this past week.
The program management is actually a bit more complicated than what is presented in my book, Where There Are No Jobs, and we have a detailed 16-page manual that describes what employees must do. There is a rhythm of over $20,000 to be placed in small projects each month, and planning is required to make sure that good projects are ready to be funded. We also now expect at least one project in each new group of about a dozen to exhibit problems, and to require special attention. The training sessions must be programmed in advance.
As we come to the end of the first year of operation, we are inviting all of the business principals to come to Sincelejo on November 29 to celebrate. It will be an opportunity for many to showcase their products or promote their services. The president of the AIEC denomination, that helped to give birth to the project, will present a message. I am preparing an analysis of how businesses have performed, and recommending some adjustments in the training and financing from ADIN. We will also have a round table discussion of loan clients themselves, modeled somewhat on how the president of Colombia organizes interactive community meetings.
A prospective manager for the Honduran project is coming to Colombia for training, and we are hopeful that the program there will begin during the second half of January, 2009. As I work on this, I am reminded again of how many complex issues need to be addressed in organizing these projects. I have the material for book #2: Where There Are No Jobs and What To Do About It.
Loans by Phone?
David doesn’t get as many of these calls as he used to, now that Sael and Javier manage a lot of the ADIN daily business…but he still gets them occasionally. Someone will call his cell phone and ask if they can have a loan, expecting, apparently, for David to say, “Sure, how much?” and authorize, over the phone, a substantial loan to a person he doesn’t know. I suppose the details of where and how to pick up the money would be arranged later?
Astonishing as it may seem, this has happened repeatedly. Many Colombians apparently believe that not only are all gringos rich, but they have come to Colombia for the express purpose of giving away money to anyone who asks for it. While we have encountered similar phenomena in other countries before, we have never seen this idea held so strongly and so irrationally by so many people. Needless to say, this attitude has endlessly complicated the daily business of teaching people that ADIN is a serious small loan agency that only gives loans to small businesses that have been carefully investigated and found to be viable. Furthermore, ADIN fully expects to have its loans paid back, on time, or the arm of Colombian law will be invoked. In some cases, the arm of the law has indeed been invoked.
But still, every once in awhile, David shakes his head as he hangs up the phone: another hopeful, but misled Colombian thought he could get a loan just by calling the gringo…
In fact, Sael and Javier sometimes discourage David from going to certain locations on loan program business; people tend to think the gringo has money, regardless of what anyone says.
If only they knew…
“Bring your Machete!”
Most of ADIN’s loan recipients are, in fact, paying back their loans. In each community bank formed by 10-20 people, there is often at least one person who does not pay on time, for one reason or another. But per their original contract, the rest of the group does, as promised, cover the defaulted payment. Sometimes it is just a timing issue and the group gets paid back later. Sometimes the person who misses the payment is sick, or has had serious, legitimate troubles, like the loan recipient who recently got hit by a car and has been in intensive care at the hospital: it is obvious that he will be late with his payments for awhile, and both his group and ADIN can work with that reality.
But every now and then the community bank groups, and therefore ADIN staff, come across a person who apparently took the loan and never intended to pay it back in the first place. A prime example of this is a woman in San Onofre who was a church-goer, and signed all the loan documents everyone else does for a small fish store. However, when her fellow group and church members went to collect her first payment she said, “Well, I’m not paying, and if you come back to try to collect, bring your machete!”
She has not been seen in church since.
We are reminded, now and then, that this is a violent country, and that the tendency to explode into bloodshed lurks just below the rhythm of daily life.
It has also become abundantly clear to David, Sael, Javier and the church association leaders here on the Board of ADIN, that there is nothing like a community bank and loan program to scratch the surface of a person’s character and find out just what lies beneath a veneer of religiosity.
A Safe Solution
The Board of ADIN this past week dealt effectively with a problem that has long concerned David: the problem of the danger to him, or to Sael or Javier, of being known to be carrying large sums of money to disburse to the different community banks that become approved.
It was not so much of a problem when David began and there was “just him,” and not too many loans. But there are now 400 loans, some 31 community banks, and there is money coming and going all the time. The program is known, and so are the people who do the work and carry the money. In this country that is dangerous. But….the money clearly needs to come—and go.
Collections are not so much of a problem: community bank members often bring their payments in to the ADIN office. Only occasionally do ADIN staff members collect money and then on a random basis. It is the loan disbursements that are the real problem.
So the staff and Board members of ADIN put their heads together, talked, and scratched their heads, and talked some more. Finally they all agreed that the best thing to do, when a group loan needs to be disbursed, would be to have the typical loan disbursement meeting with all the people from the community bank, in the community, but not disburse the money at that time. Instead, the next day, two representatives from the community bank group should come to the ADIN office, and pick up their money.
It will be pretty hard for unscrupulous people to know just who loan recipients are, when they might come to the office, or how much money they might carry. David, Sael and Javier will no longer be carrying, or dispensing (away from the office) large amounts of money. But the work can go on.
Sigh of relief all around.
ET Phone Home
Some of us are extra-terrestrials. We are supposed to be, if we belong to Jesus—supposed to be—if heaven is our real home, that place we are homesick for without ever having seen. And it is the Father we have never seen whose embrace and whose lap we are homesick for, too. Supposedly.
I used to think, when I was in my twenties, watching the faces of “older” couples light up when they talked about their kids, or received a phone call or letter from their kids, that their lives must be fairly empty for them to get such joy out of a comparatively small thing…
I was young, and ignorant, and wrong.
I am older now and know better. I understand now that those parents of “grown up children” fell in love with those kids before they were even born, and by the time those babies were toddlers the parents were hopeless “goners,” in love for life. Nothing can dig out of those parents that besotted love for their kids: not jail, not drugs, not illness, nor rank stupidity nor ungratefulness. They just love their kids and want the best for them and always will. They are incurable.
Those parents probably do not have empty lives: they may be busy professionals deeply involved in organizations and in other people’s lives. But they will usually drop what they are doing for an e-mail or call from one of their own. And they can hardly hear too much from their kids! The parents want to know their kids’ news, rejoice in their triumphs, sympathize in their troubles, know how to pray, and be of help (if possible)—and maybe after all the years, be loved back. Being loved back, or not, does not affect the parents’ love, but it sure makes it a lot more fun.
Yes, a simple phone call can make an “older” parent’s day. I understand now.
And with tears in my eyes, I realize how besotted our Heavenly Father is, too. He is our model, the prototype parent, and He cannot be cured either. It does not matter that we don’t deserve His love. He put it all on the line for us ages ago, and all He really wants from us is…to be loved back.
So phone home, ET. Make His day.
In due time, the church service started and then David preached. At the end of the service the pastor picked up something beige, about the size of two footballs, and held it up with two hands. He explained that this was an offering from a local farmer of First Fruits (primicias), the very first, and unusually large product of harvest from a crop of ñame, a tuber that is grown and eaten here. It is kind of like yuca (manioc) except that it is much bigger and (if possible) has even less taste. This huge ñame was given to David in gratitude, we suppose, for his sermon.
Shortly after David sat down and the pastor stood up for the “first roots” presentation and other announcements, it began to rain, then pour, then pour some more. The service ended and the people waited patiently for the rain to stop: most of them had come on foot. After about an hour, the rain finally stopped. The mud in front of the church was about three inches deep and the exact color and texture of chocolate frosting. The people took their shoes off, rolled up their pants, and set out. The pastor told us that some of them had more than an hour to walk to get home. Would you walk an hour to get to church?
The pastor then informed us that they were going to serve us lunch there at the church and we sat on plastic chairs and waited in an open thatch-roofed area. After the rain it was nice and cool. We asked the pastor´s wife how Sunday School had gone, and she told us, explaining that many of the children (and even some adults) cannot read. The pastor added that many girls in this rural area are married by age 14.
After lunch, which was a sancocho (soup) of chicken, with rice, yuca, ñame and plaintain, the pastor announced that we still needed to wait for an hour or more “for the road to dry out.” Finally, the pastor put his wheels in four-wheel drive, and we set out. It was like driving in soft butter and just as difficult as driving on solid ice, a main difference being that ice does not throw globs of brown stuff up onto the windows. I held my breath as the truck slid softly back and forth across the width of the road, expecting at any moment to slip off the road and down the bank into a field or gully. I fully visualized having to take off my shoes and walk several miles to the paved road. But after a few minutes of suspense we got to a piece of road where (thank You, Lord!) it had not rained nearly so much. Then we got to a road that was quite steep and twisty, but it stayed dry enough that we didn´t slip.
We were profoundly grateful to get home, and somewhat mystified as to what to do with 15 pounds of ñame... but we´ll think of something.
Management Consulting in Colombia
On November 1 the oversight of the ADIN loan program was formally transferred to Colombian manager, Sael, and my (David's) role changes to "consultant." This is a good thing, and also frees me up to work on the Honduras project, and to be involved helping other organizations, such as a CMA project in Bogota that I visited this past week.
The program management is actually a bit more complicated than what is presented in my book, Where There Are No Jobs, and we have a detailed 16-page manual that describes what employees must do. There is a rhythm of over $20,000 to be placed in small projects each month, and planning is required to make sure that good projects are ready to be funded. We also now expect at least one project in each new group of about a dozen to exhibit problems, and to require special attention. The training sessions must be programmed in advance.
As we come to the end of the first year of operation, we are inviting all of the business principals to come to Sincelejo on November 29 to celebrate. It will be an opportunity for many to showcase their products or promote their services. The president of the AIEC denomination, that helped to give birth to the project, will present a message. I am preparing an analysis of how businesses have performed, and recommending some adjustments in the training and financing from ADIN. We will also have a round table discussion of loan clients themselves, modeled somewhat on how the president of Colombia organizes interactive community meetings.
A prospective manager for the Honduran project is coming to Colombia for training, and we are hopeful that the program there will begin during the second half of January, 2009. As I work on this, I am reminded again of how many complex issues need to be addressed in organizing these projects. I have the material for book #2: Where There Are No Jobs and What To Do About It.
Loans by Phone?
David doesn’t get as many of these calls as he used to, now that Sael and Javier manage a lot of the ADIN daily business…but he still gets them occasionally. Someone will call his cell phone and ask if they can have a loan, expecting, apparently, for David to say, “Sure, how much?” and authorize, over the phone, a substantial loan to a person he doesn’t know. I suppose the details of where and how to pick up the money would be arranged later?
Astonishing as it may seem, this has happened repeatedly. Many Colombians apparently believe that not only are all gringos rich, but they have come to Colombia for the express purpose of giving away money to anyone who asks for it. While we have encountered similar phenomena in other countries before, we have never seen this idea held so strongly and so irrationally by so many people. Needless to say, this attitude has endlessly complicated the daily business of teaching people that ADIN is a serious small loan agency that only gives loans to small businesses that have been carefully investigated and found to be viable. Furthermore, ADIN fully expects to have its loans paid back, on time, or the arm of Colombian law will be invoked. In some cases, the arm of the law has indeed been invoked.
But still, every once in awhile, David shakes his head as he hangs up the phone: another hopeful, but misled Colombian thought he could get a loan just by calling the gringo…
In fact, Sael and Javier sometimes discourage David from going to certain locations on loan program business; people tend to think the gringo has money, regardless of what anyone says.
If only they knew…
“Bring your Machete!”
Most of ADIN’s loan recipients are, in fact, paying back their loans. In each community bank formed by 10-20 people, there is often at least one person who does not pay on time, for one reason or another. But per their original contract, the rest of the group does, as promised, cover the defaulted payment. Sometimes it is just a timing issue and the group gets paid back later. Sometimes the person who misses the payment is sick, or has had serious, legitimate troubles, like the loan recipient who recently got hit by a car and has been in intensive care at the hospital: it is obvious that he will be late with his payments for awhile, and both his group and ADIN can work with that reality.
But every now and then the community bank groups, and therefore ADIN staff, come across a person who apparently took the loan and never intended to pay it back in the first place. A prime example of this is a woman in San Onofre who was a church-goer, and signed all the loan documents everyone else does for a small fish store. However, when her fellow group and church members went to collect her first payment she said, “Well, I’m not paying, and if you come back to try to collect, bring your machete!”
She has not been seen in church since.
We are reminded, now and then, that this is a violent country, and that the tendency to explode into bloodshed lurks just below the rhythm of daily life.
It has also become abundantly clear to David, Sael, Javier and the church association leaders here on the Board of ADIN, that there is nothing like a community bank and loan program to scratch the surface of a person’s character and find out just what lies beneath a veneer of religiosity.
A Safe Solution
The Board of ADIN this past week dealt effectively with a problem that has long concerned David: the problem of the danger to him, or to Sael or Javier, of being known to be carrying large sums of money to disburse to the different community banks that become approved.
It was not so much of a problem when David began and there was “just him,” and not too many loans. But there are now 400 loans, some 31 community banks, and there is money coming and going all the time. The program is known, and so are the people who do the work and carry the money. In this country that is dangerous. But….the money clearly needs to come—and go.
Collections are not so much of a problem: community bank members often bring their payments in to the ADIN office. Only occasionally do ADIN staff members collect money and then on a random basis. It is the loan disbursements that are the real problem.
So the staff and Board members of ADIN put their heads together, talked, and scratched their heads, and talked some more. Finally they all agreed that the best thing to do, when a group loan needs to be disbursed, would be to have the typical loan disbursement meeting with all the people from the community bank, in the community, but not disburse the money at that time. Instead, the next day, two representatives from the community bank group should come to the ADIN office, and pick up their money.
It will be pretty hard for unscrupulous people to know just who loan recipients are, when they might come to the office, or how much money they might carry. David, Sael and Javier will no longer be carrying, or dispensing (away from the office) large amounts of money. But the work can go on.
Sigh of relief all around.
ET Phone Home
Some of us are extra-terrestrials. We are supposed to be, if we belong to Jesus—supposed to be—if heaven is our real home, that place we are homesick for without ever having seen. And it is the Father we have never seen whose embrace and whose lap we are homesick for, too. Supposedly.
I used to think, when I was in my twenties, watching the faces of “older” couples light up when they talked about their kids, or received a phone call or letter from their kids, that their lives must be fairly empty for them to get such joy out of a comparatively small thing…
I was young, and ignorant, and wrong.
I am older now and know better. I understand now that those parents of “grown up children” fell in love with those kids before they were even born, and by the time those babies were toddlers the parents were hopeless “goners,” in love for life. Nothing can dig out of those parents that besotted love for their kids: not jail, not drugs, not illness, nor rank stupidity nor ungratefulness. They just love their kids and want the best for them and always will. They are incurable.
Those parents probably do not have empty lives: they may be busy professionals deeply involved in organizations and in other people’s lives. But they will usually drop what they are doing for an e-mail or call from one of their own. And they can hardly hear too much from their kids! The parents want to know their kids’ news, rejoice in their triumphs, sympathize in their troubles, know how to pray, and be of help (if possible)—and maybe after all the years, be loved back. Being loved back, or not, does not affect the parents’ love, but it sure makes it a lot more fun.
Yes, a simple phone call can make an “older” parent’s day. I understand now.
And with tears in my eyes, I realize how besotted our Heavenly Father is, too. He is our model, the prototype parent, and He cannot be cured either. It does not matter that we don’t deserve His love. He put it all on the line for us ages ago, and all He really wants from us is…to be loved back.
So phone home, ET. Make His day.
