Field Impact Stories

Below are brief stories about the impact of our training. For additional stories, visit the following links:

•  Mandate e-Newsletter  
•  Chalmers working papers 
•  Chalmers Center Africa video (8.5 minutes)

Impacting Rwanda
The Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Rwanda has ordered that every church in the country start 1-3 savings and credit groups as a result of the Chalmers Center training the leadership has received. Malu Garcia, one of Chalmers' Global Fellowship of Trainers, is in the process of equipping trainers throughout the church hierarchy to use Chalmers’ models and materials. Our materials have been translated into the local language, and 3,000 copies are being distributed to Anglican churches throughout the country. The goal is for there to be 80,000 individuals in church-centered savings and credit groups by December of 2008. When you consider that each individual likely represents a family of roughly 5 individuals, this is quite large-scale impact.

Training Those in West Africa and Beyond
During June 9-14, 2008, the Chalmers Center conducted a Christian Economic Development Institute (CEDI) in Accra, Ghana. This was the sixth CEDI conducted in Africa since August 2005, but the first in West Africa. It was held in partnership with Mission to the World (MTW), Global Church Advancement, Equipping Pastors International, Five Talents International, and African Leadership of Ghana, an indigenous training organization that equips a network of Ghanaian churches to minister in their communities. The 77 delegates in attendance came from Ghana, Liberia, Malawi, Congo, Togo, Benin, Zambia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Burundi, Senegal, US, and Canada. The CEDI presented training on how the local church can use Christian microfinance and microenterprise development to minister to the spiritual and economic needs of the poor without creating dependency. To read about the CEDI in Ghana, refer to the "Chalmers Facilitates Training of Churches in West Africa" article in 2008 - Issue No. 2 of the Chalmers Center Mandate e-newsletter.

Impacting Kenya & Uganda
In August 2006, the Chalmers Center conducted a Christian Economic Development Institute (CEDI) in Kenya for 105 attendees from Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda.  The CEDI began with the Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) announcing the formation of the ACK Microenterprise Development Network, a training and equipping initiative that seeks to minister to the economic and spiritual needs of the poor using the Chalmers Center’s models and curricula.  This network was formed in response to a similar CEDI that we conducted in Uganda last year which was attended by several leaders of the ACK.

Also in August, in response to the 2005 Ugandan CEDI, the Anglican Church of Uganda passed a resolution stating its intent for the Chalmers Center to help bring savings and credit associations to every congregation in the country.  Only time will tell how effective these networks will be, but the potential is enormous, as the combined membership of the Anglican Churches of Kenya and Uganda, with Bible-believing leadership, is over 13 million members!    

Empowering Nationals
Immediately following the Kenyan CEDI, Chalmers trained 18 volunteer candidates for our new global fraternity of trainers, putting us well on the way toward reaching our goal of 50 such trainers in three years.  This fraternity will contextualize Chalmers courses and curricula and deliver them in their own countries and regions, thereby replicating Chalmers’ impact many times over without increasing our expenses.  In November, ten of these candidates conducted an entire CEDI on their own for six Anglican diocese in Western Kenya.  They did an outstanding job! 

Savings Groups for HIV Sufferers
Following the 2005 CEDI in Kenya, one of the churches in the Nakuru slum has worked with 50, very poor HIV sufferers to form a savings and credit group. This enabled the group members to be productive and to have a sense of worth.  Ministering to these people in both word and deed has borne significant results, as nearly all of these HIV sufferers have started additional savings and credit groups on their own.  In this, the outcasts of Kenyan society – people rejected by their own families and living on nothing – have been empowered by the church to help approximately 1000 others! As of 2007, most of the group members have started their own small businesses. When visitors come to the church, the compound becomes a market place; these individuals will not ask for money. Instead, they sell their wares to the visitors. This is significant as these individuals, even in their poverty, are not beggars.    

Reaching the Maasai
The Maasai Tribe of rural Kenya is a nomadic tribe that treats its women like cattle, using such horrific practices as female genital mutilation to allow husbands to continue to oppress their multiple wives.  In November, we visited a church-centered savings and credit group consisting of Maasai women.  These women are being empowered to be productive, confident, and God-fearing women, who are faithfully transforming their relationships with their husbands and are becoming role models to others in their communities.  They are just 22 of the 4,000 women in savings and credit associations started in the previous 16 months by this church. The church embarked on this ministry after receiving training from a missionary whom the Chalmers Center trained in one of our distance learning courses.  The church believes it will have over 7,000 people in savings and credit associations by the end of 2007.

Equipping Bolivian Churches
Last June, we gave a one-day workshop to individuals from Bolivia, Burundi, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Liberia, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Uganda who were attending a training program in the U.S.  During this training, two Bolivian women in the audience shared how their church had used savings and credit associations to minister to hundreds of people both inside and outside the church.  They testified that God had used these savings and credit groups to draw others to Christ and to strengthen the church’s testimony.  When asked how they had learned to use these savings and credit associations, these Bolivian women said that an American missionary named Tom Waddell had taught them.  Tom was trained by the Chalmers Center at a CEDI in 2003.

Gaining Dignity
Mercedes lives in Quito, Ecuador and makes and sells "ragballs" for a living. Growing up, she was ethnically and economically marginalized. As a result, she had a marred identity and never saw herself as a child of God with dignity. One of the desires she had was to attend school, but she never had the opportunity. After attending a Chalmers Center small business class conducted by missionaries Mike and Robin McMahan, she learned about the four basic biblical relationships we all have – our relationship with God, Self, Man, and Creation. Understanding these things has brought reconciliation into her relationships with God, her husband, family, and neighbors. Furthermore, her new understanding of her own dignity in Christ has encouraged her to enter an elementary school program for adults and, by this, to get the education she always wanted.

Transforming a Ministry in Florida
After taking a Chalmers Center distance learning course – “Foundations and Principles of Holistic Ministry” – the Community Ministries Director at Seven Rivers Presbyterian Church in Lecanto, Florida transformed her church’s community outreach to be less paternalistic.  As a result, the participants now feel like a welcomed part of the church.  The course was an eye-opener for the Director and exactly what was needed to enable her to minister to the poor more effectively.  She has been able to eliminate many ways she used to think she was serving the poor but had actually been enabling them to manage their poverty.  The Director no longer focuses on rescue and on how many boxes of food she can hand out.  Rather, she focuses on development and on using the opportunity to build bridges with those who come for food, whom she also understands are spiritually hungry.  The Director encourages her volunteers to develop relationships with participants in their ministry throughout the month – to invite them for coffee, or to pick them up for church and get to know them.  Others serving in the ministry have also taken the Chalmers Center’s distance course.