Mandate eNewsletter, 2009 - Issue No. 2

Savings Not Shame
by Grace Bateman

I walked into the Arévalo Presbyterian Church of Peru this past February to attend a women’s Bible study after being back in the U.S. for a few months. My friend Margarita ran up to greet me and excitedly told me “Grace, we did another savings group on our own, and it worked!” I too was excited to hear that, as the group had expressed considerable doubt the year before about their ability to run a savings group in my absence. Assuring them that they were capable was hardly convincing to them, but equipping them with the tools to execute a group on their own showed them a different, more persuasive reality about their giftedness and ability to use their God-given talents and the resources in their community to positively affect their situations.

Rewind to three years earlier when I started distance learning classes for the International Ministry track of the Chalmers Center, and I would have been more skeptical than those women first were, thinking that the materially poor would not be financially capable of saving, and even less able to organize and administer such a project on their own. To say that I was amazed by what I learned in my classes is an understatement: transformed, humbled, encouraged, and challenged only begin to describe what I felt from the material I learned in the courses and then observed in the Arévalo community.

I was first introduced to the Chalmers Center after working for a year in Peru. I knew I was interested in economic development and poverty alleviation, and a friend recommended that I take some Chalmers courses. I was eager to enroll, as I had done enough work with the poor to know I had a lot left to learn. I started the classes and began a life-transforming journey of understanding our call to love and minister to the poor in practical and helpful ways. Some of the incredible things I learned through the courses include truths such as the fact that the poor can and do save, but often lack safe places to save their money; that the poor should be integrally involved in the design and implementation of poverty alleviation strategies in which they are involved, i.e. development work should not be done TO or FOR poor people, but WITH them; that poverty stems from broken relationships, therefore the restoration of relationships through the Gospel must be central to all poverty alleviation strategies.

I completed the International Ministry track of classes while in the States, and returned to Peru to do projects and research related to a masters degree I was pursuing in Economic Development. I knew that I wanted to start a church-centered savings and credit group while in Peru, but I had no idea the amazing challenges and joys I would experience nor how I would see God’s hand at work in the Arévalo community through a savings group. After speaking extensively with the women in the Arévalo community to better understand their situations, we decided, along with the leadership of the church, that a straight savings group, i.e. one that did not make any loans, would be the best option to start with. As we began meeting to plan the group, the women decided that it would be most helpful to save for the beginning of the new school year that was about five months away. The costs associated with a new school year include uniforms, books, school supplies, and registration fees, and are substantial for a poor family with children. In fact, families often go into debt, sometimes to local loan sharks that charge extreme amounts of interest (300% is not unusual), or else their children go without the basics for weeks until the family can afford them. I can’t imagine sending a child to school for weeks without a pencil or notebook, but this is the reality that many poor people face.

We began the first group with twelve women. There was hesitance as to how the group would work. Who would keep the money? How much should they save? What if someone didn’t attend meetings? Thankfully, the Chalmers class Promoting Church-Centered Savings and Credit Associations covered these things, and the Chalmers Center’s manual walked us step-by-step through the stages and possible pitfalls of starting a group. The training also offered guidance in making sure the poor people played an integral part in designing and administering the group. Although this seemed difficult and inefficient at first, I realized it was key to the group becoming self-sustaining and to ministering the Gospel to them.

You might ask how a savings group could be an instrument of the Gospel to these people, and I admit that I wondered how it would work. After getting to know the people, I realized they felt helpless, hopeless, full of shame, and even worthless. They had seen and experienced that they could not do much to change their own situation as prior work had reinforced the idea that they were dependent on others, or even worse, that God had not gifted them sufficiently to be productive people that could support themselves through their own work. In the World Bank publication, Voices of the Poor, a poor person from Moldova is quoted as saying:

For a poor person everything is terrible—illness, humiliation, shame. We are cripples; we are afraid of everything; we depend on everyone. No one needs us. We are like garbage that everyone wants to get rid of.

Sadly, I saw this very thing expressed in the Arévalo community. Having the poor people actively participate in the savings group process from start to finish, then handing the group off to them showed them a different reality: that God had gifted them to work and produce on their own; that the resources to slowly change their situations were in their communities; that they weren’t worthless and helpless, but were worthy of dignity and respect as children of God.

After finishing the first cycle of the savings group, we held a celebration ceremony and invited the community for the women to share what they had done and to celebrate the Lord’s faithfulness to us. Some of the women spoke about the effect of the group. Reina, a single mother of three children commented, “I always thought I didn't have enough money to be able to save, but now I know that little by little, I can save for the future.” Maria, an active member in the Arévalo church and in her community said, “At first, we weren't sure how it would work, but now we have so much trust with each other and are very pleased with the program. We will continue saving in the future because it is a good habit to always have.” Graciela, a single mother supporting her children and father stated that the ceremony was the first time she had ever spoken to a group in public. She commented that she had always been timid and never thought she had anything worthwhile to share, but now felt she had something important to contribute to the community, and she wanted to encourage others that they too could save.

When I returned to the States, I wasn’t sure what would happen with the group, but I hoped they would take the knowledge and experience from the first savings cycle along with the training resources from the Chalmers Center and continue saving together. I was ecstatic when Margarita told me that they had continued to save on their own, for it was far more than the accumulation of money for future use; it was the Kingdom of God coming to bear on the lives of these women and their community as the effects of the curse began slowly to be removed. I can truthfully say that the training from the Chalmers Center equipped me with the knowledge and tools to minister the Gospel through a savings group, and by God’s grace, the Chalmers Center’s training continues to be an instrument of God’s redemption to poor people throughout the world.

Miss Grace Bateman is a Representative with the Chalmers Center for Economic Development. She has a B.A. in Social Work and Spanish from Mississippi College with additional Spanish language studies in Spain and Peru. She received an MS in International Community Economic Development with a specialization in Microenterprise Development from Southern New Hampshire University, as well as completing the International course work for the Chalmers Center certificate program. Grace's international experience includes several years working with Peru Mission in Trujillo, Peru, running a business that employs local women, organizing church-based savings groups, and teaching English.

For more information about the Chalmers Center, visit us at www.chalmers.org.

12/14/09