Workshop on Poverty Alleviation

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August 2010

Dear Chalmers Prayer Support Team,

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!

July marked the beginning of our new fiscal year. We rejoice in all that God—and God alone—enabled the Chalmers Center to do in the past year, including:

Reach millions of people through radio interviews concerning appropriate strategies of poverty alleviation.
Sell approximately 51,000 copies of the award-winning book: When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor…and Yourself.
Train 5,500 participants in workshops in the US, Rwanda, Kenya, Ghana, and Bolivia.
Provide deeper learning for 1,330 self-study course participants.
Equip 749 participants in online webinars.
Train 237 participants in week-long Christian Economic Development Institutes in Thailand and the Ivory Coast.
Translate 15 of our training courses into Ki-Swahili, KinyaRwanda, French, Spanish, Marishi, and Thai.
Continue work on 13 training tools, including a microenterprise development book, a financial literacy curricula for the U.S., and “microfinance with education” modules for use in animistic contexts around the world.
Complete the design of two, major strategic initiatives for West Africa and the U.S.

You have played a crucial role in all of this, faithfully presenting us before God's throne. Thank you for your partnership in the Gospel!

Sincerely in Christ,
Brian Fikkert
Executive Director

New and Ongoing Requests

Prayer Request	How God Is Answering
1. Please be in prayer for the people that were affected by the earthquake in Haiti. Pray that God will use this crisis to strengthen His church and to advance His kingdom. Please pray that God will give the Chalmers Center wisdom about our potential role in Haiti's rehabilitation and development.	We are having ongoing conversations with some organizations about ways to collaborate in Haiti.
2. Please continue to pray for Smita, a Chalmers staff member stationed in the Dominican Republic, and her husband, Johel, as they lost their newborn baby boy, Danny, in January.	The process of grieving and healing continues for Smita and Johel. Please pray that God will give them enormous strength and peace.
3. Please pray for the poor around the world. The global financial crisis will likely cause increased economic hardship and slower economic growth worldwide, putting the poor at greater economic risk.	This is an ongoing request, but there are some reports that the crisis has not impacted poor people worldwide as much as was initially feared.
4. Please pray that God would sanctify all of us here at the Chalmers Center so that our own sin would not prevent God from using us to extend His kingdom, to strengthen His church, and to glorify His name. Please do not read anything into this request. There are no scandals here. We are just very aware that we are sinners who need God to continue to shape and to mold us so that He can use us to accomplish His work.	As the Chalmers Center pursues some new strategic initiatives, change is in the air. Most people prefer stability to change, so please pray that God will help us to cast all our anxieties on Him.
5. Please pray for the Chalmers Center's Global Fellowship of Trainers (GFT). The GFT consists of people from around the world who are training or preparing to train using the Chalmers Center's materials. Please pray that God would help these people to master the content of the materials and to have opportunities to train churches to minister to low-income people around the world.	We continue to receive encouraging reports from GFT members and the number of GFT members is expanding. Read the bios of our GFT members.
6. Please pray that God will provide the funds that we need to continue His work.	This is an ongoing request. We received several major grants in the past six months. Praise God!! But we still have a long way to go towards acquiring the funds for the programs we are pursuing.
7. Please pray that God will bring us the right people for several staff positions we are trying to fill. Pray that God will give us the wisdom to select people with the right hearts, vision, and skills.	Praise God that He has enabled us to hire two excellent senior staff in the past month. Please pray that God will help us with several positions we still need to fill.
8. Please pray for Mark Bowers of the Chalmers Center as he works on a major project to integrate biblical worldview messages into technical curricula in the areas of small business training, household financial management, and health.	Please continue to pray for this project. We received a very encouraging report from the field testing of these curricula in Rwanda.
9. Please pray that God will use the book by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert—When Helping Hurts—to equip His church to minister more effectively to poor people.	We praise God for the very encouraging reports we have heard about how God is using this book to equip His church and to advance His kingdom.
10. Please pray for our new ASSET (Advancing Stewardship through Social Enterprise and Training) program. ASSET is an attempt to launch training businesses to achieve both wider and deeper equipping of grassroots churches in the Majority World.	This is an ongoing request. We have received some initial funding for this program, but we still need considerable additional funding. Please pray that God will provide all of the financial and human resources we need to launch this program.
11. Please ask God to help us with our new Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) program in North America.	This is an ongoing request. We have received a significant grant, but we still need to raise a lot more money. We are currently interviewing potential staff. Please pray that God will provide all of the financial and human resources we need to launch this program.
12. Please ask God to help Brian Fikkert and Russell Mask, Chalmers staff members, to complete a new book on church-centered microfinance and microenterprise development.	This is an ongoing request. We have made huge progress on this and hope to finish this book by the end of the fiscal year. We are currently in dialogue with a potential publisher.
13. Please pray for Elsie Corbett, the 10 year-old daughter of Steve Corbett, a staff member of the Chalmers Center. Elsie has had a number of facial reconstructive operations since birth. She has never had a left ear. On September 1st, Elsie will have the 4th surgery of a 7-stage surgical procedure to construct a left ear. Please pray that the operation is successful and conducted without any complications.	This is a new request.
14. Please pray for Sam Moore and Gregg Burgess who have just joined our staff respectively as Director of Training and Director of the ASSET Program. We are very excited with the addition of both of these men. Pray for them as they come up to speed in their challenging roles. Also pray for their families as they begin a new life in the Chattanooga area.	This is a new request.