What can you buy for $45? A nice dinner out for the family, perhaps? Sports game tickets? What if for just $45 you could save someone from poverty? Caution: After reading this article, you may decide to skip the dinner out and use your $45 to change a widow’s life forever!
Goats for widows
In war-torn Rwanda, rebel soldiers raid villages, killing the men and leaving behind whole villages of widows and orphans. Sixty-two percent of Rwandans live below poverty level, surviving on less than 44 cents per day—mostly women and children suddenly left without a source of income. Poverty is greatest in rural areas.
Pastor Rich and Richelle Howard of Mobile Modular Ministry (TRI-M) have stepped into this needy country to train local pastors. “I’ll train thirty men, then they go back to their thirty churches and train their leadership teams with the same material,” says Rich of the program, which is based on a sequential three-to-four year cycle of theological curriculum.
As part of this ministry, TRI-M also partners with local pastors to meet the physical needs of people in impoverished countries. The Howards have partnered with African pastors to develop a program churches can use to sustain their widows.
“If I were to give money directly to the widows, I would not know how to do this safely,” says Rich, describing the relief-ministry part of his teaching program with African pastors. “I give this money to a local pastor in front of his fellow pastors so they know he has received the money and so they give him a measure of accountability.”
“I asked the pastors what would work in their churches, and they gave an interesting answer: Goats!”
A mere $45 will purchase a female goat for a widow. The doe will then become her primary source of income, allowing her to sell the goat’s kids. “Goat kids are an economic asset,” says Rich. “They can be sold in the market for other goods.”
The African pastors that Rich trains have one requirement for the church widows who receive a goat: give the first female kid to another needy widow in the village.
Rich has helped the African pastors to organize other relief efforts as well, building cottages to house widows, purchasing bean fields for widows to plant and harvest, and giving bales of clothing for widows to sell. All of these efforts cost money and rely upon the support of believers like you and me.
Why compassion ministries?
The Howards take James 1:27 seriously—understanding that to feed people spiritually, we must also feed them physically. God’s Word clearly demonstrates the importance of giving to those less fortunate than ourselves. This type of generosity is evidence of a true calling, faith, and the love of God.
True calling. “Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come” (1 Timothy 6:17–19).
Sometimes we do not feel “rich in this present age.” In reality, God has blessed each of us with far more than we need or deserve. America has been blessed with such prosperity and abundance that our concept of wealth has become limited to five-car garages and six-figure salaries. And yet, my “meager” paycheck is 200,000 times more than the average income of an individual in Africa. Have we become the very thing that Paul was warning Timothy not to be? Are we haughty and dependent on money rather than on God?
Faith. “If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:15–17). Our faith in God to provide gives us the courage and desire to give to those in need. We long to see Him answer our prayers, and we long to be used by Him to answer the prayers of the needy.
Paul praised the believers in Macedonia for giving generously to the saints when they themselves were experiencing poverty. How could they give when they had so little? Because they were growing in faith, which resulted in a desire to give.
God’s love. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:16–18, NIV). Giving demonstrates God’s love in a practical way, showing the recipients that God cares about their physical needs and that He will meet them. We are blessed to be the tools God uses to show His love to those around us.
What can I do?
Pray. Pray for the poor and homeless in Africa. Pray for African pastors, TRI-M, and other ministries that provide basic needs. Pray that these compassion ministries lead to salvation and church growth. Praying is the most powerful thing we can do, because nothing we can give can accomplish more than our God can. However, do not stop at prayer. Become part of the answer and take the next step.
Give. Forty-five dollars will provide a source of income for a widow in Africa. Six hundred dollars will purchase a cottage to shelter her and her family. Ten dollars will buy a Bible to feed her soul. In the United States, we spend $45 to have our nails done, $75 on a round of golf, or $100 for theater tickets. We can afford to put our money to better use. We can write a check to Evangelical Baptist Missions, indicating a specific designation (e.g., “Africa Compassion”), and mail it to EBM, PO Box 781438, Indianapolis, IN 46278. We can also give money online by going to EBM; click on Tri-M Ministries.
Go. The Howards saw a need and decided to do more than just pray or give money. Maybe you want to go and see God working in the lives of these women in Africa. What a tremendous privilege it is to see the faces of these women light up as they receive their goats.
Sidebar: Rich and Richelle Howard
The Howards are EBM missionaries who travel with TRI-M and train people for ministry. Having served as pastor and wife of Village Baptist Church, Aurora, Ill., from 1988 to 2009, the Howards watched God bless that church plant as it grew into an independent church with international ministry. In the past four years, they have taken several short-term missions trips to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to participate in TRI-M training modules. Their main ministry has been teaching the Word of God to people who do not have access to Bible training. God used these experiences to direct Rich and Richelle into full-time cross-cultural pastoral training.
Sidebar: Vestine’s Story
What happened to that bag of clothes you gave to your local donation center a few years back? If your clothes do not sell in an American second-hand store, who ends up wearing them? Perhaps some of your items were included in a bale of clothes that TRI-M provided to a Congolese widow.
Vestine, whose husband was murdered and her daughter raped, was struggling to save her six children from starvation when Rich and Richelle Howard arranged for a widow’s cottage and a bale of used clothing for her to sell from her cottage. As a result of this act of compassion, Vestine went from being homeless to having a shelter for her family, from being destitute to having a source of income, and from being hopeless to knowing the hope of salvation through Christ.
Karis Vogel is a graduate of Baptist Bible College, Clarks Summit, Pa., and a freelance writer.
