Greetings from the Philippines

Greetings from the Philippines. It is March 6th and I have just arrived in Santiago City in the northern part of the island of Luzon about 7 hours drive from Manila. Tomorrow, we will be participating in a business skills training with about 60 of the local clergy, development workers and managers of credit cooperatives.

Earlier this week, I was privileged to be part of a joyous event with the Episcopal Church in the Philippines (ECP) and its worldwide partners to celebrate its financial autonomy from the Episcopal Church in the United States. For more than 110 years, it has relied on grants from the US church to pay for its operations. Almost 20 years ago a decision was made to eventually eliminate those subsidies.

The church leaders admitted that many in their pews thought the church would die without the outside support. Instead, it has flourished and in the last three years alone, it has grown at an amazing rate building the most number of churches, highest number of seminarians, etc.

It is a significant story and it is a remarkable achievement. So, how does this roadmap to autonomy relate to the Millennium Development Goals? One of the important aspects of the church’s self-sufficiency is tied to directly to their vision and implementation of community development projects. The outreach to the poor through 130 community projects nationwide including agricultural, irrigation, water, microcredit, advocacy and many other projects directly resulted in the growth of the church. The projects had the affect of empowering and mobilizing them to take collective actions for the improvement of their lives. This in turn resulted in more members coming to church and those members giving rising significantly.

The other part of the story of this road to autonomy is that partners came alongside to assist in these community development projects including organizations from the UK, Australia, Canada, US and even Sweden. Now that autonomy has arrived what happens to those partnerships? The relationships are in the midst of changing because the Episcopal Church in the Philippines has a different view of itself, a more confident view because of its financial independence. The partnerships are still welcome but the nature of the relationship has now changed and that is profound shift from what was once a “Mother-Daughter” situation to one of equal footing.

The lesson simply put is that by empowering the poor, the church itself becomes empowered.

Craig Cole is the executive director of Five Talents International, an Anglican microfinance nonprofit. He is also a member of the Diocese of Virginia's Mission Commission and an EGR board member.

What exactly is Five Talents?

Five Talents International is a nonprofit that was created in 1998 as a long-term response to the ravages of poverty that debilitate communities in developing countries. The founders, including Anglican Church leaders, talked about the plight of the poor and those dying of famine, AIDS/HIV and other diseases. They wanted not only to assist but also to guard the dignity of the poor, many of whom survive on $1 a day, by supporting them in small businesses.

Our name comes from the Parable of the Talents, recorded in Matthew 25 of the Bible. “Master,” he said, “You have entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.” His master replied. “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful in a few things; I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25:14-30)

Five Talents' mission is to fight poverty, create jobs and transform lives by empowering the poor in developing countries using innovative savings and microcredit programs, business training and spiritual development.

Five Talents gives people the opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty by providing access to basic savings and microcredit services built on their trusted community traditions. We provide biblically-based business training to help the poor start small businesses and begin to build their future. Five Talents supports indigenous institutions working in microenterprise development and work primarily through the following services and programs:

• Consulting services, training and education for savings and microcredit programs.
• Materials that promote Biblical business principles.
• Loan capital for the poor.

Today, Five Talents is headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C. We have offices in London and Kampala, Uganda, as well as an office in the southeast US that coordinates our Latin American program and curriculum development. We are supported by hundreds of volunteers across the US and the UK. Let us know if you'd like to support our mission!

Entering the World of Blogging

The idea of setting up a blog has been bouncing around the office for months now ... so, this morning I decided to make it a reality. Our hope is that this blog will allow us to more easily and readily share what Five Talents in doing around the world. I'll be using this forum to post photos and stories gathered from the field. I'll post personal reflections from staff, board members and volunteers who visit our programs. And, I'll let you know when and how you can be part of this mission to Fight Poverty, Create Jobs and Transform Lives across the globe.

Looking forward to sharing...

Kelli Ross
Five Talents, Director of Communications

The Desert

How many times have we felt like we were walking in a spiritual desert? Places in our lives where we felt our spiritual life was dry and parched. Times where we felt God had abandoned us, or maybe where we had abandoned God. Have we stopped trusting God? Jeremiah describes those who don’t trust God as ones who are living in the “wilderness, a land of salt without inhabitant.”

In working with the poor here in the US and overseas, I have seen those who are physically thirsty. I have seen the poor villagers who have to walk up to eight hours just to fetch their daily rations of water. For us, it’s a short walk from the couch to the kitchen sink or to the bottled water in the refrigerator. In our physical lives, we are never thirsty.

It sometimes seems we have to walk a long distance before we find God’s presence, again. Believe it or not, our wanderings through the stark wilderness are essential for our spiritual growth. The trials Jesus faced in the desert served to strengthen him for his three-year ministry. The trick for us is to recognize when we are going through a spiritual desert and to use it to grow closer to God, not to use it as an excuse to abandon him.

Lent is a time to realize our spiritual desires, which we repress through distraction, entertainment and the belief that life is going along fine. We have to understand we are spiritually poor while others in many places in the world suffer from a physical poverty that cries out for justice.

Our walk through the Lenten desert is one way to strengthen us for our work to serve the poor. It is difficult and emotionally draining to stare at the barren truth day after day. People die of malnutrition, from preventable diseases and other tragedies that go without notice.

For in reality, God never leaves us to die of spiritual thirst. It’s really only a short walk into the arms of God. A God who will fill our cups to overflowing if we allow him to. He doesn’t deliver tap water or sparkling water; he serves us life-giving water that quenches our parched lips. As Jeremiah writes, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the lord...for he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream.”

Craig Cole is the executive director of Five Talents International, an Anglican microfinance nonprofit. He is also a member of the Diocese of Virginia's Mission Commission and an EGR board member.

The Babies

When working with the poor, a layer of mental skin forms protecting your mind from the horrors of what it means to be poor. It’s like a callous that protects emotions from being rubbed raw. But, for me, there is one place that always pierces this mental armor.

The Missionaries of Charity run a home for abandoned children in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, and every time I visited there, I come away bleeding, and in pain because the callous has been torn off.

This is where I meet Jesus in a new profound way.

The little babies cry from their cribs, desperate for affection. There is just not enough staff to provide the necessary love and care. And, for many, the only world they may ever know is their crib. Some are so frail they can’t be picked up and held; yet they hold their arms out in longing expectation. And, behind their tears, I see the dull eyes of malnourishment. Others have tubes sticking out from their heads, their hands tied gently to the crib so they won’t pull them out.

This is where my tears flow. This is where I see poverty. I am supposed to be inoculated to this. I’m the observer, the journalist who is recording poverty for others to see. But, to step into this room is where my emotional barriers break down.

This is where I meet Jesus.

I stand in front of a crib and the infant struggles to stand up and holds her arms out to me. I’m told that if I hug her I might break her small bones. The infant is crying and I’m trying to hold back tears all the while thinking where is God, where is Jesus.

I look up and on the wall, overlooking these rows of babies, is a portrait of Jesus on the cross being kissed by a small child. The face of Jesus shows none of the pain of the cross, instead his face reveals a sadness intertwined with the warmth of comfort.

In return for his comfort, the child is trying to make Jesus better with a kiss. A kiss, not of betrayal, but of love. And Jesus is returning that love, though physically weakened by his ordeal.

The child is holding on tight not wanting to let Jesus go. But, Jesus does go, and we as his people are left behind to fill his physical void, to spread his love and warmth to the children of the world.

This is the place that makes me cry. This is where I meet myself and this is where I meet God. A collision of my will and His. There is no contest. I wither before His presence, and my soul is exposed.

This is the place where I meet Jesus.

Craig Cole is the executive director of Five Talents International, an Anglican microfinance nonprofit. He is also a member of Diocese of Virginia's Mission Commission and an EGR board member.