The Profit of Relationships

Greetings from Guatemala! LIFT has been busy working hard with Students International in all the different ministry sites, but today I have the privilege of letting you know what’s going on in the microfinance ministry.

            First off, microfinance is not what I expected. I was envisioning either helping people with their businesses, or maybe crunching numbers in an office, but we get to do something even better. Our leader, Gerber, takes us around to the different villages surrounding Magdalena, either San Miguel, El Gorrion, El Tablon, or Buena Vista, where we pray for the different people, who have taken out loans and are starting small business to sustain their families, and listen to their stories. The first couple days, I was pretty uncomfortable with the visits since my Spanish isn’t very good, but then I realized that we don’t really need to say a whole lot in order to do good here. Simply being there and listening to them share their stories empowers them and shows them that they are cared for by someone.

            Now for one of the stories: In Guatemalan culture, the girls get married off very young. One of the people we are assisting in microfinance is an 18 year-old girl out in El Tablon named Maybelina. She refused to get married when she was fifteen because she wanted to be able to finish her education before starting a family. Unfortunately, her parents don’t see it that way and will no longer talk to her, and she needs a way to support herself on her own. The microfinance department gave her a loan so that she can open a shop and eventually save enough money to finish her degree in psychology. Maybelina dreams of one day being able to move to Guatemala City and start a therapy center for kids, and also start a family.

            And there are many more people like this, some with pretty incredibly hurtful stories, and it is our mission in microfinance to listen to their stories, enable and support them, and pray for them.

Santiago (aka Noah James Bischoff)