July, 2001

The foundation for a healthy society are healthy marriages.  Sandy and I spend many hours counseling with couples, helping them to resolve problems and strengthen  their marriages.  Right now we are in the midst of meeting every Wednesday night with 6 other couples (see photo above) for 16 weeks discovering together the keys to having successful marriages.  It is a fun group to work with as they are all open to participating in the discussions and doing the homework that we assign them.  But, of course, the enemy is always busy trying to disrupt things, so pray that each couple will make these meetings a priority, even when it means making personal sacrifices.

One of the areas that we deal with in our marriage classes is finances.  All of these couples live in the settlement area that we have been ministering in for the past three years and are constantly struggling to make ends meet.  Life is difficult for poor people in third world countries and it creates a tremendous amount of stress in their marriages.  Sandy and I have seen this and have longed to find ways to help them escape from their poverty.  This year the Lord has given us some insight into how that can happen through a ministry called GRUSODE.  It was started last year by Lidia Gómez, a member of our church, for the purpose of helping the poor through small, unsecured business loans.  The loans begin at about $135.00, enough for a someone to start selling fruit drinks on a street corner or pots and pans door to door.

In March, I invited Lidia to present her program to a group of needy people that we work with in the Mezquital settlement area.  It takes a minimum of 15 people to form a loan group and after two more meetings we had 21 people signed up.  That allowed us to eventually form two separate groups, composed mainly of unchurched people.

I work closely with the GRUSODE field supervisor, Gerónimo Sarti, visiting the people in the program.  He provides the technical assistance (simple accounting principles, marketing strategies, etc.) and I provide pastoral care.  It is a natural extension of the pastoral work that I normally do (three of the couples from the loan program are involved in our marriage classes) and opens doors for ministering to spiritual needs in an integral way.

This loan program has me very enthused about its potential for producing significant changes in the burdensome poverty that afflicts the people we work with.  However, anytime there is money involved, there is potential for problems, so we must be cautious and wise.  Your prayers are very much appreciated for our involvement in this new ministry.

Thank you and God bless,