"Sunshine" Loan Miracles

Armenia is a sunny country lying east of Turkey and south of Georgia in the Caucasus Mountains. Its citizens know that the sun is vital for life-giving plants and animals to thrive. The word aregak means "sunshine" in Armenian. So when a new program was started to help Armenian women build agriculturally based businesses to support their families, aregak was a natural choice for its name. In Armenian, AREGAK is also an acronym for "Sustainable Agriculture Assistance for Women."

For the women and families that benefit from the AREGAK program, the results can be miraculous. The women move slowly and gradually from existence in a survival mode to a thriving life. Their miracle extends to include not just themselves and their families but the entire community.

AREGAK is a microcredit program for small groups of women. It works by providing small loans that are guaranteed by groups created for this purpose. Each five-member "Guarantee Group" is carefully self-selected since each member guarantees any AREGAK loans taken out by other group members. Before any loans are granted, each member is required to attend four training sessions to learn the program and its goals and objectives.

After 13 years, Ira Haykoran, the mother of two girls, needed a miracle. She was working 16-hour shifts in a bakery to support her family. School fees were a constant burden. After months without being paid her salary, Ira quit the work that was damaging her health to find another means of support. Friends offered her a large oven. Others promised a loan to help her start her own bakery. Ira got the oven, but her friends couldn't provide the start-up capital. So, for a time, Ira lost hope.

One day Ira saw an AREGAK advertisement and attended an introductory meeting. She convinced four friends to join her in forming a Guarantee Group called "Hope". After meeting AREGAK requirements, three group members got loans and started the bakery.

Today, the three produce over 15 loaves daily and average a $6 to $8 profit. Ira now earns more working a 6-hour day than she did when she worked a 16-hour day! With her second loan, she will expand her business, producing more bread and adding pastries. Ira now feels confident that her daughters can get the education they need. For them, it's the bread of life.

Planting seeds for additional or different crops, building greenhouses that allow longer growing seasons, learning to make cheese--all are ways in which miraculous transformations can happen for women and their families through the AREGAK program.

Noah's Ark Miracles

The biblical story of the flood, the ark, and the rainbow is miraculous. So it is not surprising that another program producing miracles in Armenia is named Noah's Ark. The Noah's Ark program is designed to work miracles in three ways. It will empower poor families to provide for their children. It will give young people skills training that will help them support themselves as adults. And it will help institutions that care for homeless children develop well-run farms to grow their own food.

Armenia's gross domestic product per person is only $2750, compared with $30,200 in the United States. The country's official unemployment rate is around 11 percent, but some analysts estimate the actual rate at 20 to 40 percent. In most cases, adults who have work are not paid full wages regularly. Thus many parents find themselves unable to provide for their children. When they are beyond hope, they place their children in orphanages, believing that life in the institution is better than what the parent can provide.

The Noah's Ark program has features that were pioneered by Heifer Project International. It provides a mother with one or more start-up resources--typically, a cow, a flock of chickens, or some berry bushes. With care, time, and nurture, the initial gift can provide income to support the family. Later, each beneficiary becomes a donor when she "passes on the gift" of the animal's first offspring or the crop's first seeds. The miracle of keeping a family together in difficult times cannot be measured.

For children who go to an orphanage because their parents are impoverished, the possibility that they will gain the skills and abilities needed to support themselves in adulthood is small indeed. Noah's Ark provides vocational-training opportunities for these children. Each vocational-training program is centered not in the orphanage but in a school nearby. There, children are provided animals or crops to care for. The profits from their work belong to them, so they have resources with which to begin a business when they graduate. These children also "pass on the gift," ensuring the continuation of the program. The dream of a self-sufficient future for them--which was undreamable before--is now a miracle on the cusp of realization.

The third aspect of Noah's Ark is a goal for the future. When the first two aspects of the program are well-established and successful, the program will broaden its scope, helping orphanages to develop well-run farms that can provide healthful food for the children who remain there.

Miracles of Alchemy

Alchemy--the transforming of base metals into gold--was the dream of many inventors and philosophers in the Middle Ages. Now one form of alchemy may have finally been achieved in Armenia. There, the church has succeeded in transforming ordinary commodities into Christ's mission!

In cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), UMCOR receives excess commodities that have been purchased from US farmers and then sells these commodities in Armenia. Of course, this happens after careful research has been done and assessments made. UMCOR uses the funds generated by the sale of commodities to implement projects in Armenia that the USDA has, in turn, approved. This kind of modern-day alchemy is called monetization. And this alchemy happens in many other areas of the world as well.

Monetization creates a win-win situation. Without disrupting the local market, the USDA introduces American commodities into countries where a food deficit exists. This, in turn, creates new jobs in countries where the unemployment rate may be as high as 80 percent. US taxpayers benefit from having foreign-aid dollars administered by both a highly accountable and an ethically responsible organization, UMCOR. US farmers benefit from new and expanding markets. And war-torn countries or countries where the economy has collapsed benefit through UMCOR's use of the funds to provide essential programs for relief and development.

All of this good is accomplished in the name of The United Methodist Church! It is accomplished by UMCOR, working in cooperation with public and private partners: a government agency, the USDA; Rotary Clubs in Armenia and the United States; UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund; a church-related development agency in Germany. Each of these partnerships is a miracle through which God's love is shared in new and creative ways.

God's Miracles Continue

Miracles like these have been taking place in Armenia since 1996. Their value exceeds $7 million when measured in dollars but is incalculably greater when measured in lives. And all these miracles have been made possible by programs designed by UMCOR and implemented in the name of The United Methodist Church.

The story doesn't stop there. Miracles comparable to those wrought by UMCOR's programs in Armenia are also taking place in Bosnia, Kosovo, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

The greatest miracle is the fact that God first loved us. As we experience that love and share that love with others, God's miracles continue. Miracles happen.

See also: UMCOR's Noah's Ark Program in Armenia, Bulletin Insert