Soul enterprise

What’s a Christian business?

What does it look like when we run our business in a Christian manner?

Keith Knight has some ideas. He is executive director of the Ontario-based Canadian Christian Business Federation, which has 15 chapters across Canada. (The CCBF, which has Christian Reformed roots, has a historic connection with MEDA. When its founders were developing the organization they attended a MEDA convention to get ideas, and for a number of years sent copies of The Marketplace to their members.)

In an article in The Light Magazine (published in British Columbia) Knight offers answers to the opening question: • We work to ensure the wise use of resources and produce goods and services with respect and care for creation. • We encourage a business structure that allows for responsible Christian activities. • We promote harmonious labor relations and meaningful work experiences for our employees. • We treat employees fairly, providing a fair wage and being sensitive to their personal and family needs. • As employees, we respect and honour our bosses, put in a fair day’s work for a fair wage, call in sick only when we are actually sick, and represent our company to customers with integrity and honesty.

Make someone happy

“I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.” — Film critic Roger Ebert in Life Itself: A Memoir

Glimpses of faith on the job

What do young people think about exercising faith on the job? Canadian Mennonite magazine recently gave a sample:

Tony Kasdorf, 26, project manager of his father’s printing business in Winnipeg, tries to bring a good work ethic to his shop by being innovative, respectful and honest with the people he deals with. “I make every effort to follow through with my promises,” he says. “We try to create a stable environment at our shop,” he adds. “The main focus for us is that people come to work and we’re treating them equally, we’re treating them respectfully. If there are errors being made, it’s dealt with with constructive criticism, rather than putting them down.” For Saskatoon residential designer Dustin Bueckert, 28, faith is “something I want to keep in the forefront of my mind while I’m working.... [It’s] rattling around in my brain all the time — finding a way to incorporate all the values of my life and incorporate that with working with clients.... I work hard for all of them and try to just emanate the Spirit of Christ.”

Tim Dyck, 27, an assistant at the Mennonite Heritage Gallery in Winnipeg, says striving to do his best is one ingredient of living out his faith on the job. “As a Mennonite ... there’s this dedication to hard work and doing good work,” he says, “and I feel that there’s a history of doing what you do well and being a good example at it.”

Out of the oven

Here’s one of our old recipes that’s worth repeating. It came to us originally from John W. Eby, former MEDA board member, in whose debt we remain. He likened faith-work integration to baking.

1. Icing the cake

The most basic level, superficial piety, is like putting frosting on a cake: you add a layer of sweetness, but you don’t change the substance. Beneath it all you still have the same cake. Icing is good as a sweetener and a cover-up. But as a transforming spiritual principle it falls short.

2. Chocolate chips

A next level of integration is like chocolate chips in a cookie. They float freely within the dough — part of the cookie, yet distinctly separate and isolated. As wonderful as they are, chocolate chip cookies do not exhaust the spiritual dimensions of being Christians in the workplace.

3. The leaven of yeast

A third level is like the yeast in bread: it permeates the dough and actually transforms its behavior, kind of like a completely converted world view. Yeast is linked with fermentation. In order to ferment you have to die a little. In fact, it’s in the dying that the live-giving properties are released.

Thanks for this crummy job

Iremember when I bounded out of bed, ready to seize the day.

Back then, work was a joy. My coworkers banded together as we found new solutions to fix problems. My chain of command was empowering. My duties were challenging and fresh, engaging my mind and abilities.

That was yesterday.

These days, the workplace has a sense of gloom. The economy hasn’t treated my company well. When I enter my building, it seems as if half the lights are dimmed, probably to save electricity. It doesn’t help the atmosphere.

Many coworkers have left through early retirement or downsizing. Those who remain have the duties of two or three, with no other resources to call on.

All the managers are stressed, trying to keep the fiscal boat afloat while still delivering a valuable product.

I’m not alone. Many friends have gone from the rolls of short-term unemployed to long-term. Others are underemployed, finding work as temps or part-time workers, benefits trimmed or stripped outright.

And those that are still working have to do way more with way less.

Rather than let my employment challenges drag me down, I’ve decided to take back the workplace for God’s glory, and I’m doing it through an attitude of gratitude.

First, I’m thankful I even have a job. When I think of friends stuck in pervasive unemployment, my complaints just feel wrong.

I’m thankful for the challenge, and even the frustrations.

I’m thankful for the out-of-control schedule, the 117 unopened e-mail messages and the drop-everything-projects. I think there’s some patience to be gained in all this. I’m thankful for my coworkers, and I often pray, “Lord, bless them in the stress.” We’re in this together, and using a calm voice of reason might just work wonders. I’m thankful for every penny my employer sends my way. I haven’t always earned it. In every way, I’m grateful for this crummy job. — David Rupert, Faith in the Workplace newsletter

Overheard:

“Nothing has a stronger influence on children as the unlived lives of their parents.” — Carl Jung

Ethiopia — The growing EDGE(T)

Target: help 8,000 rice farmers and 2,000 weavers boost income by 50 percent

by Wally Kroeker

We’re sitting on a mud bench in Asrese Lemma’s stick-and-wattle hut, a short walk from her three-quarter-acre rice field in Ethiopia’s Amhara district. She’s talking proudly about rice — how she began growing it and the skills she has already mastered.

She reaches to a wooden post holding up the thatch roof and yanks a plastic card from a peg. It’s a laminated factsheet with agronomic instructions for a new brand of rice. It lists seed and fertilizer rates, planting methods, crop rotation, weeding techniques and environmental protection considerations.

“She can’t read it but her kids can,” a MEDA project officer tells us. “This is her version of a flash drive.”

Asrese speaks glowingly of her new rice variety, which grows in three months instead of the usual six.

As a woman she is unusual among mostly-male Ethiopian farmers. “I wanted to be an example to other women,” she tells us in her native Amharic. She is eager to experiment, like seeding in rows rather than the old broadcasting method.

Asrese, 52, has become a poster-farmer for MEDA’s new project (more about her in the adjoining sidebar). Her entrepreneurial innovation is just what MEDA wants to encourage to boost incomes among rice farmers. The project, begun less than a year ago, aims to help 10,000 rural Ethiopians — 8,000 rice farmers and 2,000 traditional weavers — to increase their incomes by 50 percent through value chain improvements and increased financial literacy. The $12 million, five-year project is funded primarily by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). It goes by the name EDGET, which in the Amharic language means “growth” but in the acronym-fond development industry stands for Ethiopians Driving Growth through Entrepreneurship and Trade.

From the air, the western half of Ethiopia is a checkerboard of agricultural bounty. Thousands of tiny fields crowd against each other in an endless patchwork. From

Hired day laborers harvest the new rice crop using hand scythes. The cut stalks will be bundled and threshed later.

the road we see the crops closer up — chickpeas, rice, sorghum, barley and wheat, and tiny plots of cabbage and potatoes.

Some 85 percent of the population is involved in subsistence farming, mostly on farms of an acre or two. We see crops on small spits of land, some the size of a living room rug. The land is all government-owned, but farmers can till the soil under a tenure system.

In the hills to the north, around Lalibela, and in the south, around Chencha, roads teem with people, mostly women, bearing staggering bundles of firewood, massive swatches of forage grass for cattle, or shafts of sugar

cane perched on their shoulders like vaulting poles.

Is there unemployment here? “None,” says Admassu Dano, MEDA driver and security manager. “Everybody works. Everybody does something.” If people aren’t out working for pay they are gathering twigs or tending backyard gardens or goats. For the poor there is always something to do.

Point to a roadside field of teff and you invite a lecture on injera, the spongy, sour-ish flatbread that is part of every meal, either as a base for sauces or to tear off and pinch up morsels of meat or lentils. Traditionally the staple is made from teff, a delicate and sometimes pricey grass crop, the kind preferred by purists. But it can go farther when blended with barley, or more recently rice.

Rice is relatively new in Ethiopia, going back only about 20 years. More Ethiopians have begun to consume it, but mostly as low-quality grain, and ground as a lowprice flour to be added into the injera. MEDA wants to change that by enhancing the quality. Certain cultural preferences will need to be overcome as the project tweaks the links in the value chain so farmers get more return on rice. Other challenges may have longer roots, like the “trust gap” noted by project manager Loren Hostetter. “Many small businesses are inhibited by a lack of trust,” he says. “Openness is not a common trait here. There’s a lot of resistance to change.” Entrepreneurship is not deeply ingrained in the socialist culture. But, says Hostetter, “the rice farmers are somewhat more entrepreneurial. We will attract those who can take risks.”

A new rice variety matures earlier and produces a hardier kernel that doesn’t break as easily.

Wherever possible MEDA works with lo-

cal partners who have visibility and connections. In this case, the partner is SOS Sahel, which has experience with

farmers and in working with a value chain strategy. Such alliances give life to MEDA’s vision and mission long after MEDA has left.

MEDA’s value chain approach has implications for every step of the production process, from initial seed to post-harvest marketing. The first step at the start of last year’s planting season was to offer farmers a new strain of rice using a voucher discount. Previously, farmers simply kept back a portion of each harvest to plant next year. But the genetics had grown tired and were hampering productivity. The new variety, called Nerica-4, resists stresses such as moisture shortage, matures earlier and is more environmentally friendly and adaptable to changing climatic factors.

The project employs the same “lead farmer” strategy that MEDA has used effectively in other countries. Farmers selected for their skill and leadership ability are given five days of training which they then impart to small groups of four to six “follower farmers” in weekly meetings.

Lead farmers Abohye Sendeke and Tarkgne Adugna, both of whom farm a couple of acres, say they found the training helpful even though they are not newcomers to the business.

“We got good practical training on how to prepare the land and how to choose improved seed for the soil,” says Adugna.

With encouragement they took the risk of planting in rows for better weed control than the traditional broadcast method.

Having just harvested their first new crop they don’t yet know the final results, but already “I can see that it is good,” says Sendeke.

They like the new early-maturing variety introduced by EDGET.

“Let me try”

Asrese Lemma did not apply to be part of MEDA’s new project, she insisted. She did not qualify, as she had not been farming her own land. But she was not to be deterred. “Let me try,” she said. We eventually relented and let her participate.

She received three days of training on rice agronomy, learning to use improved seed varieties, raise seedlings and transplant from nursery beds. A voucher scheme helped her to buy 25 kilos of new seed, enough to plant three-fourths of an acre. She had been taught the importance of keeping fields clean, so she used the per diem she earned during the training to pay for extra labor for weeding.

Asrese, 52 with five children, does not have oxen nor resources to buy New farmer Asrese Lemma: Proud to be a model for others inputs. She has always rented out her land on a 50-50 about poor germination and blamed it on the new crop-sharing arrangement. But that was not enough seed, Asrese realized good results because she had to feed her family so when MEDA’s project opened she planted deeper than the typical broadcasting method. was inspired to try to farm herself for the first time. Her While it’s still too early to determine her income, friends and neighbors tried to discourage her by saying she was empowered to take control of her own producit was too big a risk, especially with the new agronomic tion. The training gave her confidence that she could practice of planting in rows. What if she failed? manage the farm with improved practices and probably

Still, she pressed on. As it turned out, moisture was earn a livelihood. low. She worried that the densities were not very close, Currently she’s happy with the performance of the and at one point thought she’d just get a 25 percent crop and delighted that she has tried row planting while harvest. But over time she saw that these spacings al- most of the other male farmers still broadcast. lowed the seedlings to send out strong tillers, and she Asrese was recently named one of the top 10 farmwas delighted to see more than 40 to 50 tillers coming ers in the area. She’s proud to be a model farmer. out of each seedling. When other farmers complained — Loren Hostetter

“It is ready quickly,” says Sendeke, adding that it has a stronger kernel that doesn’t break as easily. When they take it in for processing they net out 85 percent, compared to 70 percent for traditional rice, so wastage is halved.

So far 700 farmers (a growing minority of them women) have been recruited in two regions. In five years they want to have 8,000 farmers.

“At this point we are ahead of targets,” says Dr. Belay Demissie, EDGET’s value chain manager.

It’s late November and

the rice harvest is getting underway. Many farmers hire day laborers to cut the rice. It’s tough work, hunching over the short stalks with a hand scythe and laying the bunches out on the field. The harvesters are paid the equivalent of $2.35 a day plus lunch. Later the cut rice will be threshed. Many farmers still use oxen, if they have them — spreading the bundles of stalks on the ground to be tread underfoot by the animals working in a tight circle. EDGET is trying to encourage hand threshing, which is less damaging.

Then the kernels are scooped into bags and hauled to the village processor who, for a fee, puts it all into a dehusking machine to separate the rice from its bran. The farmers take what’s left (often as little as 70 percent of what they brought in) and consume it as food, sell it at market, or store it for future use.

Storage technology is as much in need of a makeover as growing and harvesting. Rice is often stored in unprotected bags where it is vulnerable to vermin and swings in temperature and humidity. If it gets too dry it cracks, reducing its market value. But EDGET is exploring simple alternatives to preserve germination and extend lifespan. One is an airtight “Grainsafe” cocoon, a portable fabric container that holds up to a metric ton.

Many processors use archaic equipment that causes much breakage of kernels.

Meron Abebe is the

project’s monitoring and evaluation assistant. Though young and female, she relates well to the mostly-male farming crowd. “I just love farmers,” she says. “They’re so open, they speak directly; they say what they mean. It’s easy to communicate with them.”

She invites us to join a focus-group meeting with a dozen farmers. It’s informal — sitting on the ground under a canopy of acacia trees. She poses questions to gauge progress: How did they sell their rice last year? What other varieties do they grow? How did the new seed compare with past years?

She learns that the farmers are not using pesticides for rice, only for other crops like chickpeas and roughpeas. They report that their last crop failure was three years ago, when rain was especially light.

Abebe mentions crop insurance. None of them have it or know about it. But they like the idea and encourage

Meron Abebe leads a focus group discussion to gauge farmers’ progress.

A new portable rice storage container gets a test.

EDGET to see what is possible. She also asks about their use of credit, and whether they have sufficient access to village-level savings capability. Some are using credit from another organization but they are not pleased with the interest rates or the repayment schedules. They nod as she explains the importance of savings. They know that if they have a crop failure they have nothing to fall back on.

Has EDGET been good for them? They agree when one farmer says, “Right from the first things we have seen, we like EDGET.” They are most happy for their training, and they really like the new seed.

Emotions rise when discussing some proces-

sors who not only charge a fee for dehusking farmers’ “I just love rice but also get to keep the bran and re-sell it for other farmers. They uses. Outdated and poorly maintained equipment causes excess breakage, meaning speak directly; more tailings for the processor and less money for farmers. they say what “We give them 100 pounds and they give us back they mean.” 65,” complains one farmer. “Sometimes they break the rice on purpose so they can take more bran.”

Some processors, meanwhile, are irked by the new seed variety, which has a sturdier kernel and produces less bran. “The processors tell us to go back to the old variety,” says one farmer. “They don’t like it that the new variety only gives 15% bran.”

Such friction is nothing new to agriculture, whatever the country. EDGET is seizing the opportunity to transform predatory relationships in the value chain and bring about mutually beneficial collaboration. It wants to arrange regular quarterly meetings with farmers and processors to help them understand each other and see the value of working more closely together. “The goal is to build trust, a critical value chain principle,” says Endy Yaregal, EDGET value chain specialist. “There is no one else around to help heal the relationship between farmers and processors.”

Considerable progress has already been

made in straightening bends in the value chain. EDGET looked at nearly 30 processors in the project’s target areas and identified those who were willing to upgrade. It researched sources in nearby countries and put together a manual detailing a variety of affordable mills, husk shellers, separators, polishers and whiteners. None of that equipment was readily available before.

“MEDA is bringing together the knowledge base,” says Loren Hostetter. “This manual is the best available in the country.”

Another step is to devise buy/lease financing options, and several processors are signing on.

EDGET arranged links between traders and processors with supermarkets for early market feedback. A database of rice trading enterprises was developed. EDGET facilitated participation in two trade fairs which inspired processors to recognize new market opportunities for better rice. A major supermarket agreed to display samples of graded Ethiopian rice and provide consumer feedback.

The project includes a strong component of working with the government to encourage industry-wide improvements. “The government is saying they like our approach,” says Yaregal. “It’s very inclusive — from input supplier to customer. They say, ‘Why not extend it to other crops, like tomatoes and potatoes?’”

Who knows where it could lead. But for now a smaller target is in sight — a big boost in income for 8,000 farmers and 2,000 weavers. ◆

Team spirit starts with lunch

“We have a good team spirit here,” says Yabetse Assefa, the financial and administrative manager of MEDA’s office in Addis Ababa.

Part of the reason may be the daily lunch, which staff share together. An on-site cook provides an authentic Ethiopian meal of injera at a modest price. Staff say it is the best to be had in Addis Ababa.

Many of the employees (17 plus three interns) have advanced educational degrees and deep previous experience. There is good gender and religious balance, with roughly equal numbers of male and female.

Yabetse says a new website is being developed so interested people can keep in touch with EDGET’s progress (address to be announced soon). ◆

Tapestry of hope

Adrive through southwestern Ethiopia reveals an entire value chain at work. First, there’s the cotton plants along the road, their bolls bursting like popcorn. In the villages you can find women spinning the fibres into yarn. And the next town may have someone who bleaches the yarn pure white so it will better accept dye.

High in the hills, in places like Dorze and Chencha, weavers (mostly male) are busy, some at outdoor looms, others working together in groups. Their output is a feast of tribal color. But when you stop at a roadside market and pay $3 for a stunning scarf that took days to produce, something obviously is very wrong. Many weavers, despite their hard work, are losing money and falling further behind.

From raw cotton in the fields to finely woven garments in a trendy store, the hand-woven textile value chain is ripe for improvement. EDGET wants to help the weavers get more return for their effort. Working with local partners, it aims to improve the income of 2,000 weavers in the Chencha region in the south, Bahir Dar in the north, and the capital, Addis Ababa.

One way to do this is to create a bigger market by linking weavers with high-end markets, says Rebeka Amha, monitoring and evaluation manager. Other interventions include improving the supply of inputs and cutting out trade inefficiencies.

“We are doing baseline studies to establish what their average income is now,” she says. “Then we want to help them increase that by 50 percent or more.”

Like poor people everywhere, weavers want to use their additional income to improve their houses, pay for

“Cluster leaders” keep in touch with the market and teach weavers to upgrade accordingly.

schooling and, as one says, “liberate our children.” EDGET instituted dialogue between weavers, intermediaries and highend market buyers in order to identify areas of collaboration and start building mutually beneficial business relationships. Lead weavers from Chencha attended a threeday session on modern design, work discipline and market-oriented production. As a result, weavers developed a format to register and communicate their wares in a more professional manner. They also worked at proper pricing mechanisms and better promotion.

The Besa Hyzo Cooperative in Dorze, which comprises 48 weavers, made a cultural shift by expanding their looms in response to designers who said the market wanted a wider product. For generations weavers had produced fabrics that were 80 centimetres wide (about 32 inches) but that’s not big enough for someone making a dress. Consequently weavers enlarged their looms to produce fabric that was a full metre wide (39 inches).

“It may not sound like a big deal, but someone fashioning a garment wants a wider fabric,” says a leader of the group. “The shift to one metre was not a technical problem, we just had to go ahead and do it.”

A number of designers agreed to test subcontracting

Dyers display natural dyes, some made from flower petals held by the woman at left. Right: a roadside textile market.

directly to groups of weavers, a shift from their former practice of dealing primarily with traders.

“Cluster leaders” (like lead farmers for rice) now keep in touch with the market on an ongoing basis and interpret the latest needs to the weavers in their group. When new orders come from the designers, weavers are taught to upgrade accordingly.

Connecting with designers also led to a grow-

Weaving a future

ing “green” orientation. One expert advised that the high-end market had a lot of interest in natural, organic dyes, and that moving in this direction could provide a competitive advantage. The Nigat Hirpo dye cluster, down the road Belete Charga may not be typical, but he’s a shining example of an established weaver who is trying to bring about changes in the impoverished weaving community. He began weaving at the age of six and was sent to Addis Ababa to serve as an apprentice. He lived and worked there as a weaver for 28 years before returning to the town of Dorze five years ago with his wife and three young daughters. Weaving remains his sole source of income. When MEDA started its project he signed on and took training on innovative weaving designs from a designer. His knowledge and confidence grew, and the exposure to the high-end textile market and its product demands helped Belete understand the importance of good business relationships. He cites the necessity of trust, honesty and genuineness between those working together within a value chain — “without these, the relationship and the business will not be successful,” he says. He also acknowledges the importance of quality textiles and timely delivery of orders. Belete established the Besa Hyzo Cooperative with the assistance of MEDA’s key facilitating partner, and now shares his skills and insights with the 47 other weavers in the group. from Besa Hyzo Coop, employs 17 weavers (including three women) who now produce various shades of natural dye: black (using charcoal), green (using a local type of tree moss), and yellow (using petals from the meskal flower). Notably, this group is composed of younger people who are eager to try new things. Plans call for increasing collaboration with a designer consortium that is trying to develop a distinctive Africa brand of green products to compete with other countries. In Addis Ababa, meanwhile, a visit to a high-end craft shop frequented by tourists and affluent Ethiopians gives a glimpse of the future. The shop caters to a burgeoning market that is hungry for quality indigenous crafts that can compete with Asian production. It has its own network of weavers, but not enough to satisfy a growing market. “We have 400 weavers now, but in three months we will have 1,000,” says the proprietor. “We cannot keep up with the demand.” ◆ “Belete has local respect and the ingenuity to motivate the formation of effective business relationships between the weavers in Chencha and the highend buyers,” says Loren Hostetter. “With new skills and linkages to the enhanced market, Belete can hope for a future for his children and they can attend school and not have to begin weaving at the early age of six as he did.”

Belete Charga: New emphasis on quality, timely delivery.

Fiona MacKenzie photo

A young Besa Hyzo weaver plies a trade that has been in his family for generations.

MEDA’s special blend: Enduring Values, Lasting Impact

Annual convention hits new attendance record

For a MEDA convention, it was global presence in a new key: the lively fragrance of coffee. Robust and bracing, it danced down the convention halls like mood-altering aromatherapy.

At one end was roasting maven Alex Escobar, a former MEDA staffer who now runs Cervantes Coffee. At the other, the coffee stylings of upstart entrepreneur Sara Kauffman (see sidebar) who treated the convention to a custom blend of beans from two “MEDA countries,” Tanzania and Nicaragua.

Organizers of MEDA’s annual Business as a Calling convention hoped to set a new attendance record when they met in Lancaster, Pa., Nov. 3 to 6. The bar was high, as the previous record of 697 was set two decades earlier in — where else — Lancaster. When all heads were count- ed, the 2011 attendance reached 707.

The convention, MEDA’s most visible annual event, is a time to showcase the organization’s progress over the previous year as well as to undergird its faith premise. This year it tied the two together under the theme Enduring Values: Lasting Impact.

President Allan Sauder happily noted two indicators from the past year: MEDA’s budget grew 42 percent and its reach extended to 60 countries (up from 50).

Treasurer Tom Bishop reported that growth in grants and contracts had increased substantially despite continued market volatility and low consumer confidence worldwide. These positive results were “due to the organization’s enduring values that result in lasting impacts.”

Keynote speakers addressed the kinds of values that produce impact.

For Tom Wolf, CEO of the Wolf Organization of York, Pa., a building materials company, ongoing attention to the “moral universe” was pivotal to enduring from its founding in 1843 through six generations of family ownership. He tracked its progress from the days of his greatgreat-great grandfather to its current role as a provider of kitchen cabinets and exterior products in 18 states along the east coast of the U.S. “We benefited from each of those generations,” he said, noting that it was the “guts and integrity” of each succeeding generation that enabled his company to endure.

Treating employees well was another lasting value, he said, seen in the company’s policy of sharing 20 to 30 percent of its profit with them.

Reconciling values with “messy business” wasn’t always easy, he conceded. “I haven’t personally learned how to turn the other cheek when someone doesn’t pay what they owe,” he said, nor had he managed to square the Sermon on the Mount with the occasional need for layoffs. In the long run, however, constantly trying to reconcile moral tensions “makes entrepreneurs better people.”

Former MEDA staffer and board member Joyce Bontrager Lehman traced her own pilgrimage from an Amish community in Iowa to development work with MEDA in Afghanistan, and more recently to the staff of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (excerpt on page 17). She stressed that the positive values of the microfinance movement need to be expanded more broadly for greater impact on the world’s poor.

Many people who are helped to climb out of poverty end up falling back in, she said, indicating a need for protective mechanisms. “We encourage organizations and governments to think more broadly about the full range of formal financial services — savings, insurance, payment systems, money transfers — needed by the poor and more cost-effective ways to reach the poor with these services where they live.”

Technology-enabled financial services available to the poor at their doorstep was a relatively new concept, she said, “but one that we believe will make a huge difference for hundreds of millions of the global poor over the next decade.”

Kim Tan, head of SpringHill Management Ltd., a British venture capital fund management firm, painted a lively picture of how faith-infused business can alleviate social blights like human trafficking and HIV/AIDS. He reported

how enterprises he has been involved with have created jobs, promoted education and healed environmental degradation in Africa.

Tan cited the impact of introducing low-cost cookstoves to African villagers, many of whom spend 20 to 30 percent of their income on wood or charcoal. Traditional woodfire cooking not only created fire hazards, respiratory ailments and environmental damage, but also enabled the unseen horror of rape as young girls venture far afield to gather scarce firewood.

Numerous seminars provided insights into how firms attempt to live out a higher calling. Herr Foods president

For Don Horning, a daily ritual is a visit to his favorite coffee shop, the New Holland Coffee Company.

“I’ve become a coffee snob,” he jokes. “I’m doing Sumatra right now.”

To owner Sara Kauffman, the retired auto dealer is almost like family. “I know his grandchildren,” she says.

Serving up a daily cup of joe is something she’s always wanted to do. As a child, she liked to “play” restaurant, complete with menus. In high school, it became her dream. Now, she enjoys the real thing so much it still seems like play.

Shortly after graduating from college with a business degree she started working for the company she now owns, located in a strip mall in New Holland, Pa. “I told the owner when I interviewed that I wanted to get experience in the coffee shop industry to see if it was the direction I wanted to go. A few months later he asked if I wanted to buy it.”

So, at the age of 22, she did. That was three years ago. She hopes to pay it off in 10 years.

The company makes its own pastries, sandwiches and salads. The coffee is all roasted on-site.

The original owner taught her how to roast, and Kauffman took to it quickly. “It’s quite simple, once you get the profiles down.”

She brings in beans from a dozen different countries from Central America to Africa, and roasts dark, medium and light.

For the MEDA convention she came up with a “Special MEDA Blend,” a medium roast using beans from two countries where MEDA works — Tanzania and Nicaragua.

These days her father helps with the roasting, which frees Kauffman up to develop her latest venture — wholesaling.

She employs 10 people, all but one of them parttime.

“I’m here all the time,” she says. “I love it. I really do. I love working with the customers and that so many of them come in daily. You really get to know them and their families. I really want it to be a welcoming environment for people.”

Sometimes she feels almost like a therapist. “People just tell me things,” she says. “And I love listening to them.”

Kauffman says her friends have been very supportive and feel the freedom to insist she takes a break now and then. “When you’re doing something you love it’s really hard to stop,” she explains.

Does she ever have a bad day? “If I do, it’s when the equipment doesn’t work, like if the espresso machine breaks down.”

Is her business a calling? “Very much so,” she asserts. “God definitely had a plan for me. I could not have planned it, that’s for sure.”

She glances over at Don Horning to check on his cup of Sumatra.

He grins. “Better than Starbucks,” he says. ◆

Ed Herr, whose company makes six tons of chips every hour, touched on the implications of a Christian presence. He said people sometimes ask why he doesn’t sell out to a multinational. His answer: “God has given us an opportunity to be a blessing — to help families to grow; to help our communities to prosper.”

The next Business as a Calling convention will be held Nov. 1-4, 2012 in Niagara Falls, Ontario. ◆

To see complete video coverage of the keynote addresses visit www.businessasacalling.org and choose the “Convention 2011 videos” menu option.

Young entrepreneur lives a dream

Loving it: Sara Kauffman, new roaster in hand.

Twenty million and counting

An excerpt from president Allan Sauder’s “state of MEDA” convention address

Iwant to highlight one number — 20 million families touched by MEDA’s work this year, 20 million families with new hope for their futures, for the futures of their children.

How is this possible for a small organization that took in only $3 million in private contributions last year? Does that mean that every dollar you and I contributed changed the lives of more than six families?

The answer is yes!

Not all were helped in the same way. Twelve million more homes in rural Tanzania now have mosquito nets and better health. Through our Sarona investments, 6.5 million households at the bottom of the pyramid now have better access to vital financial services, jobs and products. And 1.5 million farmers and entrepreneurs are earning better incomes (often double or triple) through training, access to markets and financial services provided by MEDA’s partners. These numbers don’t even count the clients of organizations we worked with in the past who continue to receive services from our local partners long after MEDA is no longer involved.

How can a relatively small organization realize so much impact? I believe it has everything to do with our enduring faith-based values.

First, an unwavering commitment to our

mission is paramount. Our vision is that all people may experience God’s love and unleash their potential to earn a livelihood. We believe we are called to share the abilities and resources God has given us to create business solutions to poverty. This has been our belief since 1953. This is the basis on which we recruit staff and partners today. We have a mandate to change lives — to save lives — by unleashing their God-given potential, wherever they live and whatever faith they follow.

Second, love and respect for our clients and for each other is what we demand. When I was in Haiti earlier this year, Anne Hastings, CEO of our partner Fonkoze, arranged for us to visit clients in some of the poorest areas of Haiti. In the central plateau we came upon a group of some 60 women who had Fonkoze savings accounts and/or loans. They were singing what we thought were hymns, but it turned out they were singing songs of praise they had written – for Fonkoze.

We asked a few of them why they were singing songs of praise, why they were clients of Fonkoze. Invariably, each woman said it was because of the love and respect they felt from the Fonkoze staff — that they truly cared about them and were willing to go the extra mile for them, especially following the earthquake. When we asked Anne about this, she said simply, “Of course, that’s who we are. Anybody who does not truly respect our clients and the potential they have, no matter how destitute, does not have a job with us.” She went on to

say she had experienced that same spirit from the MEDA team over the years, and that was why she valued our partnership so much.

That brings me to our third value, faith — in God, ourselves, our mission. When the going gets tough despite our best efforts, and the odds seem insurmountable, we need to place situations in God’s hands and open ourselves to help from unexpected resources. A number of years ago when we suffered a major fraud in one program, I was facing burnout after eight back-to-back trips to Africa and seriously doubted our ability to recover. My wife Donna said, “Why don’t you ask Neil Janzen (former MEDA president) if he would go there for a few months to help get things back in shape.” What a God-sent resource and answer to prayer he turned out to be.

A fourth value is trust. Trust does not just happen. It is created when we practice integrity in all we do, when we demand accountability, when we deliver what we promise. MEDA is a trusted partner. Last year we partnered with 150 different organizations around the world. These partnerships were key to being able to leverage the kind of impact you have heard about. Trust and accountability are key to the support we enjoy from institutional donors – foundations, governments and multilateral institutions. Effective partners and generous institutional donors helped turn your $3 million of support into 20 million lives changed.

One final value that is crucial in all of our lives, but perhaps nowhere more than in our work, is forgiveness: forgiveness of others when things don’t go according to plan, forgiveness of ourselves when we don’t get the job done, and the forgiveness of our board when we take risks and fail. From time to time our board asks about our failures — and we usually have a few — because they say that if we don’t have any failures we are not trying hard enough. We try to be very Mennonite in our approach — practical, creative and frugal — but does that sometimes limit our willingness to take the risks that will take us to new levels of impact? As we grow, are we becoming more risk averse, or will our failures simply be on a larger scale?

Haitian clients were singing songs of praise — composed in tribute to the love and respect they felt from staff.

I also want to briefly highlight eight strategic areas where MEDA has an opportunity to be a global leader.

Agriculture. With over 50% of households in the developing world still dependent on small-holder farming, we need to find ways to double global food production in the next 40-50 years. In Ukraine our horticulture development project continues to achieve good results, with 4,500 farmers now earning increased incomes and investing in improved production with the assistance of a finance company started by MEDA – Agro Capital Management. Equally important, these farmers are catching a vision of what is possible.

Health. MEDA has proven that private sector innovations can substantially improve the availability of drugs and health services. Our insecticide treated mosquito net program in Tanzania now has a network of 7,000 retailers throughout the country providing a sustainable supply of nets to even the most remote rural areas. With nearly 33 million nets now in use since the beginning of this program, we have saved 180,000 lives – mostly children and pregnant women – and it continues to grow!

Women’s economic development. MEDA is creating business models that markedly increase women’s access to markets and ability to contribute economically to their families, in areas where they are otherwise constrained by social barriers. Our work in Pakistan and Afghanistan has yielded positive benefits for thousands of women and their families. Just this week we learned that the Food and Agriculture Organization and USAID conducted an evaluation of MEDA’s work in Balochistan, one of the most challenging areas in Pakistan, and ranked this project among the top three in the country over the past 30 years.

Rural financial services. Improving small-holder agriculture and creating off-farm incomes is vital. In Zambia, Nicaragua and Haiti we are Failures? Our creating and expanding the use of mobile transacboard says if we tion technologies in rural areas. In Pakistan we work don’t have any with UBL Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundafailures we’re tion to promote debit cards and branchless banking not trying hard to provide cash to flood victims, and link them to longer-term access to finanenough. cial services. In Afghanistan we work with First Microfinance Bank to develop rural lending products for small and medium enterprises.

Youth and financial services. With world attention focused on the problems of youth unemployment and growing restlessness, this is a unique opportunity for us. With our great success in Morocco and Egypt, where more than 12,000 youth are finding hope and opportunities for work, we plan to take this program to new countries in Africa.

Deposit mobilization. Savings are critical to sustain

households, small businesses and communities – especially for the poor who lack social safety nets. Deposits are also a good funding base for the financial institutions themselves. MEDA’s leadership in deposit mobilization is becoming well-known through recent contracts with: Grameen in Philippines, Bank of Kathmandu in Nepal, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee in Sierra Leone and Liberia, and the International Finance Corporation.

Impact investing. Our Sarona Frontier Markets Fund is leading the way in increasing investment in the Small and Medium (or SME) business sector, which is the “missing middle” in many developing economies. MEDA earlier proved that the microfinance sector is an investible asset class. We now seek to do the same in the SME sector, where returns to the poor and potentially to investors will be even more significant. This fund currently has committed capital of $22 million.

We recently received the exciting news that Sarona Asset Management (SAM) has been approved for an 87 million dollar loan from OPIC (the Overseas Private Invest-

ment Corporation of the U.S. Government). This loan is for Sarona Frontier Markets Fund 2, which is now being developed and needs to be matched by private investment. Sarona’s application was one of only six approved out of a field of 88 — and it was the largest. This approval gives the SAM team tremendous credibility as they go to institutional investors on Wall Street. Engaged and growing association. One of MEDA’s key strengths and competitive advantages is our association of supporters. Some 8,000 people support us financially, attend our various events, visit MEDA projects, read MEDA publications and/or provide governance or business advice. But we need to grow and diversify. Our base (less than 3,000 giving units) is too small and is stretched too thinly to support our ever-growing opportunities. This year we are looking for a significant increase in private contributions, $4.8 million in total, to allow us to reach many more millions of families. Your help is needed! You all know people who can and should be part of MEDA’s mission. Please bring them to us — we want to multiply your connections. ◆

From Kalona to Kabul

What’s it like living in Kabul? In some ways, much like growing up Amish in Iowa.

by Joyce Bontrager Lehman

Young people often ask me, “How did you get to be where you are and to do what you do?” I ask myself the same question all the time.

I have never stopped thinking of myself as a little Amish farm girl from Iowa and have been truly astonished by the opportunities I’ve had and the places I’ve been. One of the joys of attaining a certain age is to become increas-

“For the first third of my life I had to cover my head and wear unusual clothes,” says the author, shown on the job in Kabul, “so it wasn’t a big stretch to do the same in Afghanistan.”

ingly aware of gifts received — gifts that too often are not properly recognized as we go about our lives thinking we have done it all on our own. I owe a debt of gratitude to early influences and to the many people along the way on whose shoulders I have stood, leaned and occasionally cried.

My mother, being a girl, did not have the same opportunities as her brothers. She would have made a wonderful school teacher but that was not an option. She wanted more for her two daughters. The evening before I hoped to begin high school, I listened on the other side of the door as she urged my father to allow me to attend. My parents by then had joined a church in the Conservative Mennonite Conference, but that still did not fundamentally change his skeptical views on education. He relented, but it was a conversation that was repeated nearly every year until my college degree was in hand. That gift from my mother is of such magnitude that I can hardly talk about it, and I deeply regret that she passed on when I was still too young to fully appreciate what she did for me.

We Amish children had all the traditional

community events that made for a happy early childhood, and much of the communal activity centered on Middleburg, the one-room Iowa school that defined our rural neighborhood and where I attended for eight years. There were the threshing rings and quilting bees, gardening and butchering, bucking bales and canning the peaches brought in from Michigan by the truckload, cleaning the house inside and out to prepare for our turn at holding the church services in our home.

Middleburg was a public school and not all were Amish — there were Mennonites and non-Mennos — but we were all neighbors. It was a childhood that taught the value of hard work, the joys of simple pleasures, and the importance of helping our neighbors, to be kind to strangers, to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God. There was not a lot of conversation about our faith beyond the daily and weekly rituals; it was simply our life.

In the mid-1990s I was in private practice as a chartered accountant and getting restless, thinking there was more I wanted to do with my life. One evening with friends from the Menno community in Boston, someone said “You should get involved with MEDA.” I had not heard of MEDA and was told it was too complex to explain — just go to the next convention. I did and was hooked. I signed on as a member, later joined the board, and eventually transitioned to staff as part of what was then called the MEDA Consulting Group. That casual conversation changed my life, and the opportunity that grew out of it cannot be overstated.

I knew next to nothing about what MEDA consultants were expected to do when we went to places I had never heard of before. Early on I was asked to go to Mali; I assumed they meant Bali. Big difference. I nearly ended up booking travel to southeast Asia instead of West Africa. I didn’t know there was a Mali in the world. But the shoulders of my colleagues were broad and strong, and my early teaching experience and work in finance and accounting was helpful for the training and consulting work I was able to do with microcredit institutions in the developing world.

I first went to Afghanistan in November of

2003 when MEDA was asked to send a consultant to prepare a business plan to start a microcredit program. I was there for a month with a colleague and we completed the assignment. As it happened, our work helped secure funding and soon after I got a call: “Joyce, you helped write the business plan — do you want to go to Kabul for a year and get the program started?” “Yes, why not?” I figured I had been running around telling other people how they should manage their programs, and here was an opportunity to see whether I could actually do it myself. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. More than a few friends and neighbors, not to mention my two children, thought it very strange that I would turn on a dime and go to Afghanistan, but I truly didn’t give it a second thought. At least not until I was shown to an empty room in Kabul and told, “This is for the credit program.”

I won’t pretend that the year in Kabul was easy; it was the most challenging year of my professional life, but personally it was the most rewarding.

On my first leave back in the states, my only aunt passed away at age 95. My sister and I made plans to attend the funeral in a small Amish community in northern Missouri. “What are you going to wear?” she asked. “I don’t know,” I said, “all my Amish clothes are in Afghanistan.” What I meant was that any clothing I had for such an occasion would be exactly the same clothes that would be appropriate to wear in Kabul. That startling observation began a pattern of noticing things in Kabul that felt

familiar, starting with the fact that my mother often wore a long black shawl — virtually identical to the one I wore in Kabul.

“What’s it like living in Kabul?” For people who knew my background, I often said, “You know, it’s not all that different.” Of course there was and is a great difference at the macro level with the government and military and development workers in the big white SUVs, but when it came to the daily lives of ordinary Afghans I was constantly reminded of something from my childhood: the clothes hanging on the line to dry, the old-time cement mixers like the one Dad If we are careful had on the farm, the horse and carts, extended to listen and families living together in one compound, young observe, we girls beating the dust off the carpets with a broom, soon understand wearing the same kind of headscarves tied under their chin and the same that we are more prairie-style dresses that I wore, though more coloralike than we ful than mine. “So did you have to are different. cover your head in Afghanistan?” I’m always a bit amused by this question. Look, I had to cover my head and wear unusual clothes for the first third of my life, so it really wasn’t a big stretch to wear modest clothing and a headscarf when walking outside. Besides, it is not only the Holy Quran that says a woman should cover her head. The Holy Bible says so as well. Every day I worked with a young woman who reminded me so much of a younger me. She too depended on her father’s permission to work outside the home. In fact, I learned much later that her father never knew that after she arrived at the office she went out again to work in villages outside the city to visit clients. (That was something else we had in common: not telling our fathers what they didn’t want to know).

Afghan society is patriarchal, men and women are separated in the houses of worship, and women are not permitted to speak in the mosque. There was even an eerie if somewhat comforting similarity between the call to prayer from the mosque and the sound of the Vorsinger who leads the singing at all Amish church services.

During the past year I spoke with two people, also raised Amish, who spent years in overseas work. Bertha Beachy left my home church to work in Somalia; Harold Miller and his wife Annetta Wenger have lived in east Africa for years. Both Bertha and Harold used almost identical words to describe their experiences: “Every single day my Amish background helped me better understand the people I live and work with.”

What are the enduring values that may make

those of us who grew up in close-knit ethnic communities, Amish or otherwise, particularly well suited to live and work in other cultures? How can it be that people of two such seemingly different cultures can find commonality? Well, for starters there is the centrality of family, respect and care for the elders, children who immediately become part of the rhythm of family life and remain so even after they marry. There is a sense of place, a family home, a deep connection to the land, a unique mother tongue, an oral history, a village, a community, and yes, a tribe.

Underpinning all of these are the cultural traditions and the faith that is less spoken of than simply lived. And in fact, in both cases it is equally difficult to distinguish between the two: is it theology or is it tradition? Islam, like Christianity, has numerous sub-groups, all followers of the same prophet but with very different interpretations and practices. We who are Christian easily accept that there are many different groups who all are followers of Jesus and yet it is much too easy for us to view all Muslims as one group, too often a group that is feared rather than respected as part of the family of God.

If we are careful to listen and observe, we soon understand that we are more alike than we are different. What was so heartbreaking in Kabul was to see how hard it was for ordinary families to hold it together — to reclaim and rebuild their family homes that had been destroyed in the decades of war, to struggle each day to provide a living for their family, stay healthy and send their children to school — the same things that are important to us. What I took away from my time in Kabul is a profound respect for the astonishing resilience of ordinary Afghans in the face of constant threats and well-meaning interventions that are too often misguided and help the wrong people. ◆

Joyce Lehman is program officer for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Her article is excerpted from her keynote address at MEDA’s 2011 Business as a Calling convention in Lancaster, Pa.