Have you seen this map? It shows just how BIG Africa is. It’s easy to lump a lot all together under the label of “Africa.”

And yet, Africa is an entire continent – one that could fit the United States, India, China, Eastern Europe, and a number of western European countries, all within it’s borders! Africa is 20% of the world’s landmass and has 54 separate countries.

Traveling in Malawi, just a tiny sliver on most maps of Africa, I was in awe of the vast countryside to see, so many different languages to hear, and all the people to meet within Malawi.

Besides providing good party trivia, what is the point of thinking about the enormity of Africa? It can be overwhelming to think the really big problems such as pollution and political instability in so many African countries.

A ripple of goodness

Spirit in Action is working in Africa to start small ripples of change, which can reach much further than what we can do alone, reaching to those big challenges. I may not be able to influence the government in the Central African Republic but I can start to poke small ripples of goodness in the pool.

When things seem so great, I look around to see what I can do, what small thing I can give, to make an impact in just one other person’s life. And it turns out, that making this small impact can start to make larger inroads.

Grace is excited to continue high school! Read her family’s story here: http://godsspiritinaction.org/love-will-find-a-way/

Here’s what we’re doing:

1 Individual = receives a letter with encouragement and self-help materials (gardening, composting, starting savings groups) from Spirit in Action; (Read example)

1 Family = receives a $150 grant from Spirit in Action to start a business and improve their house and send their children to school; (Read example)

1 Community = receives a Community Grant from Spirit in Action to start a chicken-rearing process and a local village savings and low-interest loans group. (Read example)

Sharing the Gift

Then, 1+1+1 = Once people receive, they are encouraged to give forward to someone else who they see is in need; Sharing the Gift, we call it. (Read example)

That gift is shared over and over again. Then, this is my prayer, the gift ripples all the way to the country and regional level. Maybe that person who convinced the Malawian President Joyce Banda to sell the $13.3 million presidential jet and rebuild international relationships to help Malawi’s poorest was touched by part of the Spirit in Action ripple.

Or maybe, someone who realized that they were feeling small in the midst of the great world took a step to help someone by putting a Spirit-filled ripple into action and helped you.

Thank you for making our ripple big enough to reach more individuals, families, and communities than we can know or count.

Margaret Ikiara (center) talks with one of the support groups at CIFORD Kenya.

I bet you never feel overwhelmed, right? Taxes, exams, deadlines are greeted with ease? The great need in your family, your community, and our world seems manageable? Right! Just last week, there was a day – a cold, cloudy day – when I felt like I could never possibly do enough in the world.

“It’s all too exhausting to keep up with Joneses,” I wrote in my journal, contemplating another organization’s fancy new website and celebrity endorsers, “and what’s it all for anyway?”

Then my pencil took on a mind of it’s own: “Seek justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God.” Refreshing! “That’s all that God, and I believe, our SIA Board and supporters, require of me.”

So, I spent some time to take stock on how I’m living up to my requirements.

Seek Justice

• This one’s pretty easy, because seeking justice is a part of all programs we support.
• MAVISALO, the local micro-loans group in Malawi is all about providing access to small loans for farmers and entrepreneurs in Manyamula village. Rather than let neighbors take out loans from the institutional lenders at sky-high interest rates, people came together for financial justice in their town.
• Our Small Business Fund grants give $150 to the poorest people in villages, giving people who have been overlooked and turned away in the past a chance to start a business and learn financial management skills.
• The CIFORD Kenya program seeks justice for girls in their district, informing them about their rights and teaching them about women’s health and HIV/AIDS prevention.

Love Kindness

• I feel a warm, kind heart within me when I connect with you – our supporters, partners, and Facebook friends, especially when I get to write thank you notes, and when I get a really great grant proposal and I get to engage with the person and ask more questions.
• I also practice this in my daily life: greeting neighbors as we pass, helping to push a car out of the snow; sharing cookies with our downstairs neighbor, writing letters to friends.
• I try to be kind to myself too by giving myself permission to read a good book, and sipping tea in bed in the mornings.

Walk Humbly

• I know I can do more with humility than with ego. Ego keeps me thinking about myself, my “legacy,” my impact, rather than think about the people I am serving.
• Keeping my practice of daily contemplation, prayer, and reading of Del’s writings.
• Responding to each email request with honesty and humility, honoring each person’s effort to improve their community and seek assistance
• Graciously thank all our volunteer Small Business Fund coordinators, who give their time to do the real work of SIA on the ground.

When I’m striving after things, when I have a day when I’m feeling small, can I stop and see if the things I’m worried about fit into my requirements or not?

Local leaders are part of our kindness advantage too!

When you compare non-profits supporting development in Africa Spirit in Action is not at the top of the list for total amount of money given. Our grants can’t match the “small grants” at some large NGOs that range from $10,000-30,000.

That said, I think we have a lot of other points going for us, and I think that these points add up to more than just the amount we give away in grants each year.

“It’s very heartening to read your very kind & touching letter,” read the very unexpected opening to an email from Utkarsh Ghate in India. I was shocked not because the words themselves were stunning but because this came in reply to my email letting them know that SIA wouldn’t be able to fund their proposal.

This exchange brings to life our competitive advantage: kindness, respect, honoring people as individuals. 

At Spirit in Action, we have the time and the passion to connect with people, to write thoughtful responses to all emails, give feedback on proposals we can’t fund, to affirm their service to their community, and listen to the challenges they face.

Justus Aluka and a colleague in Kenya.

“We appreciated and highly acknowledged the content of your letter. Thanks for your encouragement and prayers of hope sent.” Such warm greetings were expressed in a recent email from Justus Aluka at Shirly Centre in Eldoret, Kenya. Putting this gratitude into action, his community group generously sent a 2000Ksh (around $25) donation to SIA. This unsolicited involvement and “paying forward” is another expression of the ripples of SIA’s work to put spirit and love into action.

So while other organizations may give more thousands of dollars, we give thousand times more encouragement and respect, acknowledging that these individuals, like Justus and Utkarsh, are the ones doing the front line work and facing those in dire need.

And our partners reflect this encouragement back to us: “p.s.” Utkarsh wrote, “Your bottom line is very impressive, let God make it true!” I always end my emails with “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me” and I believe that honoring each person who reaches out to Spirit in Action is part of building that peace in the world.

This is an excerpt from a talk that I gave at Bonny Doon Presbyterian Church, sharing my personal journey and about my work with Spirit in Action. ˜ Tanya

If you’ve ever moved to a new place, you know that it can be really hard. New places can be uncomfortable; they force you to encounter new things and new cultures, even within different regions in the US. You have to find a new grocery store, a new bank, new friends.

SIA faces of compassion

And yet these moments when we are lost and lonely are moments when we are perhaps most likely to be touched by one of God’s angels on earth. Rachel has been one of those angels for me. A kind colleague of Boyd’s invited us over for dinner one Friday night. She gave me something to look forward to, she cooked a wonderful meal, and she gave us tips for things to see in the city.

Simple; but her smile makes me feel like we’ve already been friends a long time. And to me, that’s the blessing of moving. That’s experiencing God’s grace and love. If we’re standing in the same place all the time, it’s harder to meet new angels.

In a way, these angels, even though they are not the ones moving to a new place, are being emotionally moved. There are many times in the New Testament where we hear that Jesus was moved with compassion for people.

Del Anderson founded SIA, at the age of 90, as a manifestation of his drive to do good works in the world. He had lived a life filled with challenges – being a bi-racial man growing up in the early 1900s – and also a life filled with blessings.

Del was moved to compassion for people around the world who were lacking basic needs, like food, shelter, and a livelihood. He was moved by his conviction that people had the skills and drive to help themselves, and all they needed was encouragement and tools to get started.

He began his ministry by providing information to people – information about growing more food, making soap, planting fast-growing trees that could be used for lumber, fences, or shade. And sometimes he provided a small grant to help people pursue their dreams and improve their lives. (For more from Del on Compassion, read from his journal here.)

Through this work with Spirit in Action, I am continually inspired by people who are moved with compassion for their community.

Women in the guardian’s group with CIFORD Kenya.

For me compassion is embodied in an older woman we met in Kenya. She is a member of a self-help group within the local organization CIFORD Kenya. She is also a grandmother, taking care of five of her grandchildren whose parents died from HIV/AIDS. When I met her, I saw in her the loving kindness that comes from compassionate acts.

She was moved to care for the grandkids even in her older years. And she was at the self-help group (where we met her) because that’s a stressful job. How will I buy school uniforms so that my grandkids can attend school? Who will collect water so that we have clean water to drink?

The blessing is that this group of 20 to 25 guardians is there to support her. Their cooperative movement means that they are all there to support each other emotionally, and also economically, with a small loan fund within the group. And their movement, their action, means that the children are cared for by relatives rather than be sent to terrible, overcrowded orphanages.

As these examples show, being willing to be moved is to embody generosity and to allow yourself to be an angel to someone else.

One of the many highlights of my trip to Africa last summer was visiting Samuel Teimuge in Kenya. Samuel, who worked with Del even before Spirit in Action was founded in 1996, is local role model in Eldoret, Kenya. He and his family are integral to many development projects, including Empowering Lives International, Samro School, and the Ukweli Training Centre.

Last year, Samuel shared some words of wisdom with our SIA Small Business Fund Coordinators. Here are some of his insights on leadership, encouragement, and community development:

• We have learned a lot especially from Del Anderson and the self-help group in CFOI and this really encouraged us to start small. We learned that when you do things with your eyes towards other people that is when you succeed.
• 

  Tanya and Rhoda Teimuge in front of her house. Rhoda was a small business trainer before she started Samro School.

  I want to use the scriptures Proverbs 14:23 since it is one that is really outstanding even as I teach people about development. “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.” And that really is true for all of us. You know many times people talk, talk, talk, talk, but the Spirit in Action business plan starts from where you are, so instead of talking you do something that will really help, not only to your family, but also to others.

• There is one scripture that has been leading us in our home. 2 Thessalonians 3:7-11 “For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves as a model for you to follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat.’”
  

  Samuel shows Boyd about their maize stalks grinder machine, which helps produce feed for their cow.

• When our first-born finished high school, we employed him during the day we did not want him to be idle so we paid him 1,500KS (~$17) a month so he was in the dairy cleaning and feeding the cows. And do you know why we do this? So that they don’t get messed up; so that they don’t go to town to watch movies. That is what we have done here: our children are helping us, even as part of our ministry.
• So, as a development person, you will face a lot of challenges. God gives to us, so that we may help other people. If God has given you a skill, then that is what you need to share. We need to be generous. We need to act truthfully and faithfully.
• I was in America and our host was a good friend. I asked, ‘Do you know how to grow economically in Africa. Teach us, so that our economy in Africa can grow.’ He had only two words: “Be honest.” Honesty is the key. And be truthful. And that was the whole lesson.
• So I want to give a challenge to you – that you become a role model, even as you are a coordinator. We have to know, as coordinators, how to motivate, how to encourage.
• So friends, God has given us a ministry. A ministry that is so wonderful. And behind all these people [coordinators] there are so many people who have benefited from these programs, and they are saying ‘thank you Spirit in Action, for doing that.’ Yes, thank you, Del, who I believe one day we shall see again.