Updates on Other LAM Economic Projects
LAM Magazine
Staff
The Granddaddy -
the LAM family was introduced to the concept of economics at the
service of the Kingdom with the Poultry Farm, started in 1963 to help
support the children�s ministry of Roblealto (featured in the April
2000 Evangelist). Over the years the chicken business has
grown, and at the same time farm managers have diversified production,
especially with hogs. The current new project for the Farm is to make
feed concentrate. Revenue from the Farm continues to be a major source
of financial support for the Roblealto Child Care Association.
The Biggest � as anyone who has visited Costa Rica
quickly learns, the Clínica Bíblica, started by the LAM in 1929 and
managed by an entrepreneurial group of Costa Ricans since 1967, is the
most respected health-care resource in the country. A visible part of
its growing impact is the $22 million construction project next to the
present site of the hospital. Less visible, but just as impressive, is
the 80-square-block ministry initiative taken on by the hospital and a
local church, which meets every Sunday in the second-story parking lot
of the hospital administrative building.
The Newest �
an innovative revolving loan program was funded in 2004 with $10,000
from the LAM. It is for the Chichimeca people, an indigenous and
unreached group located in the San Luis de la Paz region, about 350
kilometers north of Mexico City. Combining a response to the Latin
missions movement, the work of an LAM missionary, an indigenous
unreached people group, and small business lending for agricultural
production, this project allows the church to respond to people�s need
for their daily bread, and in that context, to present the gospel.
The Most Entrepreneurial � the Latin America student conference Latina 2003 (which is going to be repeated in Ecuador in 2006) spawned more than a commitment to Christian service. A group of university students in Panama talked to LAM Vice President of Ministries, Miguel Angel
De Marco, about a business idea to employ Christian university students
by developing a plan to promote marketing for the public bus system.
The DMJ Company received a business incubator loan of $3000 from the
LAM in November 2003. It now employs two fulltime and two part-time staff, and has contracts for many of the metropolitan Panama City bus routes. The initial capital will be paid back, and used for other projects.
The Furthest South �
the devastating devaluation of the Argentine currency resulted in a
loss of jobs and incomes for thousands of Argentine people, and a new
revolving loan program funded there by the LAM is targeted at helping
the church respond to the need for jobs.
Others Briefly Noted:
Honduras - rural church businesses were started for employment creation in the town of La Florida: a bakery for women, and an upholstery business for men, supervised by a business committee from the San Pedro Sula mother church. The business plans for these two projects were developed with assistance from U.S. college students doing their required practicum for a degree in business administration.
Colombia -
a church-based small revolving loan project (El Redentor) is tied to a
Saturday vocational training program. People trained in various
enterprises are then given loans: this is part of the church�s
evangelistic outreach to displaced people from the slum areas
surrounding
Cartagena.
Venezuela - a bakery business run by a large church in Caracas
to train adolescents, who have come through a street children�s
ministry to bake and sell bread and then to start their own small
bakery businesses. The training is designed on a franchise model with
the idea that a small bakery business, located in the right place, can
be the foundation for these young people to support themselves
independently.
Costa Rica -
business incubators (new enterprises designed by the program staff)
with ex-convicts, who have great difficulty in obtaining employment.
After pilot projects with almost a dozen businesses, this project is
being reorganized with oversight from ex-convicts themselves.
Special
thanks to the LAM donors to the Economic Development fund, a venture
investment fund for economic ministry, for helping change lives and
spread the Gospel in the ways described above.
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