Cricket, Krishna, and Crates of Onions

In reverse order:

Onions

Just before we came home at the end of the year, we reported that our farmers in Ngare Ndare had successfully sold several tons of squash. During our last meeting with that group of the year, the farmers still had some left to sell, but were beginning to look ahead towards the future in terms of new crops and new ways to manage their revolving loan fund.

There are many issues facing the group at this stage. Because the money for the fund initially comes from white people within a church organization, farmers have a hard time treating the loan with due gravity. Research shows that community managed credit schemes that use “cold money” (money that comes from outside of the community) fail the vast majority of the time. This is why we’re exploring the possibility of working with a local microfinance bank in our pilot project. But needless to say, we were anticipating the group’s decisions about how to give out new loans with some trepidation. I had some informal conversation with the decision makers about the importance of designing a program with good incentives (reward those who repaid, don’t give loans to people until they’ve finished paying, etc), but I couldn’t tell if it stuck.

At the end of last week, we got the report from our Director that 9 farmers had fully repaid their loans, 6 had paid most but not all, and 6 had paid little to nothing (due to crop failure). Within two months, the leadership had collected loan payments, decided to grow onions for their next season (planning on rotating squash and onions in the future), and redistributed loans to all the members using the following criteria: those who repaid fully got large loans that would cover the cost of production for onions using the best ag methods. Those who repaid the majority were given about half as much as the others (allowing them to produce a lower quantity), and those who didn’t repay anything were given just enough for a packet of onion seeds. The second two categories had to put up collateral, and agreed to try to repay the previous loan as well as the current one.

Will it work? I have no idea, but I think they have done a good job of trying to keep incentives steady while also considering how to keep all of the group members involved. We’ll give updates on how the onions go! It’s also exciting that they did all of this with very little guidance from us. That alone is a positive sign that, against the odds, this group might find a way to make it work sustainably. Praise the Lord!

Krishna

On Sunday, Rebecca and I had the opportunity to visit the Hare Krishna temple with a new friend, Mukund. I met Mukund at a grocery store where he was selling literature written by the guru who established the Hare Krishna beliefs in the West. I talked to him a little bit about my faith, listened a little to him talk about his, and bought a book. After we got back from the States, I contacted Mukund, and he invited us to visit.

If you’ve ever seen Wes Anderson’s Darjeeling Limited, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what we experienced. Because Sunday is their big day of worship, we entered the temple to see the incredibly ornate altar decked with the marble painted carvings of the deity while some several hundred worshippers were chanting in unison to the sound of five or ten Indian drums and other instruments. The temple has a live-in facility, and huge kitchens which they use to feed their many followers as well as 2,000 kids in the slums . . . every day. During all of our tour, Mukund answered our questions about the Hare Krishna beliefs. Finally, he introduced us to an African follower of the movement who heads up the temple’s interfaith outreach programs. Karuna asked us what we thought about the book, and we got to spend about an hour talking about Christianity in contrast to the Hare Krishna movement. Because the movement is very inclusive (we’re all on different paths to the same God), we spent most of the conversation discussing whether there really were differences between the Bible and their ancient eastern scriptures.

I felt like we had several real “a-ha” moments with Karuna and Mukund: the difference between a theology that makes the material world an evil to be escaped through an end to the cycle of reincarnation versus a Christian theology that promises that God will do to the creation and to us what He did through Jesus’ body: resurrect us to new redemption life in the new heavens and the new earth; and the difference between a theology that focuses on attaining “God consciousness”, which will give the adherent the power to stop sinning, and the Christian view that Christ died for all of our sins, that He took on the “bad karma” of the world because we could never do enough good things to balance out the bad. But probably the greatest paradigm shifter occurred when Rebecca explained that we really believe our Scriptures to say that Jesus is the only way: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” Jesus said, “Nobody comes to the Father but through me,” she quoted. For a few seconds nobody spoke, and then, two guys dressed in full length robes, with paint on their faces and their chanting beads around their necks said: that makes you a fanatic.

And you know what? They’re right! We are fanatics! We believe that the whole key to the salvation of the cosmos comes in the story of one man who lived 2,000 years ago and who spent the majority of his life in a little no-name village! What a great reminder that we believe the most radical thing in the whole world, that most cults and religions have nothing on us in terms of the extremity of our conviction! What a convenient thing to believe that Jesus is one road among many that lead to God! What a world changing thing to believe he is he only one! We’re thankful for Mukund and Karuna’s hospitality, and hope to invite both to a Christian celebration that seeks to create a missional response to the Hindu festival of Diwali.

Cricket

And last but not least, I fulfilled one of my long-term goals for life on Monday: I watched, and understood, an entire cricket match. Thankfully it was one of the ones that only lasts an afternoon, but our friend Hash took Rebecca and I, as well as our Kenyan friend Anne, to an international match between Scotland and Kenya. It’s a pretty neat game once you get it, every bit as lazy and relaxed as baseball, and Kenya demolished the Scots, so all and all it was a great afternoon.

Peace,
Michael