UPDATE as of April 19, 2024

-68 countries have been invested in

-587 total loans

-44 loans are private

-543 loans are public (you can view these at kiva.org)

- Over $26,000 has already been loaned out

-Over 397% of funds loaned out versus what has been invested

Why Micro Loans and What Do They Accomplish?

Starting in July 2022, The Hastening started to unofficially test out making micro-loans. These micro-loans are mostly to women in third-world countries that are denied access to established banking services. A crowdsourcing organization available to both these women locally in their country and here in the US is the conduit to make this happen. In late December 2022, The Hastening moved to officially start its program of micro-loans with our crowd-sourcing partner kiva.org. Funded with a donation from an anonymous source, we used this initial capital investment to fund our first round of micro-loans. Because this is a loan and not a donation we can reloan current loan repayments to new loan recipients and build a ministry that reaches far beyond our initial capital investment. As of April 2024, we are in 68 countries and God provides new opportunities every month (see updated figures at the top of this page).

First and most importantly, our micro-loan ministry is a ministry of prayer. It is a ministry to the nations and for the peoples. We are a ministry that seeks to end poverty with a hand-up versus a handout. Each and every loan recipient is prayed for and our partners in the villages and towns they live in provide them with counsel and support during the repayment of their loans. Many of our most stable clients are past loan recipients that repaid their loans and have then taken out a new loan(s).

Our typical loan is to a woman in a third-world country that is supplementing the family earnings because they are insufficient. She could be a single mother, a widow, or a struggling worker trying to get their business going. Our typical share of a loan is $25-$100 (usually $25) with the total loan amount of $200-$600. This loan is usually to buy stock for their in-home store (retail), capital equipment (e.g. sewing machine or livestock), or working capital to buy raw materials for what they produce (leather for a shoemaker, fabric for a seamstress, etc.). Loans terms are usually six months to two years but we focus on quicker paybacks.