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​Bible-Based Community

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THE AFRICAN "SCATTERED CHURCH'S" WORK

As congregants leave church, they go from being the gathered to the scattered church. Going about their daily life in their homes, community and workplaces. In Africa, the most of the poor are entrepreneurs just to survive. Churches need individuals and families who are stable, have adequate income to feed, shelter and protect their family. Most families work creating their on ways of making money outside of subsistence farming. We are created by God to work...but entrepreneurship flourishes only when folks know what makes a successful venture.

AND
Through the work of the "scattered church", the gospel becomes Light to the community. 

"For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:10 NIV

...pray "that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." Colossians 4:3,5-6 NIV

How can we reach the poor for Christ who are struggling to feed their families?

In Africa, many have heard and responded to the Gospel message. But, for the poor,  pressing life issues can make it easy to ignore or hard to focus on living out the Gospel in their lives. 

The Hossana Bible-based Community Development Model shifts the message of the Gospel to existing entrepreneurs who need a hand up and who are capable of growing their business, hiring others, and sharing the Gospel. This model is not in place of the gathered local church but in support of the scattered church. 


As church members empower and uplift, they build strong, high-trust relationships that allows them to share their Hope in Christ, because people listen and take what we have to say seriously.

Hossana Bible-Based Community Development Model

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The Need: To connect the Gospel for Africans who live in poverty and by necessity are very entrepreneurial. Ugandans by necessity entrepreneurial: birth rate is out stripping job creation, 40% live on less than 1.90 per day, and jobs are scarce. Each year 400,000 enter the job market to compete for 9,000 new jobs.   

Our Purpose: To train existing entrepreneurs to see themselves as God sees them, so they can best steward what God has provided. 

Our Target: the African poor and refugees. ​

GIVE: $10 helps a Christian entrepreneur out of poverty
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INVERTED PYRAMID - The pastor is asked to solve the congregations poverty issues.
When a community is living in poverty, the pastor of the local church is at the top of an inverted pyramid. 

Pastor is overwhelmed by needs BUT must also provide for his own family
All the individual church members' pressing physical, emotional, and spiritual needs flow up to the pastor. These physical needs are often overwhelming, for example, a child needs immediate transport to a medical clinic or a family needs food today. 

The congregation cannot support the pastor AND CANNOT be a resource to the community
The congregation cannot support the pastor through tithes. The pastor works full-time to provide for the family. The church members struggle to be light to the community. 



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CHANGING THE CHURCH MEMBER AND PASTOR RELATIONSHIP
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Successful pastors/shepherds in poor communities have:
- 1) a good foundation in God's Word and
- 2) an ability to help resource the needs of the congregation.
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If each church member can provide their families needs, the pastor's burden is reduce. 


AND if a church member can employ others in their daily work, they can give back to the church and to the community. 

When the pastor can effectively manage his family's well-being, they are more likely to be trained in teaching and shepherding the flock, be self-sustaining, and more effective in discipling and maturing the church as well as see that the Kingdom is growing. 

When a church member can afford to buy and study God's Word, she can share the Word with their family, neighbors as well as teach others. 

THE SCATTERED CHURCH'S WORK 
Every time the church meets as a gathered church we come together in one place to worship Him and be edified through His Word, prayer to Him and recommitment to our calling in Him. When we scatter as a church and go our separate ways, we are to collectively still His church.  

"For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:10 NIV

As the scattered church, we are still bound in Christ to represent Him well...


...pray "that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." Colossians 4:3,5-6 NIV
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We don't work to be saved, but our faith and our union with Christ points us to love and serve God and others fully. Focusing on Christ's work in us, should point us to do good to others. God has not equipped His people for works of service so that we will be made much of but so the body of Christ may be built up until we have all reached unity in the faith and knowledge of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-13). 
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HOSANNA BIBLE-BASED SERVICES

The whole church must take the whole gospel to the whole world. But most Africans living in poverty and the pastor and church members spend most of their time trying to live each day.

We created Hosanna Bible-Based Services, not as an attempt to replace the Gospel, but as a way to help Christians climb out of the poverty bucket and bring others with them as they study Biblical principles to guide their daily transactions in their communities. 

 
 The Africa Bible Project is based on working to overcome these issues:
  •        People living in poverty have pressing needs of food, water, shelter and schooling. 87% of Ugandans for example live in poverty.
  •        Christians living in poverty look to their pastor to help in their time of trouble.
  •        Pastors living in impoverished areas among the rural poor, refugees and in urban, overcrowded poor areas:
    • Often have not been trained to teach the Bible or be a shepherd of the flock.
    • Are living in poverty themselves
    • Struggle to cope with the overwhelming needs of the local church members (loss of their crops relied on for food; pay for child to get needed medical treatment, etc.)
    • Often leave the ministry because of the overwhelming nature of the work.
  •        Most poor Christians do not own a personal Bible who can read making it difficult to mature in the Word.
  •        In these areas, children and youth are growing up in a very different world than their parents. Connected to a wider culture outside the family and the local rural village (via access to cheaper, faster transportation, mobile phones for internet and more goods and services), they are becoming more resistant to following in the footsteps of their parents both their beliefs and way of living and more questioning of their parents beliefs.
 
While these are not intractable problems, the potential for harvest in Africa is great. In 2010, Africa was estimated to have 390 million Christians and is expected to have 600 million in 2025. Already, 26% of the worlds Christians live in Africa versus 11% in North America.

HOSANNA MICRO-FINANCE PROJECT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Hossana Financial Services idea could not have come at any better time than this.
The high levels of poverty among Ugandans, has led to many family’s breaking down. 85% of Ugandans are considered the rural poor. 

We believe that with this institution we will not only be able to preach the gospel more easily to people who are in poverty. We will also be able to reach others whom we could otherwise not reach.

Hosanna intends to utilize believers as staff who will conduct weekly follow-up meetings to share a Bible lesson and get feedback on the business as well as follow up on recovering the micro-loan.

We intend to use financial softwares developed to track progress, loan recovery and allow individuals to repay directly from their mobile phone avoiding having to carry cash. We believe this will promote transparency in our operations and allow all stakeholders to monitor their progress even when they are far away. 

MICRO-FINANCE DESCRIPTION
Hossana micro-finance services are a local church initiative. Our vision is to reduce the poverty levels of its members and strengthen the family
income through the promotion of and development of small enterprises. We have begun the expensive process of registering with the government as an independent finance service provider.

MARKET ANALYSIS
Busia Town, Uganda borders Kenya. It is a busy trading town composed mostly relatively poor families. Most households have no stable income sources but live hand to month.

The major economic activity is small scale business and agriculture. Most people trade across the border, dealing in agricultural produce and grains including rice, corn, wheat, and beans.

Most people have little capital, lack the ability to get a loan at a reasonable rate or get any loan, and lack the knowledge to manage a business successfully or how to save and invest. 

After analyzing these market trends, we believe that if people are given some capital in the form of micro loans. AND can learn how to save and invest,  they will be able to reduce their poverty level in their households as they grow profitable businesses.

GOVERNING ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
Hossana Financial Services services has a board of directors. Seven members were selected from different sections of the community. The board is led by a trusted senior pastor of a local Church. The board provides an oversight role and acts as a regulatory body to determine interest rates, hire staff and other high level decisions. Below the board are staff. These include the director and three loan officers who carry out assessment for loans and support borrowers with critical knowledge and investment decisions.

Currently, the staff is all volunteers who are pastors in local churches with expertise in running a successful business. As we grow, we intend to hire staff to be the weekly interface with clients to share the Gospel and monitor their business operations. These pastors who volunteer have not reduced their work for the church, which is a 7-day a week job. Instead they have added to their work load by meeting weekly with those granted micro-loans because they value what this will do for their church and community. 

PRODUCTS LINE /SERVICE DESCRIPTION
Hossana Financial Services provides several products, among these are,
Micro loans to support small enterprise development.
Loans to support (booster loans) expansion of existing small businesses.
Advisory services to clients on investments and market trends favorable to business development. 

OUR STRATEGY
We encourage members to work in groups. Each group will have a minimum of 5 people who will act as security for each other.
Being church based, we will create awareness using the existing church associations  to make potential clients aware of Hosanna.
We will also ensure that any defaulting members are handled within the scope of the law and within the Biblical mandate to try and help the poor while recovering any loan defaults. 
The loan officers shall also act as teachers to provide clients with any savings and investment information they need.
We intend to continue conducting market surveys on all other firms providing similar services to ensure we learn from their mistakes and also maintain
a cutting edge advantage.

FINANCIAL MATTERS
Our research indicates that loans at 3% interest rate each month provide our clients the motivation to work and return our money with the interest needed. The competition are local banks and predatory lenders. Banks charge at least 6% and provide no weekly mentoring and rarely would consider loaning to the poorest of the poor. Other lenders who tend to be predatory and lend to the poor and charge around 10% interest each month. 
Interest is calculated on a declining balance to provide clients the motivation to make their weekly payments and see that their payable balance reduced with every deposit made.
We provide micro loans so that we can reach more people and also reduce the risk of not recovering the loans.
For 2020, we will not make initial loans greater than 1,000,000 shillings or about $270. We will keep increasing our max loans as we monitor the growth of the business being invested in and as we build trust and confidence with each other.
The recovery loan period will depend on amount taken but will not exceed 12 months.
In an event that the Brower defaults the member groups that have stood as collateral will be asked to help with the loan recovery.

FINANCIAL NEEDS
  • Financial tracking software system - $2800
  • Office Equipment - computer, ledger books etc. - $3,000
  • Working capital for micro loans - initial loans will range from $10 per loan to $270. 

PARTNERS AND COUNSELORS
We are working with those with expertise in this area, including
  • Living Business Education which we desire to partner with because of their expertise in financial software and high success rate in creating entrepreneurs in Kampala. 
  • the support of experienced professional persons to support in the process of introducing and establishing the systems.
  • assistance in developing or improving our loan application forms /agreement, the design of ledger books, receipt books, stamps etc. 

WANT TO HELP HOSSANA?
  • We will take a team over in early June and would love assistance with Hosanna. Go with us if you have expertise in this area!
  • Help us raise the funds to grow Hossana.
DONATE TO HOSANNA NOW!
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