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Friday, August 7, 2009

Impressed

I am so thankful that I was allowed to go to a conference the last two days with my church, Lifepoint.
Amazing speakers, powerful ideas, and inspiring stories.

Here's one:
A young women who co-founded Kiva, an organization that 'connects people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty'.
Kiva allows people with at least $25 and an internet connection to become lenders -- they can lend money to entrepreneurs to start their businesses.
They're called 'microloans' -- these entrepreneurs can't access regular banks because of their financial situations.
The average size of the loan is less than $1000, and the loan default rate is less than 2%. (98% of loans are paid back.)

For a small taste, watch this:





She reminded me of a young woman at work whose calling is to help oppressed women (she just doesn't know the details yet).

They are representative of the best parts of this Millennial generation: their idealism, their optimism. It's informed idealism/optimism, too -- it's not like they don't see what's wrong. They just actually believe it's possible to right it.