How much money would it take to change your life?

How much would it take to start or enhance your business so you could afford to send your children to school? $500? $1000? Probably not. Most of us could spend that money in no time at all and have pretty much nothing to show for it. Let me introduce you to my friend SmartMama, who is not only smart, she is wise. When I read about Kiva on one of her recent blog posts I knew this was something my family needed to be involved in. From Kiva's website: We Let You Loan to the Working Poor Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world. For as little as $25 you can contribute to a microloan for a specific entrepreneur in a developing country. And it is a loan that the person must repay. Then you can re-loan your money to someone else! My family is blessed. We have more than enough food. We have a safe home, jobs, and our children can attend school. Last night for our Family Night we decided we should share our blessings. Each of us selected a person to loan our money to. You may notice we all chose someone we could relate to in some way. Ds chose Juana Cores, a woman from Peru who requested a loan of $350 to buy dirt and clay for her family's brick making business. Juana dreams of having her own home, improving her business and providing a good education to her children. Dd chose Oredun Oyagbade, a woman from Nigeria. Oredun needs a loan to buy more CDs and DVDs for her rental shop and a freezer so that she can start selling drinks at her shop. Dh chose Teofilo Figueredo, a father of grown children from Paraguay who would like to buy more goods such as lightbulbs and wiring for his electrical goods shop. I chose Sean Yi, 34. She is married and resides with her four children in Prey Veng province, Cambodia. All the children are students. Sean and her husband have a business selling chickens in the local market, earning approximately seven dollars per day. The family's standard of living has improved since they started this business. They want a loan to sell larger amounts of poultry. This will provide the family with more income and will allow the children to enroll in a higher class at school. (Mrs. Sean is pictured with her husband.)

I knew I had to choose a chicken farmer! A loan of $700 will change the standard of living for her and her family. Since I made my contribution last night, other people from around the world have also chosen to lend to her and her microloan is fully funded.

Look here for articles and media reports about this organization.

I challenge every one of you who reads this post. Get out your wallet. If you don't have $25 to spare, save up for it. Make a loan to someone who is willing to work to raise themselves out of poverty. All they need is a little help from you. When you have done this, come back and tell me and we'll see how much good we can accomplish with so little effort on our parts. "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" St. Matthew 25:40.