By Sue DeLoach
Living Stones News Writer Poverty is a tamable monster.
Pat and Joe Richter have learned this over decades of first-hand global experience – coupled with honest, loving hearts, cultural sensitivity and tenacious, gritty hard work. Through the organizational vehicle of
FARMS International, they have tested and proven God’s Word in multiple cultural situations, and seen remarkable affirmation and hope for the poor.
Theirs is a fascinating journey of a couple who have ardently chosen to “Do good that is good.”
1971The Richters had just been accepted as U.S. Peace Corps fisheries volunteers to the Philippines. Armed with two suitcases, youthful zeal and college degrees, the young couple opened their first real door into the journey of abject poverty.
Initially, the marriage of Peace Corps and couple was a somewhat romantic interlude, combining the beauty of sultry starlit canopies in grass huts, emerald terrain and colorful marketplaces with a desire to make a difference for humanity.
However, a growing familiarity with the pervasive nature of the poverty monster began to undermine the Richters’ best of intentions.
Although Joe had successfully initiated a fish program and Pat was seeing her educational efforts edge newborn and toddler weights to healthier levels, the honeymoon was over as chronic illness, cholera, parasites and the constant stench of poverty invaded their lives, dampening their zealous aspirations.
1972Fleeing their typhoon-flooded, snake- and rodent-infested apartment literally brought the Richters to “Higher Ground.”
Through a desolately painful emptiness and a total disgust of abject poverty, Joe and Pat began to see the “Light.” Reckoning came through an early Christmas gift of oranges (very rare and costly) from a squatter family who symbolized the poverty the Richters had grown to disdain, slicing open the depravity of their souls. The miracle of rebirth occurred that night as both Joe and Pat bowed to the Savior, who became poor for our cleansing, and were given new hearts of love.
In the months that followed their conversion, the Richters began to move in a brand-new spirit of compassion, learning from fellow Christians and from the Bible a foundation from which their future calling would stem. Before leaving the Philippines, both Joe and Pat had received powerful confirmations that they would return to the mountains, not only as alleviators of physical poverty, but also of that greater poverty which is of the soul. They were being called as missionaries.
1974-1984An interim decade of growing in God’s way prepared the Richters for the inevitable desire of...
...their hearts – a plunge back into the culture of the Philippines.
Joe worked for the EPA, Pat started to raise a family; tools for the field began to fall into place. Joe credits the Peace Corps experience for inculcating the philosophy of “Only give yourself” and “Only do for them what they cannot do.”
By divine appointment, the Richters met the Rev. Gareth Miller, who in 1961 pioneered small revolving loans through his organization,
FARMS. Miller’s vision for “helping poor Christians come out of poverty while preserving their dignity” struck strong cords with the Richters, who began to understand that there is a Biblical path out of poverty.
1984 to 1991The Richters returned to the Philippines as undercover church planters, pioneering in a northern mountainous area amongst the Igorot tribes. The government was corrupt – fertile ground for communist insurgents promising to liberate the poor, resulting in bitter reprisals for young Christian converts. Nevertheless, work went forward, and a micro-credit program sponsored by
FARMS International was initiated.
“Even though my heart was to plant churches, without the help of micro-loans, the church would have foundered because families struggled for daily sustenance and church growth/funding took a back seat,” Joe said. “Loan recipients tithed and gave offerings from their project profits, and because of this a self-supporting church naturally emerged.
“Eventually, a substantial church building was erected with no foreign monies, and our Jabbok Bible Church earned a reputation as a giving church, reaching far beyond its own congregation with many acts of charity. (Our people) had learned the joy of giving … it became a church that is truly God-reliant.”
Pat added: “The FARMS vehicle provides accessibility in otherwise inaccessible areas. (Our tenure) with the Philippine insurgency provided a great testing ground for the FARMS philosophy.
“Statistics showed that 55 percent of Philippine mountain children before age 5 died of malnutrition at the time we came in, but once we began helping with the FARMS model, not one child died of malnutrition of the families we worked with … what an exciting thing.”
This model rendered the local communist strategies inert, as people began to turn to the God who liberates the poor.
1993 to presentYears of testing and proving the Scriptural mandates of FARMS international confirmed to the Richters that the monster of poverty really can be tamed. Joe Richter became the executive director for FARMS International in 1993 and made Knife River, Minn., their organization’s new home base.
The “nuts and bolts” of the
FARMS approach have been developed to equip families in self-support. For more than 46 years, they have accomplished this by:
• Establishing regional programs managed and directed by indigenous FARMS committees.
• Providing funds from which regional
FARMS committees distribute loans to needy families recommended by local churches for income- generating projects (loans average from $100-$600).
• Teaching families essential technical and managerial skills.
• Discipling families and teaching the Biblical necessity of tithing. Tithing is required of every loan applicant.
• Recycling repaid loans to help additional families (90 to 100 percent repayment success!)
• The prayers and financial of supporters.
FARMS now encompasses programs in 12 countries; 24 volunteer committees indigenously functioning.
“Projects reflect the work, dreams and skill of the people we serve, and are tailored to fit the economy,” Joe said. “These programs create wealth out of the resources God has blessed the people with.”
A simple family project might include the purchase of a cow or two, their calf offspring, resultant milk production and sale of cattle to another church-family member who received a loan from the loan repayment monies. The loan thus quickly reinvests itself. Family tithing begins to strengthen the local church, which in turn prospers and reaches out, blessing the community and growing.
Effective revolving micro-loans have supported a variety of culturally friendly projects: ginger cultivation in Bangladesh; mushroom production in Moldova; marine fisheries in Vietnam; husbandry and organic “stench-free” pig-raising; crafts such as silver jewelry, fine handiwork and woodworking; and industries such as plastic recycling and rickshaw production … hundreds upon hundreds of lifesaving, independent work solutions.
Pat has observed that families released from the grip of poverty are easing the monster’s effects on their own communities. For instance, in Moldova, a family helped by a revolving FARMS micro-loan has now established “Houses of Hope,” providing extension families capable of maintaining a living for abandoned children in their communities.
In northern Thailand, where starving families are forced into the human traffic trade for $2-3,000 per child, children are literally being spared from a life of prostitution or slavery because families can now stay together, financially liberated through the blessings of micro-loans.
Joe explained FARMS International’s motto: “Doing Good That is Good.”
“Doing for the poor what they can and want to do for themselves is not good, even when done with good intentions, because it creates dependency and destroys dignity,” he said. “FARMS does not make money on the poor, but through revolving micro-loans the poor do create wealth that benefits their families and their whole community. We teach that the way out of poverty is through giving.
“Obedience in tithing by loan recipients promotes their spiritual growth and economic well-being. Tithing also strengthens the local church and increases evangelism. It enables the local church to be a source of blessing to the whole community. Our bottom line is strengthening families and their churches to carry out evangelism.
This is ‘Doing Good That is Good.’”
That the FARMS Biblical approach to releasing families from poverty really works is no surprise to Dr. Robert Goddard, a medical missionary for 35 years to the third world.
“In Bangladesh, I have worked with FARMS and national believers,”
Goddard said. “I have witnessed the ‘freeing’… as they see their financial dependency ending. The revolving loan fund managed by a local, nationally run committee is bearing fruit in the lives of believers. … The FARMS concepts are working. … All this is occurring while they serve in and support their local church and its growing ministry.”
New revolving micro-loans are being implemented as fast as FARMS is able. Pat Richter said, “The office is inundated with loan program requests – about five per week – from all over the world.”
“I don’t think we have underestimated what the poor can do for themselves, but the impact one program can have is amazing,” Joe said. “Northern Thailand, for example, over a seven-year period of revolving loans to between 400–500 families, from an investment of only $35,000, has generated an income of between one half to one million dollars.”
“More than a revolving account,” Pat said, “the program builds character, which builds Christian leaders.”
Joe adds: “These Thailand churches, now strong through self- support, are actively investing in dangerous evangelical ministry into bordering countries, extending their influence over 300 miles of border as missionaries … that’s what’s so exciting, small investments go a long way.
“Surprisingly, we have never found a poor person say they would not tithe. When asked by the committee, they respond, ‘I will tithe and trust God in my need,’ and they give joyfully.”
Pat adds: “This preserves their sense of dignity. They are not handed things, but given responsibility and Biblical accountability.”
To see the thankfulness in the eyes and hearts of the poor when they have hope again is an overwhelming thing.
“To the poor, it is totally amazing when somebody from a world away comes to them with the desire and ability to release them from poverty in the name of the Lord,” Joe said. “They respond by believing that God sees them there. They won’t be thanking us, they will be overwhelmed – thanking God for what they receive from Him, that God found them there. ... What a small investment … and we are there just to see what’s happening.
“We come and do not bring (gifts), only our love and a Biblical approach to freedom from poverty. Poverty reveals the real secrets of our hearts – Do we really love God’s people?”
“Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.” —
Galatians 6:10
