For my birthday, Haim gave my gift away. Instead of buying me something I didn’t need, he made a loan to Sohir, an Israeli Bedouin woman going into business as a seamstress. I was one of 100 funders. In total, we loaned her $2750 for a sewing machine, paint for the shop, materials and supplies. Sohir works with an Israeli non-profit organization and will repay the loan, with interest, over 26 months. The loan is organized by Kiva.org, an organization that creates the opportunity for Sohir, and thousands like her around the world, to access capital and create self-sustaining lives for themselves and their families.
What can it matter that one impoverished Bedouin, Guatemalan, Armenian or Tanzanian person finds a dignified way to support his or her family? After all, the need is overwhelming.
When God sought to destroy the twin cities of S’dom and G’morrah, Abraham argued that individual human lives matter, that God should not “sweep away the innocent along with the wicked” (Genesis 18:23). God agreed.
Individual loans may seem pointless--to the lender, at least, if not the borrower. But when each life, each family is added up, the transformation is extraordinary. Since 2005, Kiva.org has lent $255 million to over 660,000 borrowers, working with 145 field partners in 61 countries, making housing, agricultural, educational, business and group loans. Their repayment rate is 98.90%. That’s nothing short of magnificent.
Each and every human life matters. “Must not the Judge of all the earth do justly?” Abraham asks (Genesis 18:25). Must not we, made in God’s image, do the same? Through Abraham, God says, “all the nations of the world will be blessed! For I have selected him so that he may teach his children and those who come after him to keep the way of the Eternal, doing what is right and just” (Genesis 18:18-19). Ken Yihi Ratzon—so may it be.
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