Certainty in Uncertainty

This past weekend was a much needed retreat with the Gringos to the peninsual of Samana. About 4 hours away from Santiago and Santo Domingo, it is perhaps the least touched area of the DR. Underdeveloped and not easy to get to, it is the DR's own version of the Outer Banks, and I hope it stays that way. It is calm and tranquil and the town we stayed in, Las Terrañas, has a small town feel that places like Juan Dolio, Punta Cana, or Puerto Plata can´t even touch. I have come to learn that I live for the weekends, and I am pretty sure that is the only way I will survive my time down here. Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying this internship. But it is not easy living in a country where you don't understand the language.

True fact: I speak Spanish, not Dominican.

Beyond the language barrier, working with the poor is a difficult and arduous task. The monumental responsibility to organize and lead thousands of illiterate, uneducated, but willful people is tiresome and daunting. I have realized (and maybe even mentioned in this blog once before) that it takes a special person to do this type of an internship. And again I don't mean to lift myself up on a pedastle, for there are certainly days I would much rather retreat to my air conditioned basement back in Maryland and enjoy the US's draw against England with a nice angus burger (Note: I hate McDonalds and I detest this current "Angus" craze) than sit here in an office receiving a blast of air in rhythmic timings of ten seconds as a fan designed for a closet attempts to keep the air circulating.

But this post isn't about me. It is about the Domincans that work in this office. As difficult as it is for us interns here, or for the few ex-pats down here right now, none of our struggles or experiences here can surmount to any comparison to the employees of Esperanza. We are here for but three months, the ex-pats perhaps a year or two. But imagine if your job for the next 15 years was to work with the poor by providing capital to the most unstable of lives in this world; to try and provide order in a sector of the global economy that has been under the reign of chaos for thousands of years.

Consider the differences. A man working in Washington DC knows that each morning a train leaves the Shady Grove Metro Station about every 10 minutes. The ride will take him 45 minutes to reach Union Station to where he then has but a three block walk to his office. Allowing an extra three minutes for traffic lights, he can assume that his commute will take about an hour. He then enters his office and commences nine hours of work at his desk. His return journey will be the same.

Employees of Esperanza have to wait for clients that are coming to meetings by car, foot, bus, or bike. They have to hope that they all have their money and that they all show up. The amount of patience they must show, especially with so many variables that can throw off any attempt of order and consistency, is astounding. But perhaps what is more amazing is the amount of order these banks can obtain. Success rates on these loans is astoundingly high. People are surprised mainly because these loans go to "poor people" and their assumption is that they are uneducated and illiterate and therefore unable to appear every two weeks and pay a sum of money they have been told (and explained) to pay. Lets be honest, four year olds can do that.

No, I am not surpised by the fact that these are "poor people" that are repaying loans better than Americans. I am surprised at that these are people who have created some sort of stability in their world where the only certainty they had was that things were uncertain. They have been able to overcome shortcomings, downfalls, outages, sicknesses, unreliabilty, and more to create one more normalcy to their lives. They know things are uncertain, but they also know that every 14 days they must make a payment to Esperanza.

This is why microfinance works. And this is why microfinance works so well with the Christian faith. Christ needs to be our Certainty, our normalcy, and our routine. As my devotion said today, based on John 15:4, we must abide in Him.

"Nor can you bear fruit unless you abide in me"

Ironically enough, Americans have just as much instability in their lives as Dominicans do. It just isn't as noticable as a car breaking down or a power outage. We all can learn from these men and women who have taken a loan out and found stability. Just as they have learned to trust in Esperanza through trusting and lasting relationships with these loan officers, so we must learn to trust and last in our relationship with Christ. We must abide in Him.