Debate Night! Better get this done now!

 

I found this in my archives, too.  It was the first cookbook I found for low-income households, on food benefits.  I don't remember the year.  I do remember there was a Banana Pancakes recipe.  :-)  

I still haven't found my go-to recipe for pancakes.  :-)

Today has been a day of more sorting, shredding, making donation piles, and all those things that go with downsizing. 

Another food day.

And I have to prep for the rain that starts tonight.

What is your day like?

I am still having conversations with GOD about my finances and what I need more money for.  My Bucket List.  What I would like to do before I leave this earth - or go to a care facility.  

I love the Kenya organization called Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.  It is mostly for elephants, but also other wildlife in their area.  I discovered they have an event in NYC right now.  A "herd" of 100 elephants on display.  It's in the meatpacking district - I don't know why, and don't like the association of the two.  I will look for photos, but it would be nice to see.

There is a long list of places I would like to see in NYC, and DC, and around the East Coast, if I ever got there.  I would love to stay on that part of the country for a long time, maybe two months (I'm not sure yet) so I could really see what exists out there.  Ministries, government, historical, and fun places like Broadway and the Bible Museum.  

This is why I need to win the next billion-dollar lottery!  :-)

I am very aware that people all over this world never get to do anything in their whole lives.  I know I am not a special case for GOD to be concerned with, but I still ask (again and again).  I try to do what I can online to reach that income level myself, with GOD's blessings, but have not found that path yet.

I listened to some Joel Osteen videos last night and this morning.  When he says that we have to ask in a certain way, I can't see it.  GOD will do whatever He wants to do, whether I ask at all.  

I don't ask the way Osteen suggests.  Maybe I am upset by the thought I haven't sought GOD in a different way, in the "positive" way, and have caused my own poverty.  I have expected GOD to provide according to His Will and Time.  I have waited all these years because I know about Abraham and Sarah's lack of faith to wait for GOD.

This is such an issue.

I think the underlying problem is the difference between a prayer of "faith" and a prayer of desperation.  

This battle has been going on all of my life. 

I shouldn't have this faith that I do. 

But I know GOD is going to do whatever it takes to provide for His Will. 

Technology has changed everything in our lives, more than we know.  It is a sign of the future.  We see it one way, Satan sees it another way, and GOD says we don't want to be here when it really gets bad.  That is why we will be killed by the Antichrist, not "raptured" away to avoid standing for GOD, Jesus, and Faith.  

The Bible tells us Man will die once, then face the Judgment.  Billions of people are not going to escape death because of the Antichrist and Tribulation.  It is just not how GOD works.  

There are only two humans who have not died and left this earth.  I believe they will be the two witnesses at the end, and they have to die when their "job" is done.  God does not lie.

The Bible says some die to keep them from what the future will become.  I think that is why the Antichrist is going to become the ruler he is prophesied to be.  Whatever is ahead, it is going to be really bad.  Death is going to be a blessing, not a punishment.

I wish I knew all the answers.  I just share what I have decided after studying the Bible for myself.  I need to study it again, but I am dealing with issues beyond my control.  I have decided to trust GOD for this battle.  I will keep searching for a way forward.

I wanted to do so many things.  Now, at my age and health, I don't know what I can do.  If GOD provides, I will do as much as my life allows.

I hope you have that plan, too.

Keep Going. Trusting GOD. Looking for Miracles.

 

I woke up this morning and realized I didn't write my Friday post, so here it is.

I guess everything is the same.  

Sorting and shredding papers.  

My food quest to use up the supplies I have so I can replace them with new items.  

Working on my budgets. 

Dreaming.

Listening to sermons and music on YouTube. 

Downsizing even more.  

Looking for answers to my lifelong prayers before it's my time to leave this earth.

I always have more than I can do, and not enough money to do most of the items on my list.

Trusting GOD for the end of the story, for the details, for the path.

Tired.

Not hungry, thankful for that.

Looking toward this Christmas.  Hope to make it a good one.

Going through the records of my past brings up a lot of memories.  We all wish we could change some of the parts of our lives.  I am glad the ones GOD has forgiven will not be held against me when I get to judgment.  Those will be covered by the blood of Christ.  GOD will not see them anymore.

I will just say that trying to use up the food supplies I already have is a huge challenge.  I am wondering how long things last, what I can make out of what I have, and if I should go to the store JUST for the missing items I need to make more foods out of what I have... like ketchup for my homemade dressing, baking powder for pancakes, and things like that.  

The problem is, if I go to the store I will break down and get a lot of things and that will change the challenge.   :-)   This is what I do.  Debate things like this with myself.  Not going to the store forces me to find other answers, uses up my old foods, and helps me to see what emergency foods can do in real life.  

I have more pasta than I want to eat.

Lots of dry foods like oatmeal, rice, quinoa, beans, lentils, peas, barley, and more.  I barely eat these foods when I have other things instead.  I can make my own bread, even tortillas if I have to, and have bouillon to substitute as part of my proteins.  

I am slowly eating less and hope to lose just a bit more weight through this.  I would like to get down to two meals and a snack -- maybe -- and need to eat more soft foods for my aging body.

These are a lot of issues wrapped up in this small challenge.

I hope nothing catastrophic happens while I am doing this.  That would really be a huge problem.  Not a good thing.  I would never recover.  

I guess I will work on my solution/s and let you know where I am in the process next week.

PRAY FOR ME !!!   :-)  

New blog topics today -- no focus on my challenge :-) I hope!

I almost forget this entry because I was watching the second documentary I rented at Amazon yesterday, along with 8 Kindle books!!!  (You will have to search at Amazon videos for Urban Farmers as I couldn't find a website to link you with.)

I don't think I will be good at saving money... not really. I had enough, and only bought 99-cent books, one was only 49-cents!  :-)  The documentaries were the overspend, but they were only $1.99 each.  :-(



URBAN FARMERS was the first one I wanted to watch.  Rural people have more options than big city people, especially the poor.  This film was about New York City's food issues... food deserts, no land for farming, farmer's markets, CSA's, and whatever else they have there.  One thing I discovered in watching the film is the distance they have to go for farm products.  The CSA speaker said they get food from a 250-mile radius.  I was trying to decide how to apply that information to Oregon, and remembering Los Angeles issues.

Someone was smart enough to save the last piece of farmland relatively close to the main city.  I think that was Queens County Farm.  It's 47 whole acres.  Since it's a county property now, they do school field trips and more.

One other really interesting part for me was the online site Cornell University put together to connect the farmers and the people who want their products.  I still have to find it online and see what it is doing these days, but the idea sounded wonderful.  I am all for LOCAL emphasis.  I have been trying to advocate for emergency planning to know what food sources are around their region so they know where to go for food in a crisis.  That kind of website would be really good for everyone to think about establishing.

I thought they would have some roof gardens because the main movie photo shows green on top of roofs, but they didn't show any.  The CSA's are helping provide a lot of good food for the city people and helping the farmer's survive.  The Farmer's Markets are growing.  One neighborhood farm project was on temporary space, I think.  That is a real problem in developing food sources in places that are just not able to be developed at the time.  They work so hard and then they get destroyed by the owner of the properties.



A SIMPLER WAY was filmed by someone I support (slightly) at PATREON right now... I think.  I haven't found out for sure yet because he hasn't answered my messages.  I suppose he must be busy if he's doing films like the two I have seen, this one and one called LIVING THE CHANGE, also set in Australia.  I have decided he must live there. His name is Jordan Osmond.  I wonder if he will be able to build a Patreon page like a Kickstarter page... this will be interesting to watch, for now.

I checked for the website and found a link to watch it free (as of tonight...).  See what you think of young people trying to make a community from not much.

Here's my Earth Day offering for this post.  I didn't make a new post.  On social media I shared the three graphics I have on Earth Day issues.  I still remember my previous effort to share a Canva creation here... it was way too big.  I will have to do more of the size above... right?!

I spent a lot of time today looking through some of the Kindle books I bought.  Some classics like As A Man Thinketh and The Greatest Secret.  Ones on publishing books, social media marketing, building email lists, selling, etc.  I am trying to decide what kind of books I want to publish, and how to do it... with my current situation.  One comment in a book I was browsing today was that no one has time to read anymore... so the online books seem to be very short.  He has a formula.  :-)  I am still checking it out.  Amazon has a "short reads" section and the limit is 100 pages I think.  That was my first book goal... to do a short read.

I think I am done for tonight.

Until next time,
May GOD help us all to be better people,
and to reach the goals He has put in our hearts to accomplish.
May He protect us from harms we cannot overcome,
and help us to find our way through the valleys we must go through.

In Christ,
Deb Martin

work2gather.us
patreon.com/DebsRetirementPlan
etsy.com/shop/work2gather

Wednesday, 27 June 2018

I decided I better get this done early, my body is already heading into the go-to-bed-early stage...  :-)  Life is so much fun.

I got the book I ordered :: Banker to the Poor, by Muhammad Yunus, who is stated to be the founder of the Grameen Bank, which I think the book is about.  I decided to buy it because I saw a video of a young woman who discovered it as a teen and it inspired her future in the same direction... financing people who would never be approved for help by a regular bank.

My copy is Copyrighted in 1999 and 2003... the notes say it was originally published in 1997 by another person, JC Lattes... I could make a joke here,  but it probably would not go over here.  :-)

Money options and poverty have been a quest of mine since I went into the welfare system and couldn't find any way out that worked for me.  I discovered classes for something in the business cycle... in the Los Angeles area so many years ago.  I have talked about this before... it is my example of what exists... or, what did exist.  Crowdfunding has changed a lot, but there still are problems for those who don't have the ability to access crowdfunding.

In that experience I decided that there had to be real money at the end of the class.  What levels, I am not sure.  I think anything would have helped back then.  The classes were about formulating a plan for your business.  Then you had to go find funding from somewhere with your plan as part of the process.  Poor people, the kind of poor people who don't have anything, would never have that option, to be approved anywhere.

I should say that the video I watched said the company they operate puts people through a process before they can be approved for any money, including creating minimum partnerships in the lending group... three people was the minimum.  I'm not sure right now all the details of their loan process, but it wasn't easy... like ask and receive.  There was a process and they had to be approved.  The examples they showed were mostly women, which is the group most in need of financial help everywhere, but they also grew their businesses over time and didn't need the special financing anymore.

I guess it is dangerous to succeed in some countries because the good loan people were damaging the loan shark's business... the lenders were actually threatened by them.  I think that would be a hard reality to deal with.  I discovered that loan sharks require 10-40% interest PER day or month, I don't remember.  I think it was day, but I'm not sure.  No wonder people are running from loan sharks.

I guess my desire through Working Together was to create some kind of options for surviving, too... but at an individual level... for families, for communities, for churches, for anyone.  I decided membership was the only way to apply this equally, and then decided larger loans can be handled with a program that would be for members, either Christian or Public members.

Poverty is a long-term problem that doesn't go away in one government budget cycle.

Well, the author (Yunus) wrote other books since, and it says he won the Nobel Peace Prize, so it must be doing good work still.  One of these days I will check on it, but I have other things to do right now.  I hope to browse the book over the weekend.

*

I have been trying to remember all the things I did today, in case there was something more to share, and I couldn't get past the normal everyday life things.  I did watch a webinar replay that took over an hour, on creating courses to sell or provide for free viewing online.  It was a beginning look at the process.  The site is called  TEACHABLE (.com) and it offers a structure to learn the process. I took notes, but I wish I knew how to do screenshots... that would have helped a lot.  :-)

Once you see these webinars, you notice how other people are approaching you, and seeing they must have watched this too... or be one of their customers!  haha  I guess that is how it will be...

I liked some of their "lists" of how to go about this outreach, but I didn't agree with everything.  Some of the pricing is affordable for the future, but I'm not sure how I want to proceed in the video and teaching and course opportunities... I have to decide between YouTube or another site that does video access... and other places I already know about.  Each option offers different benefits, and you have to find the ones you can afford and handle.  I hope to make a decision when I am clearer on how I want to proceed with Working Together or my personal goals.


*
I guess, right now, I am still trying to find my "start-up funding" for Working Together, trying to find added income for my retirement needs (less than $400 doesn't go far), and have to get my legal issues for my senior years figured out.  That takes all my time...and prayers... and energy.

I know GOD has a plan for all this, I just wish I had a better idea what it was.  :-)

Until next time,
In Christ,

Deborah Martin
work2gather.us

*
*
*
May GOD bless the good people and help them to see the needs all around them.
May GOD help me to do more of the things He has put in my heart to do.
May GOD reach out into this world and comfort those who are suffering.
May GOD find a way to make His Presence known to those who are searching for answers that only He can provide.

Help us to be the ONE BODY that will provide for all of us. Amen.

Monday, 1 January 2018

A new year...
I saw a post on Facebook the other day... about the New Year.  It said something like ::

One year = 365 opportunities

Nice way to see the year...
We can start over every new day...
Begin again...

I have "exercise" as my theme this year...
I will probably be doing a lot of starting over !!!   :-)

I am still working on my goals for the next year.
I am trying to put them down on paper so I can look at them as time goes by.
One section on my goal sheet is for my top 3 goals.
I have been thinking about those since I reformatted my goal page.

Goals are not exactly like the list of things you want to get.
I have a long list of things I need to buy to do the things I have as goals...
for crafting, for business, for personal things like my bucket list...
but that is not the same as what is my bigger goal for the whole year.

Our budgets make our goals, I guess.
I don't have much money to work with, so things take a lot longer.
When I have to start over again, it only takes longer...
I have to get to where I was and then try to keep going.
I watched some ROKU channel this weekend,
including part of a documentary on people who are homeless
and surviving in the drainage tunnels under big cities.
Every winter, everything gets "washed away" and then you have to start over.
Tent people suffer the same problem...
there is a "sweep" and all the efforts they have made to get ahead are taken to the dump.
I lost most of my things when they were in storage lockers.
One payment missed and they want to sell your life's belongings.
I remember hearing about a famous person owing a storage place thousands and thousands of dollars and they still had their possessions.  Why do the poor lose theirs after one month?
People need a place to build... a place they can make their own...
even poor people need that.

This year is a blank canvas.
I hope it becomes a great memory.

In Christ,
Deborah Martin

*
*
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May the GOD who owns it all decide to share some with me.  :-)  Amen.

Thursday, 16 November 2017

So much happens in every day that can be shared as thoughts that provoke, that change, that need to be expressed, but I get here and the current moment is just a small piece of time.

I really need to write a book about the purpose for Working Together.

How many chapters?
How many words?
How many pages?

How do I fit a lifetime into print?

*
I read a news item today about the increasing delinquency rate for auto loans... and that people with bad credit scores "don't have many options to get money to buy a new or used car and often end up getting a subprime auto loan that comes with an interest rate of 15 to 20 percent."  So their lives get worse with every effort to make it better.  I know the feeling.

Since learning that GOD also charges interest when people borrow their tithes, my goals for financial programs has been deeply affected.  When I first started planning some way to help members get through their hardships, I decided to offer member credit towards WT products, programs, and events... with an interest charge of one percent each month on the unpaid balance, thinking it would encourage quicker repayment.  This would be a maximum of 12% a year if the balance continued.  Right?  (I'm not a banker, I was just trying to find a fair option.  I didn't want to charge more than would be needed to pay for the program's overhead and expenses.  Automatic increases with each membership year were planned, as long as the previous balances had been kept up to date -- a minimum payment of $5 was expected to show that the member was aware of their debt.

I haven't figured out the jubilee effect yet.  That is still being decided.

Now I have discovered that GOD charges a flat 20% fee for borrowing the money we are expected to give to Him.  I am trying to work that out in my plans.

You can see how different the world would be if we operated with GOD's plan.  My school loans started at about 30K dollars, they are now in the 150K range.  If I don't win the big lottery prize or sell a lot of products online, it will just keep increasing until I die... and then who knows what the government will do.  My current income is less than $400 a month, plus food stamps and government medical.

I don't know why GOD hasn't provided the income I needed to get Working Together going, but I can't change the world without a decent amount of start-up money.  I guess the banks will win this battle, too.

*
I have also been trying to contact local government offices about low-income housing that is in jeopardy of being sold to the highest bidder.  The government sees the program as a burden because they can only see it as a subsidy program... that means it costs them money they just don't have.  I see homeless housing as part of the low-income program, with the government owning the land and the resident owning the "improvements" on the land.  Using the same 30% of income formula that the government already uses for subsidy payments, a poverty household could begin the ownership process and eventually sell their property to the next low-income resident when they are able to purchase their next house.

A lot of changes would happen between the first payment and the last... depending on the property the government sold to them.  Government apartment complexes can become housing associations of owners.  People will have the stability they need, and not be afraid of being kicked out, and be able to slowly improve their future options.  If people have problems that will keep them at the same income level, like senior status or disabilities or other problems, they can still be owners of their homes and have something to build on.

Poverty isn't going anywhere, the people who are poor will just change as each generation passes through this life.  Isn't it better to create a permanent, positive, financially sound program that earns the government an income instead of adding to their subsidy burdens... and the change in direction will allow the program to create more housing options as the years go by.

*
Tax reform is overdue, but the government will never do what is right.  Expecting them to reduce their wages, cut off their power strategies, eliminate bad laws that just encourage their re-election, or enforce laws that protect our future, is unrealistic.  I don't know how it can be done, but to save America we need a complete change of direction in tax perspectives.  ONE TAX is what the government needs to live on... ONE reasonable tax that is forever limited, restrained, enforced.  I realized there was only one tax that could be applied at a global level - and divided fairly among our three primary government levels - so I have been advocating a 10% sales tax since then.

Ten percent can be collected at 3% for federal, 3% for state, and 3% for county governments.  Our international commitments can be paid with the remaining 1%.  This covers all the internet sales issues, reduces all the various overhead and oversight issues with the IRS and other tax agencies, allows taxes to be collected and adjusted in real time, allows for arrests with illegal activities by tax evasion, eliminates income tax, property tax, estate tax, and other taxes - which will greatly stimulate the economy, AND it will tie every single decision government makes to the health of the economy.  I just remembered that this limited tax structure would still allow each government to enter into partnerships with the others (for roads and things like that) and would also still allow the creation of government bonds, which investors seem to like.

I'm sure I have mentioned other things since I started sharing this concept, but that is all I can remember tonight.

Imagine how different the world would be.

*
I guess I just wish my life would have allowed me to implement some actions toward these goals... get them going, I guess.  The financing changes would disrupt the current practices.  The tax changes would disrupt the government and make it better after a bit of an adjustment period. The housing changes would set the government on a path toward creating its own income instead of always resorting to new taxes, increasing taxes, and abusing tax funding. 

I hope someone will get these things going if I am not able to... but, as I am still breathing, I will keep trying to move in these directions and others that I want to see done...like prison reforms, education choices, business development for the poor, and more...

In Christ,
Deborah Martin
office@work2gather.us

Monday, 23 October 2017

What a weekend!
My son and his wife were gone so I ended up parking myself in front of the TV, watching documentaries, and a few free movies... I guess you would call it binge watching.  I watched them on Saturday, then again on Sunday, and today (when I was trying to make a list of the ones I watched) I discovered some more and watched them!

I like documentaries.
I have a hard time with movies.

I watched one movie (CRASH) that was on race issues in Los Angeles, where I come from, and it was rated R...  I really regret seeing any of the parts that made it an R movie.  Some of the race issues were new to me. I hate to think of anything like that really happening.  It's hard to judge a movie when the situations seem so hard to believe.  I may be in denial, but I hope not.  Our police authorities are powerful over us as a people, we can hardly wage battles against them if they go bad.  It's a huge historical reality.  The Bible talks about what happens when evil is present in the leadership of our lives... it's not good.

Some other movies I decided to watch, for the first time ever, were ::  Earth to Echo, La La Land (another one about Los Angeles), and Remember the Titans (another film about race issues, but from the difficult days when the government first tried to change the southern school systems).

I guess the bussing issues of that time are a bit familiar to me.  One of my sons had to be bussed from a downtown Hollywood neighborhood to a better neighborhood in the Valley.  It was a difficult burden, not just a matter of getting on a bus and getting off a bus.  California (Los Angeles, again) isn't quite the same as the deep south, but Los Angeles is where the Watts riots happened... a big race conflict.

In the years of my struggles, I have come to see that surviving takes up all your time and energy... it's hard to keep up with all the events that happen... the history that is happening in our lifetimes.  In poverty there aren't too many options to change the status quo.  Every month was a struggle to survive.  Not much else mattered.

One of the documentaries I watched (all of them were on Netflix) was about happiness... it was even called HAPPY.  Other documentaries were on food issues (something on Kid's Menus and another on finding Israeli Cuisine), drugs (Heroin(e), Resistance), the environment (A Plastic Ocean), free speech according to the media (Nobody Speak), and one about photographers (Refugee).  That's all I can remember.  I may have watched more.

You really need to watch "A Plastic Ocean" and start thinking about the ecosystem we call Earth, your food supplies (I think they said the oceans provide 70% of our food supplies, more for some cultures), and how we can save what all of us depend on for life.  I think it was too long, but I was binging so that may not be a good review.  I remember thinking that 30-minutes would be enough to show to kids in their classrooms, maybe on TV, and would get a better audience for the topic.  Maybe a series of the many important topics they touched on... like chapters on a single disk.  I cried, more than once.

The film on kids was great for me to see.  It had a project for the kids to plan their food for the day based on the Food Plate they were learning... 10 foods they would eat in a day, with 6 being from the fruit and veggie group I think.  I thought that would be a great idea for me.  I have been seeing that the number of foods we need to eat are not that many, and the true portions are not as much as we are used to eating.  I thought this would be a great challenge for my own eating efforts.  I plan to try it ASAP... this week at some point.  This documentary had some other ideas I liked, but I can't think of them right now.  It's late, and I binged on so many documentaries.  (sorry....)

Another very important documentary to watch is the one called RESISTANCE.  It is about how our favorite medicines are rapidly evolving into new strains that are resistant to the diseases we depend on them killing.  It takes death to make us aware of this problem, and it isn't going away.  GMO foods are another perspective of this same issue... how are they affecting our bodies.  The chemicals in plastic (from the ocean film) are also another part of this same issue.  We are killing ourselves without realizing it.

The humanity of refugees are seen in the film on that topic.  It is hard to see why we fault people who are doing what we would... just wanting to be safe, wanting to protect their children, wanting to be with their families and loved ones.  The horrible poverty they are forced to live in, the death that is forced on them by neglect, the ability of people to rise above the horrors and keep going...these are the facts of their survival.

So... that is what I did this past weekend.
What about you?  What did you learn that you didn't know before?

In Christ,
Deborah Martin

Are you the Christian I am looking for?

Monday, 27 June 2016
http://faith-and-prayer.blogspot.com




The Body of Christ and Money :: Lending to the Poor



I have been trying to get to this blog for several days because a variety of spiritual issues have been winding through my thoughts.  I am trying to decide how they will affect my current life and my life in the near future.  I am looking for GOD in my crisis... what is His path for me through these days, what is His purpose in allowing them to happen.  Sometimes writing helps me to sort through all those parts of a problem.

Right now, the most urgent issue I am facing is housing.  It has again come to the top of the priority list and there still is no visible solution to this problem.  For me the battle always seems to be money... too little of it... to little to easily get ahead of the financial problems it causes.

Because I cannot suddenly create the income I need, I am believing GOD will provide a way to access the housing I need, the workspaces and equipment I am searching for, and other necessary items required to continue building Working Together Inc. 

You may be the Christian GOD uses to help me.

I don't want to endure another homeless experience, but that seems to be possible.  I am really too old and tired and not healthy enough to fight these battles again, but I also realize there are already many others suffering the same plight, and these are the times of persecution.  The means may be different, the source may have changed, but the effects and the motives are the same.

So, again, I am looking for the Body of Christ, trying to find even ONE Christian to be the answer to my needs and my prayers.  I am looking for GOD in the middle of my distress, my prayers, my hope, and my life.

I am praying for a place I can OWN 

so I won't ever have to move

or be homeless again.

Here are some of the things I am looking for in my housing prayer ::

• As I near the end of my earthly life, I am praying for a final place to live, a home and land that I will never have to move from again.  
• It needs to be in the Eugene OR area, where Working Together has been existing almost since it was born.
• It needs to be a decent home that won't need a lot of repairs, be big enough for me and my planned work projects, have space for the help I will need, and include land to develop food and other resources. 
• I am praying for a place that is on a major bus line so I can travel to town for what I need to survive daily life with, so customers will be able to reach me, and so I can hire employees who ride the bus. 
• Because of my financial situation, I need a flexible payment structure, and the first three years of survival and development income included in the loan (approx. $18 to $30K/year).  This will allow me to survive as I develop the property for income purposes. 
• Having discovered that GOD lends us the tithe if we need it, requiring a 20% fee when it is repaid, I am looking for a similar arrangement over at least 15 years, but will repay this loan as quickly as GOD provides the income for it.
• Using the property for collateral is expected, but the goal is never to move again and to (finally) have the workspaces I have searched for almost all my life.  Considering the property a tithe unto GOD is also an option, which would make GOD responsible for paying you through other channels in your life.

The loan I am searching for would look like this...

• Principal
• plus 20% as interest 
• divided over 15 years or more (180 months or more) 
• with no payments due the first three years 
• and flexible payments for the remainder of the loan 
• possibly smaller in the beginning 
• and larger at the end
• an early repayment option (including the full 20%)
• maybe a partial balloon payment option

I know it is asking a lot, but this is the prayer I need answered,

now, as soon as possible.

How much do I need?  I'm not sure.  It will depend on the property.

I would like to share that I have been looking for housing answers for the homeless (and Christians as the End Times get worse) for many years.  I have always been a fan of Habitat for Humanity, but then I discovered the $20,000 House at Auburn University's Rural Studio.  After that, Tiny Homes appeared on the scene.  I have been trying to design my own version of homes that will fit in this loan category.  I feel it is possible to help millions of homeless, disabled, and low-income people to own a small home now, changing their lives forever. 

Below I would like to describe the financing program I hope to build to achieve this goal.  It is based on the Bible concept I shared earlier and puts that concept into real numbers, so you can understand the possibilities.



When I was working on my budgets for tiny/small homes for those on a fixed income, the maximum biblical loan I felt fair was $50K, which included $40K for the house, $8K for the biblical 20% flat fee interest and a $2K loan processing fee to cover expenses in that direction. 

Another option I figured out was to take the 30% of the income that would become the monthly housing payment a person could pay and multiply it by 180 months to get a maximum loan amount for that person.  In my current financial status, that would be $115 times 180, or $20,700... which would become $20K for math purposes.  This loan amount is divided into $15K maximum for the house, $3K for the interest, and $2K for the loan processing fee.

Fifteen thousand dollars doesn't afford much of a house, even in tiny houses.  Larger loan options are needed for people at the lower end of the economy, and that is why I went up to the $50K maximum for each loan.  This maximum loan amount creates a monthly payment in the $275 range.

Another issue poverty households face is the debt collection process.  Debt collections can cause homelessness in the lives of people trying to recover from poverty or a financial crisis.  It may be important to limit the final equity in a house to less than the legal amount at the time a loan is created for a house.  That limit was $30K the last time I checked.  This debt collection process is why so many with unpaid medical bills end up losing their home... they are forced to sell their house by creditors because their equity is more than $30K.  Where do you turn when the bank is the collector?

A $30K house would also have a $6K interest fee and a $2K loan processing fee... that would be $38,000 divided by 180 months, or monthly payments just over $200.  With a maximum of $50K possible, there might be room to add to the loan to cover insurance for the first few years, or more improvements to the property.

The key to success in this kind of lending program is flexibility... working with people through their problems, helping them to succeed, protecting them from more homelessness, building supports into their lives, and trusting GOD for the process.

I am looking for this kind of loan, but probably at a much larger financial level to cover the land and start-up costs of what I hope to do.

Are you the Christian I am looking for?