The Confirmation Class picked two women to support with a $25 loan: One in Cambodia wants to increase the goods for sale in her grocery shop and one in the Dominican Republic wants to add costume jewelry to her cosmetics and beauty supply lines. Visit our Church's Kiva Portfolio at http://www.kiva.org/lender/firstcongregational2645 . A third person will also be support. Read on for more information about Kiva.

Inspired by the example of Muhammad Yuris, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of Bangladesh's Grameen Bank, a group of young entrepreneurs, familiar with the power of the Internet and the concepts of ''E-commerce'', two years ago founded an organization named ''Kiva'', the Swahili word for ''unity'', to pool small loans of as little as $25 providing capital for persons in underdeveloped countries to create small businesses to support their families and serve their impoverished communities. You may have seen a program about Kiva on PBS's Frontline or on the Oprah Winfrey Show. It is also written about in President Bill Clinton's latest book, Giving, in Business Week, and in The Wall Street Journal.

You can learn all about Kiva at its very interesting Website: http://www.kiva.org/ . (We recommend you allow yourself at least a half hour. The ingenious way in which Kiva uses the Internet to raise and disburse capital to impoverished individuals who have no access to traditional banks nor loan collateral, the stories of the budding entrepreneurs you will find there, the journal entries showing how Kiva loans change lives is gripping.) If you do not have access to the Internet, a poster about Kiva – Loans that Change Lives will be found on the Mission Committee bulletin board.

Over the next few weeks we hope that, with the advice of members of our Church's youth fellowships, the Mission Committee will have established a portfolio of loans to entrepreneurs around the world. http://www.kiva.org/ gives us a way to monitor that portfolio through a link on its Website: http://www.kiva.org We intend to publish the email address and password associated with our portfolio and allow members to view it home through the Church's Website.

Kiva uses the Worldwide Web and electronic funds transfer technology to pool small loans from people like members of the First Congregational Church in Waterville, ME with those of other lenders to fund loans of several hundred dollars to perhaps $1500 to support the business plans of third-world entrepreneurs which are published on the Kiva.org website. Kiva raises the funds but relies on third world ''Field Partner'' organizations which work in the local economies to evaluate the loan applications, disburse funds, and collect periodic repayments. On behalf of its lenders, Kiva monitors the diligence of its third-world field partners so that lenders can evaluate the risk of loss of their principal. When a loan is repaid in full, at the lender's option, Kiva will either refund the principal or allow the lender to select another loan recipient.

At its August meeting, the Mission Committee completed a summer-long reflection on how we might use the $465 proceeds of the Spring Plant Sale and it was decided that we would use at least a portion of this money as a revolving fund to create a portfolio of small loans through Kiva. We will give priority to businesses in the communities of Honduras which we are supporting through our mission trips and the Maine Conference's relationship with the Evangelical and Reformed Church of Honduras but we will not limit our outreach to Honduras alone. The Mission Committee will begin selecting individual loan recipients at its September and October meetings. If you would like to make a recommendation of a loan applicant that you have found on the Kiva.org Website or if you would like to make a contribution to the revolving loan fund, please contact Tom Kahl, Chair of the Mission Committee, or Dave Hedrick, Mission Committee member.