A Christian charity has found a unique way of bringing the Gospel to hard to reach countries by offering entrepreneurial loans to poor families, reports Mission Network News.

|PIC1|With persecution of Christians around the world on the rise, mission groups are finding it increasingly difficult to reach Christians and non-Christians alike in limited access countries, particularly those at the top of Open Doors’ World Watch list which ranks North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Laos, Vietnam and Iran as the nations with the worst religious freedom record.

Farms International, however, is continuing to have success in bringing the Gospel to poor families whilst also helping them out of their poverty.

Joseph Richter, president of Farms International, explained that the charity helps Christian families out of poverty through entrepreneurial loans.

These loans are administered by nationals “with the expressed purpose of bringing these families out of poverty, and at the same time teaching them good stewardship and the practice of tithing back to the local church so that the church can become self-supported”.

|AD|Richter continued: “We work in at least five countries that you could consider very limited access. And, our purpose there is to strengthen the local church to do evangelism and also evangelism out from those countries."

Using nationals to distribute the loans has an additional benefit, explains Richter: “We have found that pastors and missionaries that are locally supported are very effective witnesses.

“It seems at times when support comes from the outside there is a suspicion,” he said.

But the programme has not only proved successful in helping the church to become more effective, but it has also helped Christians: “Because these people share what they’ve learned and help others in business and farming practices, we see these Christians become shining examples of Christ’s love and also become very effective witnesses.”

Farms International is currently running programmes within 12 nations with each programme within a chosen country costing just $10,000 to start up.

“We’re always looking for partners, especially church partners, that really want to have a programme that they can adopt as their own and watch what God does in that situation,” said Richter.