Partnership Overview

Life has never been easy in The Great Lakes area of Africa. The team here works under the banner of Harvest Partnership (INT05) based out of New Zealand but this group has diminishing resources and have a desire to see their key people become bi-vocational and self-sustaining, and not dependent on external resources for their living. 

They are mainly men with families of young children so their family and ministry costs are quite high. After setting up the first family with a loan it is expected that over a period of 1-3 years each of the six families will receive a loan to develop their businesses so they can become self-sustaining. They will repay into an account held in Burundi by Abel Rachete. 

Abel is the leader of a team of church trainers. He is based in Bujumbura, Burundi largely because his oldest child is disabled and requires ongoing medical care not available in the DR Congo. The team of six families are based in Burundi and DR Congo.  

History of Partnership

BHW has been partnering with Harvest Partnership since 2012, supporting a number of their key people. We have known the key leaders for many years and understand the impact of the work in this part of the world, as well as knowing the Board in New Zealand well.   

We have known and met Abel on numerous occasions in Burundi and in DR Congo and have been working to get this loan project established for three years.   

Beneficiaries

The beneficiaries are the families of the six men. This loan will enable them to be more effective and remove the stress of inconsistent income. These men are doing a wonderful work and it would be a real shame for it to fail because they were dependent on external funding and not able to support themselves. In addition, the work cannot grow by adding others if they are dependent on external funding. This is an attempt to remove the bottleneck and release them.

The people they serve and train are secondary beneficiaries. Many are very poor and they discover real needs as they move among the churches of DR Congo, Burundi and Rwanda.   

What We Like About The Partnership

These are really good men with a good record of faithfulness in ministry.
Their work is fruitful and growing in very difficult circumstances.
They have a strong team ethos and accountability. Their processes are well ingrained and are constantly being monitored.
There is accountability back to Harvest Partnership and to us. We now visit them regularly as part of our visits to Burundi. 
BHW has a well-established relationship with them having met them on numerous occasions in Burundi and DR Congo.  

Key People

Abel and Anita Rachete

In 2002 Harvest Partnership (HP) began work in Bukavu, East DR Congo. Abel was a university student and saw the effectiveness of the house church planting HP was teaching in many churches. He volunteered to help through office work and translation. He took time to observe the training seminars and enjoyed the news that many churches were being planted in city and rural areas as a result of each training. He came to know many of the active leaders and visited their churches. His mum was a woman of prayer, his vision was built on a Godly example. 

Abel successfully passed all his exams and prayed regarding what he should do with his life. When an HP worker moved from Bukavu to Bujumbura, Abel became God's obvious choice to fill his shoes. This he did very effectively, widening the impact of the ministry. By mid-2008 his vision, mentoring and encouragement ministry was evident. Abel was trusted by city and rural pastors and leaders much older than himself. He called them to prayer every Friday afternoon in Bukavu to encourage and intercede for one another. He visited rural towns to encourage their up-building and outreach in spite of many areas being afflicted by rebel armies. Once he was trapped in a rural church with leaders when a 3-day battle raged outside between rebels and the government troops. As a result of the CPM training, six stagnant churches became 31 home based churches in the first month after training. That growth continued. 

Abel began to fulfil the role of the East Congo coordinator. His monthly teaching and encouragement visits stretched from Goma on the north end of Lake Kivu, to the Uvira and Fizi regions covering the Congolese side of Lake Tanganyika. 

In 2009 he married Anita, his Uvira friend and soul mate in ministry. After 3-months of marriage he apologised to her for being away so much. Anita replied, "I married a man doing the work of God, I want to stay married to a man doing the work of God." They have been blessed with four children. The first born, Joanna, has significant physical problems. Ketsia, a little ball of fire, comes next. Samuel was born in 2012 and finally Joshua. Because of Joanna's medical needs, they were asked to establish a home base in Bujumbura close to treatment for her. 

In 2012/13 Bujumbura became his ministry centre as Burundi and Rwanda have become places of missionary work for him as well. He can easily visit all these places from there. The DR Congo fields are developing well but Burundi and Rwanda need much work. 

Vision And Annual Strategy

Vision 

The vision is to see these six families empowered economically so they are free to fulfil their ministry. 

Strategy

Each person has to present a researched small business plan to BHW's New Partnership Facilitator. This will be developed to a point where it can be ascertained whether it is viable or not. Each of the men will receive a loan of around US$3,000 and will be responsible to repay it over 3 years with simple interest of 10% per year.

All of them either have an existing small business or training to be able to run a business. Their families will be involved. 

In 2019 training was given to the team to assist them to research and develop a business plan. The first one will commence and then others will be presented. 

It is anticipated that in 5 years from now all of them will be self-sustaining and will have repaid their loans.  

Annual Budget

Each loan will be approximately US$3,000. 

First Loan Details

Abel and Anita

The first project is with Abel and Anita Rachete, as the leader. This has been done intentionally as he is the best English speaker and the easiest to access. There will be numerous things to work out as this first one is initiated and we want to learn as much as we can from the process. This includes getting the funds to them, opening a bank for repayments, establishing daily records, reporting etc. 

Abel and Anita have a small shop at their house from which they sell items. They buy wholesale and retail to their neighbours. They have contacts and want to begin also supplying wholesale products to catering and food preparation businesses.  The loan of US$3,000 will be given to them to help grow this business. The funds will be used to:

1) Purchase of capital items - shelves, pallets, table, chair, commercial cash register
2) Purchase of products for sale 

Anita will run the business and they don't anticipate employing anyone else to help them unless the business grows. The aim is to shift at least 80% of their product every month. Because of inflation, it is important they move product quickly so they can restock in the same market that they sell in.

They will not make any loan repayments for the first six months, however the loan will still be repaid over 3 years. They have determined how the profit will be used which includes a tithe, capitalising a percentage into the business to grow it and a percentage extra for themselves.