Spiritual fun making Kiva Loans

Hi guys!  I have blogged before about various times I’ve made loans on the website kiva.org.  Basically you make a small loan of $25 and people all over the world do the same and then the person who asked for the loan gets it, gets to invest in their small business, then pays it back over time.  You get to see the photo, name, and story of the people asking for loans, and you can search by gender and other factors.  I search for women asking for the loan on their own rather than in a group, and pick people I feel will pay it back, and who seem to have a positive effect on others.  But that’s not all.  There’s an extra idea I have in mind….

I loaned money to Hedaya in Palestine through Kiva.org

I also pick people I’d like to have tea with once or twice, or people with whom I feel I’d like to have a brief conversation.  People I respect and admire and would like to encourage.  I do this because I want to reward positive people, and also I believe that the spirit of those I pick actually know about me and the other lenders on a subconscious level.  I believe that we actually can meet briefly, in our dreams (on the “astral”), with our angels, and actually have tea.  So today I picked Hedaya a Palestinian woman who is 38, married, with two children in school.  She is making improvements to her women’s clothing shop.

Batbold has a wife and 3 kids in Mongolia. His daughter is a university student!

I also picked Batbold who is 53, married with three kids in Mongolia.  Both he and his wife are chefs and he is opening a cafe.  I had a positive sense of him right away, but when I read that his daughter is going to a university that reinforced my sense that he has a good heart.  So here’s to having tea with kind, sincere people, both while awake and in the body, and in our dreams with our angels!

I Made My 17th Kiva.org Donation- for Free!

photo of Kiva loan recipient in Mexico
I just helped to fund Felipe's loan so he can buy clothing to sell

I have blogged here before about my microlending through the website kiva.org.  For other posts on this topic check the right hand side under Categories: Giving.  Giving with the Kiva site is really neat, probably the most rewarding philanthropy work I’ve done so far.  You make a loan of $25 at a time to one person, and other donors around the world also pick whose loan they want to fund.  Usually I try to pick people that I feel are very positive and whose positivity benefits those around them.  I’m an energy reader, and with their name, photo, and description given by Kiva.org that’s way more than enough for me to get a sense of the person.  I think that’s enough for anyone to get a sense of the loan recipient!  For this last loan I made, I searched for people whose business involved clothing sales, and as I was looking through the photos, it struck me that Felipe in Mexico really needs this loan.  He’s not my usual pick beaming with positivity, but I get the feeling he really needs a break.  His other income source is farm work, and he has a wife and son he supports.  Here’s the page with information about Felipe and his loan.  Since these are loans, the people do repay them.  I made this loan a few weeks ago.  If you follow the link you will see that as of the date of this blog post not only have other lenders jumped on board so that his loan was fully funded, but he has already paid back 23% so far.  As they repay the loans I get the money back into my kiva account so I can loan it out again.  My loan to Felipe including the few dollar donation to kiva operating costs was all covered by balance I had already in my kiva account.

With Felipe and other loan recipients paying back into my account, I already have almost the entire amount I need back to make another loan!  Stay tuned to see who I’ll pick next!  🙂

My adventures in philanthropic giving with Kiva.org

photo of a kiva.org loan recipient
I just loaned $25 to this woman in Mongolia w/Kiva.org

I just loaned $25 to a woman named Oyunjargal Luvsanpurev in Mongolia through my kiva.org account.  I didn’t have to pay anything new since this was money already in my kiva account.  I have been a kiva.org member for almost two years now and this is my 13th $25 loan.  I have loaned to men and women in 11 different countries around the world.  Sometimes I will spend $25 plus the $3 or so operating costs to make a loan.  Other times I have balance in the account because my old loans have been repaid.  I have never had anyone default on my loans so far so I get to use the money again and again to make these microfinance business loans, except for that separate “operating costs” fee which is around $3.  If you want to make a loan to this woman too, a clothing designer who will use the money to buy a sewing machine for her business, you can follow this link.  Though she is asking for over a thousand US dollars, the loan will probably be fully funded within 24 hours.  It’s really amazing to see all these people from around the world helping others through kiva.  Oyunjargal is a widow and mother of two children.  I love learning details about the people I am helping, and loooooove seeing their photo.  I always am happy to see that they are gradually paying back their loan, which to me means that their business is succeeding.

I still have enough in my kiva account to make another loan, but I will wait until this Saturday and have my 10 year old “Little Sister” (through Big Brothers Big Sisters) help me to choose who gets the loan.  She has helped me once before, and it was actually hard for her to imagine that there were people out there who needed money more than her family.  When searching for a loan to fund on kiva.org you can specify if you want the loan to go to an individual or a collective group, and if you choose individual, a male or a female.  You get to browse through the photos, read the people’s stories, etc.  I’m a big fan!