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Table Banker

Tsitsi Chitaka, age 74, sewed the colorful dress she’s wearing. She also practices Farming God’s Way and no longer suffers through the annual “hunger season."

Every day during our five days in Zimbabwe, we’re visiting Heaven’s Family-supported projects and their beneficiaries in the Dora Region. Generally speaking, Heaven’s Family funds projects in the developing world that help our poor spiritual family members lift themselves using their God-given muscles, brains, and opportunities. Those projects always benefit groups whose members support each other, often in the context of house churches that we (and they) call “God’s Love Groups.”


One of the least expensive investments that we make, but one that has a proven track record, is teaching poor believers the concept of “table banking.” We don’t invest any money. The only investment is simple training.


Table Banks consist of small groups of people who meet regularly to save and/or invest their money together. Today, one of the many Zimbabwean women whom I interviewed, 74-year-old Tsitsi Chitaka (in the photo above), told me that she leads a Table Bank that consists of 16 women. When they meet once a month, each member brings $10 to $20, depending on what they can afford, to invest in their common Table Bank. Any of the 16 women can borrow from the Bank’s accumulated funds, but only to launch a short-term business, and they must repay their loans in full within three months. The interest rate is 20% per month. So, if a Bank member borrows $100, and she repays in one month, she must repay $120. If she repays in two months, she must repay $140. By this means, the shared bank capital grows over the a period of twelve months, at which time it is then proportionately divided among the members based on the amount they invested. So everyone benefits from everyone’s successful business ventures.


Tsitsi told me that some women borrow money to buy chicks, which they grow and sell after two or three months (as chickens), and their profits more than cover the bank interest charges. (Even if they only break even, they benefit at year’s end when all of the bank’s capital is divided among the members.) Other borrowers buy bulk wholesale items which they sell at retail prices. By the end of the year, everyone’s monthly investments have grown significantly as the bank has prospered from the loans.


Keep in mind that all the bank members are very poor, living on $100 to $150 per month. Getting a loan of $50 to $200 makes possible what would otherwise be impossible.


Tsitsi told me that her bank is doing so well that, at the end of twelve months, her bank will “have an enormous sum.” She said that when all the bank’s capital is divided among its 16 members, all of them are hoping to buy small refrigerators! I assumed Tsitsi was speaking of solar-powered refrigerators, as there is no public electricity in the remote region of Zimbabwe where they all live.


Below are a few more photos from the day with captions that include the stories of other poor women who are helping lift their families from extreme poverty though table banking, sewing, Farming God’s Way, and other Heaven’s Family-supported self-help projects. As always, thank you for making all this blessing possible through your investments in Heaven’s Family.

Above is Lydia Karumbidza, age 46. She and her husband have three daughters. He can only find sporadic work as a welder and builder, so Lydia is happy that she can now help support their family through her new sewing business. She has been a student at the Space of Hope (SOH; see my first blog) for 15 months, and has become an expert seamstress. She was proud to tell me that she recently sold 18 wrap skirts at an Easter Church conference.

One item she showed me was the women’s purple blouse that she is holding in the above photo. I found it interesting that her biblical namesake, Lydia, was a “seller of purple fabrics” (Acts 16:14). Thinking that blouse would look good on my wife, I bought it from Lydia at her asking price of $5 after she added the buttons that it lacked. She was a happy seller and I was a happy buyer!

One item she showed me was the women’s purple blouse that she is holding in the above photo. I found it interesting that her biblical namesake, Lydia, was a “seller of purple fabrics” (Acts 16:14). Thinking that blouse would look good on my wife, I bought it from Lydia at her asking price of $5 after she added the buttons that it lacked. She was a happy seller and I was a happy buyer!
Above is Telma Chitate, age 28, who has been a believer in Jesus all her life because of Christian parents. Her husband can only find sporadic employment working for a construction company that cannot offer him steady work. When he does work, he makes $180 a month, working 10-hour days with no days off. Telma estimated that their annual family income is around $450.

Above is Telma Chitate, age 28, who has been a believer in Jesus all her life because of Christian parents. Her husband can only find sporadic employment working for a construction company that cannot offer him steady work. When he does work, he makes $180 a month, working 10-hour days with no days off. Telma estimated that their annual family income is around $450.

Telma is also a member of a Table Bank (like the one Tsitsi operates), but for poorer women, where she invests $2 per month, and from which she has taken two loans of $10 and $4. With those loans she purchased fabric and, using sewing machines at the SOH campus, made some outfits for toddlers and sold them at a good profit. I could not resist giving her a hallelujah handshake (see my first blog) after I took her photo. I Iearned a few days later that she used that money to purchase a hand-crank sewing machine.
This is Elizabeth Sembezeya, age 29, married for 11 years, with two girls age 10 and 4. Her husband does have steady work as a security guard in town, at which he makes $100 a month working 12-hour days with only two days off per month. So their annual family income is $1,200 per year. She has also been a happy student at SOH for 15 months, and she has already made a little money sewing wrap skirts and infant clothing. She has also joined a recently-started Table Bank to which she contributes $2 per month.
This man, whose name I did not learn, is an evangelist who is Farming God’s Way. He looks like a preacher! In the background is a Heaven’s Family water tower, connected to a Heaven’s Family solar-powered pump that draws water from a Heaven’s Family-drilled well. It has been serving local folks since 2022.
I caught this cute little girl with a plastic bottle she had just filled at one of the many water wells that Heaven’s Family has drilled in the Dora Region.
This is Sondra, age 27, married, with two children. She is standing in front of a section of her maize field in which she did not employ Farming God’s Way (FGW) because she ran out of time to collect and lay down the required mulch. In the next photo, Sandra has moved only 20 feet from where she is standing to the part of her field in which she did employ FGW. Take note of the difference in her maize crop! This is only her first year using FGW methods. It will only get better for her every year as she continues to apply the FGW methods.
A happy FGW farmer!
From left to right: A 58-year-old woman whose name I didn’t get, Tsitsi who is 74, and Sondra who is 27. They are all part of the same God’s Love Group, and they help each other by working in each other’s fields. It was a joy observing the interaction and love between them.