Many believe that a lot of money is needed to start a church-related economic development program, but the case of the Iglesia El Encuentro, in Bogota, Colombia, proves that this is not true. They have a successful, financially sustainable program that was started with less than $10,000. An outgrowth of the church’s outreach to poor communities in Southern Bogota, this program began in response to the pressing need to create jobs for poor people in places where the church had previously initiated programs for malnourished children in the mid-1990s. The success of supplemental lunch and day-care programs caught even the attention of the government, and the El Encuentro church was granted the supervision of statefunded projects in seven areas, with no restrictions on the church plants that grew within each of the lunch program locations. Over the years it became obvious that the reason that the children were malnourished was because their parents did not have work. The director of the program, Alfonso Rey, sought ways to address this, and came across the ADIN program in Sincelejo, Colombia. On his own initiative, he traveled with 2 of his board members to learn about that program for himself, and then began planning to do something similar in Bogota. BPN became interested in this project, and after two of the staff people from Bogota had received training in Sincelejo, provided an initial loan of $10,000 to get the program started. After only one year of operation, the program has nearly 50 clients,and has created more than 60 jobs. Since the community projects already exist, the service delivery costs for the loan program are minimal, and the revolving loan fund is already financially sustainable. The impact from new businesses is not only that families can take better care of their children, but also in the direct strengthening of the church, both in its witness and in its finances. The model of sustainable smallscale micro credit programs that are tied to existing church programs has also caught the attention of other denominations, and can easily be replicated. Contact John@bpn.org for more information.