Operation Rice Bowl: A Lenten Tradition
Week 2 – Mali
This week our Lenten pilgrimage takes us to the Western African country of Mali where Hamsatou Tangare runs a small business in the district of Douentza. She had been a tailor, but in a community where few people can afford to buy clothing, she found she was barely able to make enough to feed her children. With the help of a loan from a CRS-funded microfinance project, Hamsatou has started a business selling goods from the city, which has made her more financially secure.
Mali, which is about the size of Texas, is among the poorest countries in the world, with 64 percent of the population living below the poverty line. In recent years the country has been beset by natural disasters such as locust swarms and drought.
Pray - Sunday's Gospel invited us to join Peter, James and John as they look upon the face of Jesus and see it transformed into divine light. Here is the terror of a mountain top experience with God. In essence, the disciples get a glimpse of Jesus as he really is, a vision of the way that God sees his beloved son. This week, pray for a touch of the divine vision as you regard those in your circle of experience who are easily overlooked because of their poverty, their vulnerability, their disability or their difference. Seek to meet Christ in these faces and to experience the transforming devotion that God has for humanity. Does this change the quality of your day-to-day encounters? Does it affect the way you regard people a world away?
Fast - Solidarity is way of seeing with the eyes of Christ, who regarded people as beloved children of God and thus his own brothers and sisters. Developing a relationship of global solidarity with people whom we may never meet requires its own practice, a combination of the spiritual and practical. To hone the muscles of solidarity this week, skip a meal and use the time reflecting upon the stories of people like Hamsatou Tangare of Mali. Prayerfully explore the places where your lives connect – in the way you pray, for example, or in economic decisions you make or in the foreign policy of the officials you've elected.
Learn - In Hamsatou Tangare's microfinance group, solidarity has a very local face. She is among 30 women who received loans through CRS' Savings and Internal Lending Communities (ILC). Hamsatou used the small loan to set up a business selling food and household goods in her village. The women in the ILC work together to ensure that no one defaults on their loan, and their individual commitment to one another and the economic opportunity protects everyone.
Give - Microfinance programs provide a huge return on a pretty modest investment. Funded in part by contributions to CRS, these programs provides small, low-interest loans to people who would not otherwise have access to banks or other lending institutions. The loans can utterly transform the economic lives of people in poverty, especially women who often have far less social opportunity. Consider how often you run to the bank, use an ATM or pull out a credit or debit card. Drop 25 cents in your Rice Bowl this week for each time you benefit from the use of readily available cash and credit.
