Journey's End... Or Is It?
The last 5000Plus newsletter
As many of you are aware from previous newsletters, 5000Plus as a UK registered charity is closing. This will be the final newsletter. Your enduring support of this ministry to those trapped in poverty has played such an important role in seeing so many lives transformed for good – conservatively we think over 2 million people have been impacted. A huge well done to you! Also we give a big thank you to God for allowing each one of us to be a part of bringing His practical love to so many.
What a journey!
Jane and I have wholeheartedly given ourselves to this ministry for the last 26 years since its beginnings in Nepal in 1998. The journey has been a faith adventure for the whole time – a mixture of being wonderful, exhilarating, challenging and scary with many successes and some failures. The one constant has been the presence and provision of the triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
I asked Jane to think back over the years and give me the story of one person to leave you with.
This is Plister’s story in Kenya. We first took the 5000Plus vision to her remote area near the border with Tanzania in 2009 speaking to a dozen people under a tree. Six months later while visiting again we met Plister. She was in her words a “despised widow of no standing” living in poverty and struggling to raise two teenagers. Having heard this vision she sold two bags of cassava, “showed the money to God” and started a poultry project. She built a hen house using local materials and bought six hens and a cock. On our visit to her home, Plister whistled and seventy chickens came running. By this time she had doubled the family income. She later diversified into animal husbandry, tomato growing, and as she had previously received the necessary training started, after taking a loan, a pharmacy in the village which she still runs today.
Not content to keep the 5000Plus vision to herself, Plister shared it with her neighbours and now together with other volunteer trainers has been a catalyst for many thousands of projects being started across the region.
Plister, from being despised as a poor widow has become a woman of influence and respect and is sought out by local government and the wider community. She is a member of the sub-county development committee and is treasurer of the executive branch. She serves both on the national board of Grace Development Foundation and that of her local church.
The story of a life transformed that I must leave with you has to be that of Kennedy, again in Kenya. Jane and I encountered him in 2007 on our first visit to Kenya when he walked 40+miles to attend our 2 day training. He says of himself at that time that “I was born in poverty, lived in poverty and expected to die in poverty”. He was ashamed of the poor clothes he wore, so stood at the back for the group photo. Because of poverty, he had only completed his rural secondary education (GCSE level) at the age of 24. But Ken acted on the message we taught and inspired his whole village to start livelihood projects using whatever small resource they had. When we returned to Kenya six months later, we were taken to visit his village and found a community run tree nursery with 18,000 saplings ready for sale. We began to mentor Ken and he very quickly became pivotal in the spread of the 5000Plus economic empowerment model. In response to this phenomenal growth, together we founded and registered with the Kenyan government a non government voluntary organisation called Grace Development Foundation (GDF). Today, with Ken as its Director, GDF has inspired over 250,000 livelihood projects, 2,800 community savings and loan groups, 4,200 volunteer community trainers and has a presence in 37 of the 47 administrative counties of Kenya. GDF is lauded publicly at government level for its work among the poor. Not only has Ken a BA and MA in Theology and Community Development but he has been awarded an honorary doctorate for services to the community.
Jane and I are very grateful and thankful to God that over the years He has brought many others, such as Plister and Dr Ken, to work alongside us in this harvest field both in the UK and in the many countries we have visited. I can’t mention everyone but you know who you are. We love you, friends and fellow adventurers!
5000Plus may be closing as a registered UK charity, but fruit from this vision will continue through the ongoing commitment of our many partners.
Rob and Jane for the foreseeable future will continue to make themselves available for information, advice and providing training in this economic empowerment model using suitable online platforms.
The 5000Plus website will remain open for a further year, again for information, contact details and the downloading of training materials.
With our love and appreciation
Rob and Jane and the rest of the 5000Plus team