Inspired idea: Microfinance

Our ideas about how to solve the world's problems are very different from God's ideas.

"For my^athoughts are not ^byour thoughts, neither are your ^cways my ^dways, saith the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ^aways ^bhigher than your ways, and my ^cthoughts than your thoughts"(Isaiah 55:8-9)

Yunus with entrepreneur and her business project

When Muhammad Yunus began giving what are now termed "micro loans," it seemed that there was no way they could work. Elder Ballard on Microfinance (from this month's Ensign):

"Can we effectively appraise the needs of others by the prompting of the Spirit? It impressed me that Muhammad Yunus must have been prompted by the Spirit when he organized a very unusual bank in Bangladesh, which some have said was the beginning of microfinance. When Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his efforts to help the poor, was asked what his initial strategy would be, he responded:

“I didn’t really have one at the time. I simply began trying to help with my own funds, then went to the banks and asked them to get involved. They refused for several stated reasons, and thus my strategy began to evolve into: ‘Whatever the bankers did, I simply did the opposite.’ The bankers would only lend to the rich. I would only lend to the poor. The bankers would only make large loans. I would only make very small loans. The bankers would only lend to men. I would only lend to women. The bankers would only lend if there was collateral. I would only lend without collateral. The bankers required extensive paperwork. I only made loans that even an illiterate could understand. The bankers required their clients to come to the bank. I took my bank to the village.”

It should be noted that the banks expected a high rate of loan defaults. Yunus expected and experienced almost none. I understand that Mr. Yunus’s bank has provided more than $4 billion in loans and is entirely self-sustaining. Surely the Spirit of the Lord guided this noble effort."(Ensign March 2009, Becoming Self-Reliant)

The Spirit inspires everyone who is trying to help each other. Muhammad Yunus was trying to help the poor people of the world, and he was given an idea that no one had ever thought of before. And it works.