We believe in helping ministries in developing nations work towards self-sufficiency rather than foster a cycle of dependency. We don't believe it is healthy for 'national' ministries to be dependent on foreign aid forever. With this in view, we try to make investments that will provide local solutions to local problems.

A self-sufficiency investment that we made in Romania, which proved to be very successful, was the purchase of a farm for the Good Samaritan Church and the Sanctuary Orphanage. This farm provided beef, pork, and chicken to help feed the 500 plus children (mostly poor Gypsy) that come to the church's feeding program, as well as provided meat daily for the children at the orphanage. We also provided investment money to help them plant seed to grow wheat and corn to help reduce the cost of feeding the animals.

For ten years, the farm provided an annual cost savings for the feeding programs of the Good Samaritan Church and Sanctuary Orphanage, thus alleviating the burden of paying the high price of meat at the market each day. With the help of your donations we were able to work with the Romanian Christians to provide a local solution to a local problem.

When Romania entered the European Union the farm laws became more restrictive, and it became unprofitable for the farm to continue. At that point the decision was made to sell the farm instead of trying to make the farm profitable under the new laws. The amount gained by the sale of the farm was eight times more than our initial investment. The money was put back into the Romania ministries and the children were served even more...a very profitable conclusion to this investment.

It is now cheaper, with the increase of goods within Romania, to buy meat at the market rather than try to produce meat by running a small farm. The investment was made at the right time.

As we serve in missions around the world we will continue to look for ways to make self-sufficiency investments to empower "national" ministries to support themselves.