How we "teach them to fish"

While Labor Day marks a farewell to summer, it's also a day to honor the contributions of workers.
​And for many rural families around the world, labor work is their livelihood.

​Vietnamese Inmates Converted in Taiwan
As part of his official assignment from The Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) in Canada, Pastor Thu has been ministering to 100 Vietnamese inmates in Taiwan since 2007. A majority of these Vietnamese have become believers while they’re in the detention centers or prison. After they are released, they must return home, according to Taiwan’s government immigration policy.

Returnees Face Challenges in Vietnam
Pastor Thu visits the converted returnees back in Vietnam and helps connect them with churches in their homeland. During these visits, Pastor Thu has realized how the returnees are economically disadvantaged. The local areas where they live don’t have available jobs. Therefore many of them have to leave again to look for jobs elsewhere. Some of them go to bigger cities; others go to other countries such as Laos, Thailand, or Malaysia.

Livestock Breeding Center
We want to help alleviate the poverty in Vietnam so these returnees can have a livelihood in their homeland. We are partnering with Pastor Mui in Vietnam, who has a large piece of property. Together we will develop a livestock breeding center. This holistic project can satisfy the needs of the local church and its surrounding impoverished community in two ways, both economically and spiritually.

• Economic benefits: The community will have the opportunity for additional income by raising, breeding, and selling goats. This will help improve the standard of living for both the church and the community members.
• Spiritual benefits: The church can increase their influence in their community for evangelism. This strategy is an innovative way to evangelize, which is appropriate for the political and economic situation in Vietnam.

Proven Effective for Poverty Alleviation
According to the Goat and Rabbit Research Centre in Vietnam, goat production is popular in mountainous areas and is a means to improve the income of the rural poor. In fact, the results of goat farming seem so effective, that the research center proposes that research activities should be extended into more areas in Vietnam as a means of increasing farmers’ incomes and alleviating hunger and poverty in these areas of Vietnam. They conclude that goat production is playing an increasingly important role in the improvement of the income of poor farmers and is contributing significantly to poverty and hunger alleviation in Vietnam. [Source]