World Vision Magazine shared this profile of Rebecca Pearce and her Micro Giving Group: Hope Givers in the Summer 2011 issue. Since they first began, Hope Givers has funded 49 loans for hardworking women.

Rebecca Pearce (Esther Havens/Genesis Photos)

In the mid-1980s, Rebecca Pearce of Harker Heights, Texas, served as a missionary in Ethiopia during that countryʼs widespread famine. Her experience gave her a longing to make a greater impact on behalf of the worldʼs poor. With only a part-time job, however, she found that her resources were strictly limited.

But then Rebecca learned about World Visionʼs website that helps raise funds and provide impoverished men and women with microloans to launch small businesses—www.worldvisionmicro.org.

Hope Givers—which has grown to 26 members—has chosen to support female entrepreneurs, especially widows, because they are often the worst off.

Among Rebeccaʼs favorite stories is a woman in the Philippines with special needs who could not leave her house. Hope Givers enabled her to start a manicure business that she could run from her home.

. . . Read the full store here.

Thanks to Rebecca Pearce and the 26 members of Hope Givers!