Last Day in Rwanda!

Friday, May 6

Dr. John Mulford 

 

As is usually the case, there were many more loose ends to tie up than time to tie them all.  Tried all day to set up a meeting with CEO of RDB to nail down facilities issues.  All of RDB out of town.  

Apollo (RDB) called to tell me “not to worry, RDB would take good care of us going forward.”  He also said that he wanted our graduates to submit loan applications so he could take them to banks for funding.  I said that most wouldn’t have the 100% collateral required by banks.  He said no problem; the Rwanda Development Bank will guarantee the loans.  This is the second source of unsecured loans (GroFin is the other) we discovered in two days.  God’s timing is amazing—now that we have some businesses that can qualify for loans, the loans seem to be available.  Apollo said that RDB is tasked with getting money into viable SME’s, so he is excited that we can help him accomplish that task.

Then to put the icing on the cake, I had another “chance” encounter as I was leaving the country.  I was sitting in the airport lounge talking on the phone.  I asked a man sitting near me if my talking was bothering him.  He said no.  Then we struck up a conversation about what we were doing in Kigali.  I told him we were helping people start SME’s.  He said he was there to invest in high potential SMEs.  I described several of our businesses.  He said he was very interested and I should check their website and follow up.  We parted ways as he took a left into business class and I a right into economy.