Harvest Time

. Harvest Time

Harvest Time Background | Bryan's Work With Harvest Time

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A New Ministry Called Harvest Time...

After leaving his position as founder/director of Ministry of Money in 1999, Don McClanen (below) founded a new organization called Harvest Time. During his 25 years of reverse missions to Haiti, Africa, India, Bosnia, Palestine, and Iraq, Don developed many relationships with individuals and groups in these countries. Bit by bit, Don became more involved in efforts to work with people from some of these countries to improve their living conditions. This movement from "reverse mission" into mission efforts to help empower the people in countries he was visiting eventually led Don to refocus his own sense of call, and to establish Harvest Time. Harvest Time works closely with Christian individuals in the United States, most of whom have access to considerable material wealth. The Harvest Time staff and core group is in the early stages of developing a process through which wealthy Christians can meet together on a regular basis to nurture each other in an environment of support and accountability, establish structures and disciplines to help translate good intentions into specific actions, and to help each other to work through all the issues connected to trying to (as Church of the Saviour pastor Gordon Cosby (who is on the Harvest Time board) puts it) "reverse the money flow."

Harvest Time is about actually trying to redirect assets from the wealthy to the poor, while simultaneously doing all the hard work of learning how to transfer large amounts of capital in ways which are truly liberating and healthy for the rich and the poor alike. Among other things, Harvest Time is challenging Christians to wrestle deeply with the differences between charity and justice, and between philanthropy and discipleship. The following phrase is found on the bottom of the Harvest Time letterhead;

"Creating a new breed of rich young rulers not turning away sadly, but turning to Jesus with rejoicing and hilarious generosity."

In addition to working to help wealthy people become more free in Christ to give resources away, Harvest Time is also working closely with the poorest of the poor. Harvest Time has committed itself to helping generate funds for about 25 organizations in Haiti, Bosnia, and inner city Washington, D.C. To find out more about any of these organizations, feel free to contact the Harvest Time office directly, and tell them that Bryan Sirchio sent you!

Harvest Time, Inc.
11315 Neelsville Church Rd.
Germantown, MD 20876
301-601-9400
301-601-2931 (Fax)
harvesttime@starpower.net

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Bryan's Work With Harvest Time...
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In the Fall of 2000, Don McClanen contacted me and asked me to consider becoming the primary coordinator of Harvest Time's work in Haiti. There are currently ten organizations which Harvest Time helps to support in Haiti. Most of them do not need any help from me at all, and my only function with these Cite Soleil wonderful organizations is to make sure that they receive the Harvest Time funds which we have committed ourselves to providing. There is one organization in Haiti however with which Harvest Time enjoys a more hands on involvement. This organization is called the "Boston Youth Association" or "BYA." "Boston" is the name
of a section in Cite Soleil (right), a slum in Port-au-Prince, which Ministry of Money reverse mission pilgrims have been privileged to visit for the last 20 years. As a result of these many visits, Don McClanen and other reverse mission trip leaders got to know many of the residents of this incredibly poor neighborhood.

In about 1994, one of our friends from Boston told us about a grass roots community organization which they had formed in order to try to improve their living conditions. They asked us if we might be able to help them. This has been an amazing gift to us, and a wild adventure! My primary work with Harvest Time now is meeting with the leaders of BYA and doing what I can to help them help themselves. To date, BYA has organized and implemented the following efforts;

1. Provided scholarships for about 30 children to attend school.
2. Hired community members to clean the canals full of open sewage which overflow into their homes.
3. Established a housing program through which the homes of the poorest of the poor are made livable.
4. Established a feeding program for the poorest members of the community.
5. Opened a community store which provides jobs for some community members, keeps money in the immediate community, and provides food and supplies for the lowest possible price to people in the community.
6. Provided training in accounting and organizational development.
7. Is in the process of establishing a literacy training program for adults in the community.
8. Provided monthly salaries for the elected leaders of the association who oversee the programs, as well as a modest monthly stipend for the association members.
9. One of BYA's next and most ambitious initiatives (God willing!) will be to open a small factory of some kind to provide jobs for members of the community.

It has been an amazing gift for me to be able to develop friendships with the people of Cite Soleil, and to have this direct connection to the socio-economically "bottom of the bottom".

If you'd like to know more about this work, or if you are interested in helping to support it, I'd love to discuss it with you. The leaders of BYA are beginning to dream bold dreams for the future of their community. Maybe that future involves you and your gifts...

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