Marina is a resident of Caloocan, Philippines. She is 46 years old and she is happily married to Rizaldy, who is a security guard. God has blessed them with five loving children and three of them are already studying. Life indeed is hard. But by the grace of God, they were able to raise their children well and they are helping each other in working for their family.

Marina owns a variety store. This is a small store that can be owned by anyone in the community and the store is just connected to or just inside their houses. This is where you can buy a sachet of shampoo or conditioner, a bar of soap, a Php5-worth of cooking oil, an egg, and other things. She gets her product from a wholesaler at a lower price, then she sells it per piece for a higher price to have profit. She also offers prepaid load services and she buys and sells processed food products for additional income. Her regular customers are her neighbors, passerby and the people in the community. She earns Php 1000 a day.

To be able to expand her inventory, she is requesting a Php 35,000.00 loan. She will use the loan to buy groceries, toiletries and beverages to expand her product inventory. This loan will be a great help for her to add more products to her store.

Marina desires to have her own burger stand and that her variety store will soon become a grocery store. She also hopes to have a better life someday. She meets up with her co-fellowship* members to share stories of her life and business every week, and also draw strength and inspiration from the fellowship and the Word of God she studies.

* All CCT community partners / clients are organized into fellowship groups that meet on a weekly basis. A fellowship group is composed of 15 to 30 community partners. The fellowship groups gather each week to study the Word of God, build social capital, and repay Micro Finance loans.