If you give a donation to most Colorado Springs-based Christian nonprofits, they will turn that donation into goods (such as Bibles) or services (such as evangelism or care for needy children). But donations to Touch of Love International will keep on giving, the nonprofit says.

Touch of Love ministers through microloans. Donated funds are turned into small loans to poor people in Egypt, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Latin America so they can start small businesses and become financially independent. Once the borrowers are successful, they pay back the loan so the money can help someone else.

Touch of Love, which made its first loan in 2006, does more than loan money. It also provides 12 to 18 months of business training to help borrowers succeed, and teaches Christian discipleship to help people combat spiritual as well as material poverty.

“Rather than a handout or a donation that needs to be replenished, this is a way of helping people in a practical way that calls out someone’s creative capacity and the dignity God has given them to innovate, to create something out of nothing, and to generate something that their community needs and their family needs,” said Abigail McConnell, Touch of Love’s executive director.

In 2022, Touch of Love served 2,856 entrepreneurs with loans averaging $264. That was up from 1,377 loans in 2021.

McConnell and her husband, Tim, the lead pastor of First Presbyterian Church, have been committed to world missions since taking a mission trip to Kenya in 2001. The couple promoted missions programs in churches that Tim pastored in Virginia and Georgia.

McConnell grew up here and was glad her husband’s job brought her back home in 2016. It was during a mission trip to Egypt with First Pres that she first saw the work of Touch of Love and was “blown away” by its impact.

In a poor area outside Cairo called Garbage City, she saw how small loans were helping people escape poverty, not with handouts or “Band-Aids” but by “investing in a person’s inherent value, their ability to have agency, and to fulfill God’s purpose for them.”

One family used its loan to buy three goats, and they now sell milk to neighbors.

“That trip really awakened me to God in a way that I hadn’t yet experienced Him,” she said. “The opportunity to work alongside my brothers and sisters in Christ in a country halfway around the world is a pretty important aspect of my faith journey.”

She began volunteering with the half-million-dollar ministry and in time became its leader.

Microloans have been around since 1976 when, Grameen Bank opened in Bangladesh. It has since helped more than 8 million borrowers, 97% of whom have been women.

Touch of Love was founded by Emad “Eddie” Yassa, who has lived in the Springs since 2010 and owns two Dynamic Physical Therapy offices.

Last September, Yassa agreed to pay the U.S. $400,000 to resolve allegations that he directed his clinics to violate the False Claims Act by falsely billing federal health care programs for aquatic therapy services.

When asked for comment, Touch of Love released a statement: “While Dr. and Mrs. Yassa are foundational to TOLI and its ministry, Dynamic Physical Therapy is a separate entity. Given the Yassas’ integral role with TOLI, they desired to be fully transparent with the TOLI board of directors about this matter. They briefed the board and noted that Medicare continued to allow Dynamic to bill for services without interruption. When the matter was settled, the Department of Justice acknowledged that ‘[t]he claims resolved by the settlement are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability.’”

Touch of Love International founder Emad Yassa, left, with a business owner in Uganda.

Abigail McConnell of Touch of Love International with Joyce, who used her loan to start a business making purses in the Kiandutu slums area of Kenya.

Courtesy photo

Alemnesh owns a spice shop in Ethiopia.

Courtesy photos

Delsia owns a small convenience store in Latin America.

Courtesy photos