"The way out of poverty is through giving," stated FARMS International, a Christian ministry which provides micro-enterprise loans to needy families, as it outlines its work in Senegal.
Nathan McLaughlin, the Assistant Director of Development for FARMS International, said the provision of these loans was to enable a businessman to start his own business with a stipulation that he also tithed to his local church to support the pastor.
The key, he continued, was the connection with the local church where they wanted a healthy family and a healthy church that both could take care of themselves.
"What we want is a healthy family that is able to take care of itself, but also a family that is tithing to their church," he said.
"We believe that the best evangelism can take place when a church is healthy and able to take care of itself."
He told Mission Network News that the Senegal FARMS program started three years ago and the ministry had been working with churches in Dakar, the capital city of Senegal, and also at Rufisque.
The organisation was excited given the local churches were making good inroads in the country and were also emboldening the believers there.
"The Christians there face some tremendous challenges, but they are really rising to the occasion and are really quite fearless in their spreading of the Gospel."
Reverend Gareth Miller, who founded FARMS in 1961, wanted to develop a way to help poor Christians come out of poverty while preserving their dignity.
The Christian group teaches that obedience in tithing by loan recipients promotes their spiritual growth and economic well being. Tithing also strengthens the local church and increases evangelism, the ministry's newsletter stated, and it enables the local church to be a source of blessing to the whole community.