{"id":9001,"date":"2023-09-22T00:39:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-22T00:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9001"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:46","slug":"a-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9001","title":{"rendered":"A PROPOSAL"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A year ago today I received a marriage proposal.<\/p>\n\n\n

I was in Ghana to see Mission Resource\u2019s work firsthand and\nto see if small loans really can make profound impacts.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

Koko, I would learn, was a widow whose husband’s death left her a single mother of\n7 daughters and 1 son. Still, she radiated joy and good humor.<\/p>\n\n\n

Minutes after our introduction, Koko – with a wide smile and\nmischievous eyes – asked if I would marry her.<\/p>\n\n\n

When I replied I was already happily married, she said she\nwas OK with that if my \u201cfirst wife\u201d was!<\/p>\n\n\n

She was making light of a common mindset in the developing\nworld: “If only I could find someone to take me away from all my hardship.” I knew young ladies who went home after a week in Haiti with 3 or 4 proposals – every one of them much more serious than Koko’s toward me.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

In reality, Koko knows the survival of her family can\u2019t\ndepend on wishful thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n

Each morning she is up by 6:30 getting her kids off to\nschool and preparing to spend her day either smoking fish or selling them in\nthe marketplace.<\/p>\n\n\n

The challenge for women like Koko is NOT the willingness to\nwork hard, it\u2019s finding the cash it takes to construct a smoking pit and buy\nthat first boatload of fish!<\/p>\n\n\n

And that’s why I returned from Ghana more enthusiastic than ever about the vital work Mission Resource is doing through microfinance. Our loans become a literal\ngodsend to so many people like Koko!<\/p>\n\n\n

I love my work.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A year ago today I received a marriage proposal. I was in Ghana to see Mission Resource\u2019s work firsthand and to see if small loans really can make profound impacts. Koko, I would learn, was a widow whose husband’s death left her a single mother of 7 daughters and 1 son. Still, she radiated joy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9006,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9001\/revisions\/9006"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}