We are surrounded by them in PEER Servants. Micro-entrepreneurs working extremely hard to bless their families, churches, and communities. Trend-setters who carve out new paths in extending more of the kingdom of heaven to earth. Lifetime achievers who have invested so much among others in our PEER Servants network. We couldn’t help but recognize and celebrate them.
Lydia was an impressive entrepreneur. Not only was she a very good businesswoman, but she was quick to use the proceeds of her business to support Paul and his missionary companions as they passed through her area. Lydia is credited by Biblical historians as one of the key people in planting the church in Europe.
In the spirit of Lydia, PEER Servants sponsors the Annual Lydia Award. It recognizes those micro-entrepreneurs having the greatest impact in their families, churches, and communities. Click the button below to read the stories of our 2026 finalists and vote for your favorite (through October 24). Join us in thanking God for the transformation in the lives of these hardworking micro-entrepreneurs and, through them, the lives of many others.
Meet Our 2026 Lydia Award Finalists
Read the stories of our three most recent Lydia Award recipients below.
Vijitha’s family bore the brunt of Sri Lanka’s long civil war. Displaced and forced to flee, they lost everything. Vijitha refused to be idle or feel sorry for herself. She reached out to YGro, PEER Servants’ Sri Lankan Partner, and received a series of micro-loans that enabled her to grow her tailoring and chicken broiler businesses. Vijitha worked extremely hard, both day and night, to provide for her family and was able to send her four children to university, something that she was never able to obtain for herself. She also became an agent of transformation in her community, teaching groups of women that they could provide for their families and empowering them to do so. The women save and lend interest-free to other women. Vijitha’s vision for the future is to expand the services she can offer to empower many more women. Her community is blessed because of her leadership and generosity.
Judith never got the education she dreamed about because her family couldn’t afford school fees. She got married and had three beautiful children. Then tragedy struck – her husband abandoned her and the family, leaving her with no income on which to live. Judith remembered that CAFECC, PEER Servants’ Ugandan Partner, offered business loans, savings, and training. She applied for her first loan of $14 to restart a pottery business. Six more loans started two other businesses – farming and distributing food supplements. She created jobs for others, increased her profits tenfold, and provided her children the education she was never able to receive. She also heard that Jesus loved her and she made the life-changing decision to follow Him. Judith’s hard work, resilience, and faith in God have made her one God is using to “multiply” and bless many others.
Lydia grew up in one of the most dangerous slums in Manila. She never left, and now she is turning it into a bit more of heaven. Lydia started with a $36 micro-loan from CCT to sell chicken meat. While repaying her loan, she came to understand how much God loves her and those in her community. A very successful business woman, she eventually received loans for a convenience store, an internet café, and a much larger loan of $4,500 to significantly expand her chicken broiler business. She leads a CCT Fellowship Group now telling others about the God who loves them. She has great dreams for the future – for herself and her community. She would like to open a clean water station and use her God-given leadership skills to assume an even greater role in extending a bit more of heaven to her beloved neighborhood.
Would you like to meet our Lydia Award recipients from previous years? Click here to go to our Lydia Award Archive webpage.
Extending the kingdom of heaven to earth is a huge task. Making progress in it requires having creative, innovative trendsetters among us, and our Person(s) of the Year Award honors such people. It can go to anyone in the PEER Servants family – micro-entrepreneurs, students, volunteers, donors, partner staff members, board members, etc. It is selected at the end of December each year and announced at our Annual Meeting the first or second Saturday of January.
“Ate” Ruth Callanta and Atieno Oketch are two amazing women of God and we are so blessed to have both of them as part of the Global PEER Family. Ate Ruth is the Co-Founder of The Center for Community Transformation (CCT), our Partner in the Philippines, and served as its inspiring leader for over 30 years before passing the torch in 2025. Under her leadership, CCT grew from a microfinance program that empowered millions of the materially poor in the Philippines to a group of 20+ ministries that is witnessing the last becoming first and the first willing to become last. Atieno is a sign of what God is preparing to do in the future through PEER Servants. A Volunteer for many years, she excelled in our Management Development Internship program and was asked to join our Senior Management Team as Director of Growth Teams. Atieno is a key member of a Global Team that will enable PEER Servants to have greater kingdom impact for years to come. Congratulations, Ate Ruth and Atieno!
Ten years ago, in 2014, PEER Teens was born! The birth took place not in the powerful places of the world, but in a small village in Northern Uganda as six young people decided they wanted to see more of the kingdom of heaven on earth. They elected their first President, Gift Agani – a young man who wasn’t even supposed to be there given his current bad choices in life, but when he heard about the kingdom as Jesus envisioned it, he was all in. In the years that followed, the youth movement grew – to Africa, Asia and the Americas. Jephtha Malelah came from his native Kenya to that Northern Ugandan village in 2019 and was so excited about what he saw among the young people that he embraced the role of Co-Director of Youth Empowerment. PEER Servants would never be the same. Gift and Jephtha have been a Dynamic Duo in allowing youth to “set the example” for all of us and we honored them on the 10th Anniversary of PEER Teens as our 2024 Persons of the Year!
PEER Servants is blessed with great Global Partners and Global Volunteers! In 2023, we celebrated 25 years of partnership with Invest Credit/Moldova! There’s no better year to recognize and celebrate Ghena Russu, the Executive Director of Invest Credit for virtually all of those 25 years! Ghena’s heart and passion are in extending the kingdom to his Moldovan people. Under his leadership, Invest Credit has grown from a small institution serving one farming community to a much larger institution serving communities throughout the country. Viki Deardorff is a PEER Servants Volunteer and our Co-Director of Education Programs. Under her leadership, the support of our Partner’s Education programs has grown significantly, including supporting over 70 African young people to pursue university studies in our PEER Teens Scholars and SALT Scholars programs. Congratulations, Ghena and Viki, on being chosen as our 2023 Persons of the Year!
Would you like to meet our Person(s) of the Year from previous years? Click here to go to our Person(s) of the Year Archive webpage.
The Reciprocity Award is PEER Servants’ most distinguished award. It is given to recognize outstanding lifetime achievement in strengthening the PEER Servants network to more effectively extend the kingdom. It is borne out of PEER Servants’ core value of “The Reign of Reciprocity”, acknowledging that we all have much to receive as well as give to more effectively experience and extend the kingdom. The Reciprocity Award recipients are those from whom we have received very, very much! Only two people have been the recipients of The Reciprocity Award.
“Ate” Ruth is the CEO and Founder of The Center for Community Transformation in the Philippines. God has used her in that role to establish an organization with 15+ ministries that are allowing the last to become first and leading the first to being willing to become last – a sure sign of the kingdom of heaven among us. She has intentionally and generously invested in training much smaller indigenous microfinance institutions in the PEER Servants network to have much greater kingdom impact in their parts of the world, and many have returned to their homes vowing to become “the CCT in their part of the world.” The PEER Servants network is very indebted to “Ate” Ruth and the amazing CCT team she inspires and leads.
As a leader in the evangelical church of Nigeria for many years, Reverend Panya Baba realized he needed to not only encourage church members to be generous, but to equip them to be generous. He founded a Nigerian microfinance institution that ultimately served thousands of clients in the Middle Belt of the country. Reverend Baba had the insight that not only could these micro-entrepreneurs experience more of the kingdom, they could extend it to others as well, and so the microfinance institution started tithing their interest revenue – setting aside 10% of it to support Nigerian missionaries. The micro-entrepreneurs were so excited to be supporting mission work that they actually voted to increase the interest rate so that they could support more missionaries. Soon other PEER microfinance partners followed suit and started tithing from their interest revenue to support outreach beyond their clients. Reverend Baba’s passion for missions was contagious and his impact on the PEER network will be felt for decades to come. He went home to be with his beloved Jesus in October 2019.