The first crackling sound came like the snap of dry wood. Then came the flames—wild orange tongues licking the old Toyota Corolla’s hood, dancing with the dusty African wind. Komlan Ametepe’s car, the one thing standing between his family and despair, was gone in minutes.
“I watched my life burn,” Ametepe said.
Ametepe had worked as a driver for over ten years. He knew every shortcut in Lomé, Togo, every pothole, every unwritten rule. Just days before the fire, he had spent his last savings—roughly $500—on repairs. A faulty secondhand battery likely caused the fire. He had car insurance, but it didn’t cover fire damage. He couldn’t afford comprehensive coverage after COVID-19 wiped out his savings.
Around the world, gig workers like Ametepe face the same harsh reality: no insurance, no safety net, and no backup plan. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 2 billion workers—61.2 percent of the world’s employed population—work informally, most without social protection or income security. In such fragile terrain, one fire, one illness, one policy shift can erase years of effort.
For Ametepe, the Corolla wasn’t just a vehicle. It was his job, his children’s school fees, his wife Ana’s tomato-selling capital, and his family’s hope for something better. When it burned, everything changed. On some days, he borrowed a friend’s motorcycle to make deliveries. On others, he walked for hours in the heat, looking for transport gigs.
In Togo, over 90 percent of the workforce is informal, according to Women in Informal Employment Globalizing & Organizing (WIEGO) data from 2022. Many have no social safety net. When life breaks down, they are left to fend for themselves.
Togo’s insurance system remains underdeveloped, and microinsurance only reaches a small portion of workers. The government hoped to alleviate economic pressures on informal workers by tasking agencies such as FNFI (Fonds National de la Finance Inclusive) with expanding access to microcredit and insurance for small entrepreneurs and low-income households. But for many, access remains difficult.
FNFI products often require documentation, bank accounts, and participation in group-loan models managed by intermediaries. The loan amounts are small—often between 30,000 and 100,000 CFA francs ($50–$170 USD). They help, but the deadlines for repayment can be rigid. Grace periods are minimal. And defaulting even once can block future access.
“I went to the FNFI office twice,” said Agbégnon Edo, a shoe repairman from Adétikopé, Togo. “They asked for my national ID, voter card, and proof of a group leader. I left with nothing.”
After the fire destroyed his livelihood, Ametepe pulled away from church. “Why has God allowed this to happen to me?” he asked. He said his brother pressed further: “Where was your God?”
Ametepe grieved the loss not just of the car but of purpose, provision, and presence. He didn’t have enough collateral to get a loan.
But Ana didn’t give up. “God has not finished with us,” Ametepe remembered her telling him. Slowly, they returned to prayer. They began asking God not just for bread but for breakthrough.
Dignity, Ametepe said, means having the means to provide. To stand tall in front of his children. To work and not beg.
As state solutions have proved inconsistent, churches and Christian organizations have stepped in to restore dignity.
The Assemblies of God Church of Togo’s licensed microfinance institution (COOPEC-AD) and the Church of Pentecost’s similar institution (COOPEC Solidarité) have helped congregants, businesses, and church-based projects since the 1990s. But over time these institutions have limited their impact by adopting policies similar to traditional banks: requiring a three-month savings history, a registered property document as collateral, and guarantors to back the loan.
That’s where informal savings groups—long embedded in African communal life—have become vital again. Known as tontines, these member-led groups allow individuals to save and lend money on rotating schedules. Most operate on trust, not paperwork.
Christian development organizations have built on this tradition. The US-based Chalmers Center helps churches form and guide savings groups that offer instruction in budgeting, recordkeeping, and accountability. Each savings group decides how much to save weekly, and members contribute small amounts—as little as 1,000 CFA ($1.70 USD). After three to six months of saving, groups distribute loans among members, then share or reinvest interest earnings.
Those same values of practical solidarity reached Ametepe.
About six months after the fire, a Christian acquaintance from his drivers’ cooperative offered to help him apply for a microloan to buy a tricycle for deliveries.
Then, another Christian—someone Ametepe had helped years ago—offered something more: a taxi car through a work-and-pay system. Ametepe would drive, earn, and slowly repay the full cost until he owned it outright.
Today, Ametepe is driving again. He’s up before dawn, ferrying passengers across Lomé, carefully tracking each repayment. With every kilometer, he moves closer to owning the vehicle and reclaiming stability for his family.
“God didn’t forget me,” he says. “He just had another road for me to take.”
These days, that road begins as Ametepe slides into the driver’s seat, turns the key, and waits for the familiar rattle as the trembling engine finds its rhythm. A low hum rises as the fuel catches, and Ametepe pulls onto the dirt road while the city yawns awake behind him. At home, his children are still sleeping. This road, this work, is their provision.
It wasn’t the government, the microloan institutions, or even the savings groups that helped him. For Ametepe, the road back ran through Christians who saw, who remembered, who acted.
For others still standing in the ashes, that same road might run through us.
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