Can You Measure Spiritual Impact?

My wife and I often visit our friends in Breckenridge, Colorado. We love the beauty of the mountains and enjoy our friends immensely. Their 8-year old son, Nathan, is a terrific source of entertainment. During a recent dinner conversation, Nathan informed us about his Little League baseball season. He rattled off the scores of his team’s last few games. His parents quickly stopped him, interjecting that the league and coaches don’t actually keep track of scores.

Nathan retorted, “We all keep score anyway. We always keep score.”

I smiled, thinking back to my own youth baseball experience when I did the exact same thing. Sure there were no scoreboards, but every single kid on the diamond knew the score.  Why? Because we want to know how we’re doing. It’s more than just winning and losing. We want a tangible measure of our performance. Are we succeeding? Are we catching up? How bad is it? Keeping score answers those questions.

In working with the poor, many times it’s easy to justify not keeping score. After all, we’re trying to help people. Isn’t that enough? I’m not sure it is. I think we need to keep score. It’s not about knowing if we’re winning. Even if the score illuminates we are losing, at least we have a gauge of how we’re doing.

It is particularly challenging to measure spiritual impact. At HOPE, it is straightforward to track financial metrics. We measure repayment rates, savings balances, client retention and a slew of other data points. It is much more challenging to gauge whether our work impacts the spiritual climate of the communities and families we serve. It’s hard and it’s also controversial to suggest we can measure spiritual impact when we know that only God sees the heart.

This month, a conference with a bold title—Spiritual Metrics—is gathering to discuss these issues. I believe it is possible and critical that we measure our spiritual impact. While we can only “see in a mirror dimly,” dimly is better than not at all.

We aren’t perfect in our measurement, but at least we know how many clients have been given a copy of God’s word, how consistently our staff gathers for devotions, and how many churches we actively partner with. It takes creativity, but per the old management axiom, what gets measured gets done. We need to keep score to remain accountable to what we are uniquely positioned to do as Christian organizations. Just like Nathan’s baseball team, we need to keep score.

Fight the Coffee Purchase Guilt!

Visiting the Starbucks headquarters in Seattle last week was like a party for my senses. Delectable sights, sounds and smells emanated throughout the re-purposed historic train station Starbucks calls home. As part of my MBA program, my cohort had the privilege of visiting with several Starbucks executives–and tasting lots of delicious coffee, of course. Sadly, however, despite my hopes, there were no vanilla latte water fountains. The visit has got me thinking.

Have you ever been a part of a church service or conversation when someone said something like, “You selfishly spend $20/month on coffee purchases — imagine what good that money could do if you gave it to a non-profit!” I’ve heard it many times and am sure I have even said it more than once. There is some truth to that comment, and I am not writing this post to justify excessive consumerism, but I am increasingly convinced that is a misleading admonition.

Your purchases, be it for your favorite coffee, the car you drive or the computer you are using right now, are doing good. Did you know that Starbucks provides wages and health insurance to over 115,000 individuals people and are supporting over 75,000 rural coffee farmers throughout Latin America and Africa? Learning about the Starbucks Farmer Support program (see video below) was like watching a HOPE International marketing video — incredible how much of an impact the gourmet coffee craze is making on the lives of poor rural farmers.

Many times we assume that all our spending is selfish and detrimental to the world…as if only money given to charities is “money well spent.” That’s just not true. Look at India, Chile, Brazil, Hong Kong and even Rwanda. These countries are seeing massive numbers of people’s livelihoods improved and are seeing the flourishing of many of their communities. Many factors have contributed to these countries’ collective emergence, but the engine of entrepreneurship is leading the charge. We often judge the worth of businesses by how much they give charitably to charities. In my view, the primary good they contribute to our society is their provision of valuable products, services and meaningful employment to the world–from the smallest “mom and pop” shops to the world’s largest companies. Their donations are great too, but it’s their inherent value which is doing the most good.

Next time you buy your white chocolate mocha, use your Blackberry, or read your Bible, think about the people whose livelihoods, perhaps across the globe, you are supporting. Sip that latte with your chin-up. Your habit is putting food on the table for over 75,000 rural farmers in the developing world.

Dig into the ethical policies of your favorite companies, as you are voting with each of your purchases and charitable donations. Are you voting for candidates you believe in?

We’ll Come to You

I love online banking and e-commerce. I love the convenience of checking account balances, making transfers, and purchasing products in sweatpants from my living room. I’ve quickly become accustomed to the ease of doing business from home, although this luxury is unique to the past decade. It’s easy to forget that just ten years ago online banking was nothing but a dream.

Last month I visited HOPE’s work in the Dominican Republic. There, I had the privilege of meeting our clients, seeing their businesses and soaking in the culture of a country I have come to love. One of the questions I asked to a few of the community banks (groups of 15-30 clients) was “Why HOPE? Why did you choose to become a HOPE client?” Time and time again, in different communities throughout the country, our clients responded, “Because HOPE came to us.”

It’s hard to think back to what life was like ten years ago, when we had to drive to the bank or the store for just about everything. It’s even more challenging to imagine how extremely inconvenient it would be if we lived a few hours from the center of town, where a trip to the bank or to the store meant a day’s worth of travel. Yet, this is the reality for many of our clients. In Congo, our clients often live two or more hours away from the closest commercial banks, large stores, and even HOPE branch offices. To service these remote communities, our loan officers must travel two hours by bus on shoddy dirt roads or, during the rainy season, traipse hours by foot through the mud to reach these communities.

In that context, you understand why they list it as a primary reason for choosing HOPE. Our hardworking and diligent loan officers go into the communities where our clients live. This is about even more than convenience. That message—No, don’t come to us. We’ll come to you—speaks dignity, loud and clear, into the lives of our clients and into their communities. They matter. Their neighborhoods are not forgotten. When everyone tells them they aren’t, we tell them they are worth our time.

One client’s comments are still ringing in my ears. I asked him, “Why HOPE?” …and he responded, “When everybody else makes us come to them, you come to us.”

Hitching Posts

Lancaster, Pennsylvania is the home of Auntie Anne’s pretzels, the nation’s oldest-running farmer’s market, and HOPE International. It also has one of the largest Amish communities in the country. Recently, while in Lancaster, I visited Costco and noticed hitching posts in the parking lot where Amish customers could park their buggies.

Costco is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. While I can’t verify this, I’d guess that Lancaster is their only store with hitching posts. If Costco had used one of their standard site plans, that detail would have surely slipped through the cracks. Only through soliciting the input of Lancaster residents could they develop a strategy relevant to the local economy and culture. By bringing in the expertise and contributions of individuals familiar with the Lancaster market, Costco developed an appropriate and localized plan for their operations.

If this complexity exists across a single country, how much more are these variances multiplied when operations transcend borders, languages, cultures and economies? It is often surprising to our supporters when I share that less than one percent of our staff members internationally are not native to the country where they are working. Of HOPE’s 1,500 loan officers, branch managers, clerks and country directors employed across 14 countries, 1490 (99.3%) are working in their home country.

There are many benefits to this approach. Employing national staff members creates local jobs and is significantly less expensive than sending Americans. But, there is also strategic value gained by hiring Rwandans in Rwanda, Moldovans in Moldova and Haitians in Haiti. They understand their context. If an executive in Seattle would have trouble planning a new Costco in his own country, how can we expect to operate successfully internationally without employing local community members?

In Ukraine, we recently saw this exemplified when we encouraged our Ukrainian country director to hire a human resources director to coordinate the growing team. After encouraging him in that direction, he shared that the human resources profession doesn’t actually exist in Ukraine. He suggested instead that HOPE Ukraine reorient their existing team to solve the problem. A solution only a Ukrainian national would propose. In the Dominican Republic, one of our American interns recently was interviewing a client and, from her experience in marketing, asked a client why she did not put a sign on the front of her house advertising her business. The client laughed heartily and responded, “Why? Everyone in my community knows me! A sign would not be appropriate.”

Depending on local participation is critical as no one understands the context better. It’s true with Costco establishing a store in Lancaster, and it’s true with HOPE operating programs in 14 countries.

(Chris)

There’s an App for That

It’s no longer good enough to kill two birds with one stone. We now require each stone to kill six birds. Case and point: While I’m not cool enough to own an iPhone, I have friends who are, and I am continually amazed at its diverse functionality. Mobile communication technology is an absolute marvel in itself, but it’s no longer enough for our phones to make and receive calls from anywhere in the world. Now we require them to provide email, directions, games, web browsing, news, stock trading, and blogging. Daily, the list expands. Are you pregnant and need to track your contractions? Now you can with the Birth Buddy app on your iPhone. You name it – “there’s an app for that.” Microfinance isn’t just about making loans anymore. Traditional microfinance in and of itself is transformative, but the opportunities for innovation on the microfinance framework are boundless.

Clean water is a serious issue around the world; globally, one in six people lack access. HOPE’s program in the Philippines pioneered an innovative, employment-based strategy to address this serious issue. In partnership with PepsiCo, they built a top-notch water purification system right in the branch office. Twenty of their clients took out loans to purchase the water in bulk. These water vendors then load up their bicycles with jugs of water and sell the water in some of the most-underserved communities in the city. Through this model, they collectively sell over 300,000 gallons of clean water annually. Sure, it’s wonderful that our clients in the Philippines can access financial services, but what about the dirty water they drink every day? Microfinance has an app for that.

In the Dominican Republic, many of our clients are able to run a business, but they sadly have family members who are suffering with or have died from AIDS or other sexually-transmitted diseases. When I visited a community bank in the Dominican Republic last year, the loan officer conducted a comprehensive, biblically-based STD training during one of the group’s bi-weekly loan repayment meetings using educational materials developed by a healthcare organization. It’s great our clients there have a safe place to save their money, but how do they educate their children about sexual health? Yep, there’s an app for that.

Recognizing that their clients completely lacked access to Bibles and Christian literature, HOPE Ukraine developed an innovative solution to address this disparity. They have thousands of clients throughout Ukraine and when they started distributing Bibles, the Jesus Film and Christian literature at client meetings, immediately they had created a viable distribution channel for these much-needed resources. Having access to capital is important, but what directs our clients’ financial decision-making and priorities? Do they have access to God’s word? You guessed it. There’s an app for that.

(Chris)

Lessons from Congolese Healthcare

In Kinshasa, Congo, a sprawling capital city in sub-Saharan Africa, HOPE International has a branch office with over 30 Congolese staff members and 5,000 clients. One issue for our branch manager is the provision of quality health insurance for the local staff. Brian, a friend of mine who managed this office for a few years, shared a story which typified this challenge.

Over the course of a few weeks, a number of the local staff members stepped into Brian’s office and shared that the doctor connected with their insurance plan was misdiagnosing their problems. They shared that he treated them poorly, overcharged for his services and failed to appropriately address their health concerns. As the complaints piled up, Brian paid the doctor a visit.

When they met, Brian confronted him with the frustrations and complaints of his staff, advocating on behalf of those who this doctor had wronged. While Brian shared, the doctor interrupted and said, “Well, have any of them died yet?”

Talk about confusion on how success is defined. No, none of the staff members had died—but that doesn’t mean that he was successful! Defining success is critical to the success of any organization. Recently, I have spent significant thinking about that in regards to HOPE’s work.

One of the primary reasons I believe so deeply in HOPE’s work is because of HOPE’s commitment to the proclamation of the Gospel. Woven into the fabric of our organizational culture is a belief that the story of the cross truly changes lives. Helping the poor in their physical state is wonderful and important, but if we are just helping those that are oppressed become oppressors—is that success? Is it success if we are helping vulnerable individuals create wealth only to neglect their communities once they obtain it?

I believe in HOPE’s holistic approach because I believe in the power of the Gospel to reshape attitudes and soften hearts. When that happens, and hearts are changed, then we achieve success. Then we see our clients begin to reflect Christ’s love back into their communities as they rise out of poverty.

Clients like Berky & Rafael, a Dominican couple who started a school for the poorest kids in their neighborhood with their business profits. Clients like Oleg who started an aftercare ministry for men coming out of prison, providing many of them with jobs in his furniture manufacturing business. They have given back to their communities because their hearts have been changed. That for HOPE, and nothing less, is how we define success.

From Prostituting to Prospering

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Ephesians 4:28 (emphasis mine)

“So that.” Our mandate, as believers, is to equip and empower others to not just leave their old lifestyles, but to be transformed themselves so that they can help others. What I love about this verse is that our mandate doesn’t stop with helping thieves stop stealing. Our calling is not solely to help the poor to no longer be poor. We’re called to help them become agents of change in their own communities so that as a result of our help, they can then help others. How can the church respond to this mandate?

On the island of Hispaniola, tens of thousands of Haitian immigrants have migrated across the border into the Dominican Republic in search of a better life. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and often the prospects of moving into the Dominican Republic, while still a very poor country, are enticing. However, the reality is that the dream of a prosperous new life rarely comes to fruition. Unable to find honest work, many Haitian immigrant mothers resort to prostitution as the cries of their hungry children become too much for them to bear.

The churches in the Dominican Republic want to help. They want to help these mothers leave that destructive lifestyle. But how? No amount of prayer, food, medical treatment, clothing giveaways, water sanitation, or even advocacy is going to free them. The issue is employment. These women’s children are dying in front of them and they need money to feed them and put them in school. Churches there want to help these women, to live out Eph. 4:29, but they don’t know how.

One of these prostitutes is named Rosa Andre (pictured with her son below). Rosa is HIV+ and has five children. Iglecia Buen Samaritano (Good Samaritan Church), in Puerto Plata, DR, wanted to minister to her and women like her, but did not know how. Last year, in partnership with HOPE, Iglecia Buen Samaritano pioneered a new program to help women like Rosa. Over the course of 40 days, church volunteers and HOPE employees met with a group of 20 prostitutes, including Rosa, every day to go through biblically-based business training and through Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life.

Many of these women learned for the first time that there is a God who loves them and has a purpose for them. At the end of these 40 days of training and encouragement, they were each given a loan of about $150 to start a business. The results have been astounding. Many of these women have entered into a relationship with Christ and over 95% of the women who have gone through the program have not gone back to their old occupation as they are now able to provide for their families through honest work. They’ve seen real change happen in their lives. We are now replicating the program throughout the country because of the success in Puerto Plata.

Rosa, when asked about the impact of the program on her life said this, “There is a change because before I went out and engaged in prostitution. I feel safer now because I don’t go out. And now I can support my five children by selling clothes. I knew about the love of God before but I didn’t understand it. I understand that God loves me now.” The church found a way to help Rosa. They responded to Ephesians 4:28. Rosa no longer is selling her body for sex, but selling clothing so that she can provide for her five sweet children.

 

Let the prostitute no longer sell her body for sex, but rather let her labor, doing honest work with her own hands, so that she may have something to share with anyone in need. Ephesians 4:28 (revised)

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Atheist Supports Evangelism

Matthew Parris, an award-winning columnist with a prominent British newspaper, wrote this in a recent column:

 Travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: One I’ve been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I’ve been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good. (emphasis mine)

What a powerful proposition Parris suggests. I agree with him strongly, as does my organization, HOPE International. We believe his comments are the reason Christ-centered organizations are so important in Africa. Still, it is confounding to read this from an atheist. Essentially, what Parris says compares to Mitt Romney making a comment like this in a primary debate: “You know, I believe I’m a great candidate, but I just think Rick Perry is better prepared and will be more effective than me at bringing about the type of change we need in America.”

It’s laughable to think about. Yet, this is what Parris says. Despite that he whole-heartedly believes there is no God, he supports and believes in the work of Christian organizations in Africa because of the transformation which only God can bring. We have seen this clearly demonstrated around the globe. The transformative message of Christ coupled with an effective and empowering method of helping is a dynamic combination.

As a decidedly Christian organization, we are actually able to add tremendous value to the lives of our clients because of our Christian-ness. And Parris, an atheist, seems to agree. In other words, HOPE is not just a Christianized knock-off version of bigger secular organizations. HOPE’s faith-based approach is much more than that – it’s ultimately the singularly most-important characteristic of our work.