Christian Shoddy is still Shoddy

A tense cloud hovered above the desk that separated us. Meeting in an aging office building in a small Romanian town,  Dorian articulated a troubling reality about his organization: Nobody liked it.

I was in Romania to find a good microfinance organization. Friends of HOPE funded an exploratory trip to determine whether Romania would be a good place for us us to expand. With a presence nearby in Ukraine, Russia and Moldova; Romania was a natural next step for our expansion. Traveling the country by train for three months, I met with dozens of leaders to learn more about the needs of entrepreneurs  and about the current resources that were available to them in their country. It was largely encouraging, but my meeting with Dorian gave me pause.

Dorian aired many grievances about his clients. His organization planned business training sessions and no clients show up. They offered business loans, but very few paid them back. They offered consulting services, but nobody was buying. Their clients didn’t like or value their products. That reality would normally prompt sympathy from me, not frustration. But I felt much more of the latter because of his closing remarks:

We’re sad that nobody is showing up for our training sessions or paying back their loans, but you know, we’re telling them about Jesus. And that’s all that truly matters.

Dorian’s comments contained a semblance of truth. I believe wholeheartedly that we need to share Jesus with those we serve. And in that light, Dorian’s enthusiasm about the gospel is admirable. But that’s where my agreement with him stops.

Slapping an ichthus on a jug of spoiled milk does not honor God. Searing a cross on a hamburger doesn’t make it taste like filet mignon. I don’t care how “Christian” your school is; if all your students fail, I’m not sending my kid there. We serve a God who created an earth that holds its axis and planets that hold their orbit. God articulated a breathtaking and precise blueprint for his tabernacle. And our God instructs us to do likewise, commanding we do our work with excellence.

Dorian spoke as if creating a substandard product was honoring to God simply because of the words he spoke. But Christian shoddy is still shoddy. Our creator demonstrated superb taste and strong attention to detail in his craftsmanship. When we ignore the needs of our customers, treat them with disdain and “ichthus-wash” it with spirituality, we do not reflect the full nature of our creator.

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.

Snapshots of Suffering

Lush vegetation creeps onto the roads wherever it’s permitted to do so. Tired political posters adorn the street signs, interrupting the brightly-painted buildings which line the crowded streetscape. Our bus darts through the tight thoroughfares in San Pedro, avoiding overtaxed motorcycles with nearly impossible precision. The streets teem with Dominican culture: Venders peddling just-picked-from-the-field sugarcane, scads of Chihuahuas scampering behind their owners and uniformed school kids winding through the bustle toward their classrooms.

I like it here. There is richness in the culture and authenticity in the people. My work has been the impetus for my recent travels here. Traveling with groups of HOPE donors, we visit the courageous Dominican entrepreneurs we serve throughout the country.  Each trip looks different. The donors, entrepreneurs, and communities we visit are unique. I see new places and experience fresh stories. There is one theme, however, which connects all these trips. I’m not proud of it, but I’ve committed one regrettable act on every trip I’ve taken here, an act I’ve only recently even identified.

While navigating through the DR, we always stumble upon a sad neighborhood. These communities, normally labeled shanty towns, usually border sugarcane plantations and they reflect a much cloudier image of the spirited Caribbean culture. Like a dandelion-rich lawn on a well-manicured suburban street, these poor communities stick out. The evident material poverty is jarring. And it’s in these places—on every trip—where it happens: I slip out my camera and capture the misery. I find an especially forlorn-looking mom or a cobbled-together home (preferably both) and snap away.

These snapshots, illuminating the most desperate scenes I can find, become like trip trophies. They’re the type of pictures which make me feel guilty about complaining. About anything. They remind me of how nice my house is and how full my closets are and of just how very much I have. The pictures hold just a glimmer of redemptive value in this convicting power. But, when I snap these candids, I define those communities by what they lack. With each flicker of my camera lens, I make one more strike against those places, stamping them by their deficiencies.

Our charity is often the same. When given the option between defining people by what they have or by what they lack, we normally choose the latter. It’s easier to meet needs than it is to unlock potential. It’s quicker to heal wounds than to train doctors. It’s simpler to raise money to give stuff than for training to make stuff. But, I know I’d sure rather be known for what I do well than by what I lack.

The LORD your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.

(Zephaniah 3:17 ESV)

I’m thrilled to serve a God who truly knows me. A God who does not define me by my weaknesses. A Creator who made me in his image. A Father who “exults” over me, his child. These truths convince me that If God and I sojourned across the Dominican together, his pictures would look strikingly different than mine.

snapshot of dignity

A Carpet Confession

It was a moment when personal convenience trumped common decency. Desmond, our six month old, was in his cheery post-feeding bliss. And, as I moved him through our hotel room, Desmond performed a response not uncommon for full babies: He spit-up. And the carpet caught the brunt of his act.

It was in this moment where I miserably failed a test of honor. I simply and soullessly watched as the spit-up pooled on the hotel’s beautiful carpet. Without any ethical reservations, I smushed the spit-up into the carpet fibers with the sole of my shoe. With just a few spineless swipes, Desmond’s deposit disappeared. I can’t even pretend I waffled with the decision. The whole sequence lasted just seconds.

Since that regrettable moment, I have attempted to identify what motivated me to do it. Despite its incivility, there have to be at least meager grounds for what I did. This is what I know: I would never have done that in my own house. In fact, I recounted a number of home floor-scrubbing memories, moments where I busted out specialized cleaning products and bristle brushes to clean even minor blemishes, exhausting my arm and back muscles in the process.

Ownership was the difference between these Mr. Clean moments and the hotel room villainousness. I am deeply committed to maintaining my home. It’s a place where I have invested personal energy, money and time. The hotel room, however, was just rented space. I knew I would never see that room again, so I was unconcerned about the long-term cleanliness and vibrancy of the hotel’s carpet.

While I am deserving of scorn, don’t furrow your brow at me just yet. You’re no different from me. I’m betting you’ve Andretti’d more than one Hertz rental in your lifetime. Or, perhaps you’ve left a bathroom stall in a condition which your mother would not approve. The principle applies beyond carpet stains. It’s the reason dormitory bathrooms teem with innumerable bacterial varieties. It’s why my fellow Coloradans feel no shame in abusing their rental skis while shredding the mountain. It’s why old Soviet apartment buildings look worse with each passing month.

At HOPE, we are committed to not dictating to our entrepreneurs the type of businesses they should start and run. We avoid coaching them into specific ideas for the same reason I vigorously scrub our home’s soiled carpets. If we conceive it, they don’t own it. Business challenges become as dismissible as hotel room infractions. When our clients pursue their own dreams, no stain—a rough sales month or tough weather—is uncleanable.

Unlocking Cuban Creativity

At first glance, the article reads like a first-hand account of a post-disaster country: “Streets once devoid of commerce in towns like this and in Havana are gradually coming to life…” The scene Victoria Burnett described in her New York Times article was not of a country recovering from a natural disaster or civil war. Instead, it depicted her journey through Cuba, a country whose people have been reawakened. She experienced the buzz of vibrant entrepreneurship: Unshuttered storefront windows, machinery re-tuned and whirring along till late in the night, rich smells of freshly-ground coffee beans, and the hum and excitement of restaurateurs promoting their newly-minted menus.

Cuba gives us a real-time snapshot into the spirit of innovation. For decades, unrealized dreams and untapped abilities were locked within the failed Cuban socialist system. The government-imposed chains have now been cut loose. In a move of genuine humility (at best) or desperate self-preservation (at worst), Cuban leaders have admitted that the Cuban people are better positioned than their government to innovate and to address their country’s problems.

The Cuban rebirth unearths the soul of HOPE International’s work. At the core, we believe that God—the innovator of the solar systems, mountain ranges, and human emotion—has planted a glimmer of his creativity in us. When given the opportunity to do so, people will put that gift to work. Architects, chefs, artists, entrepreneurs, electricians, florists, educators and scientists each apply their God-given creativity in uniquely profound ways. Now, for the first time in decades, Cubans have the chance to do the same.

Photo source: Jose Goitia, The New York Times

Our role as those with abundance is to do more than solely provide for those in need. Our calling is far greater than providing food for hungry bellies and medicine for sick bodies. We are surely called to do these things, but also called to unleash the God-given creativity of those in need. To fuel the imaginings of those without the privilege of exercising their creative muscles.

As I watch Cubans taking small steps toward these ends, my spirit is energized. Tomorrow, I will fly to another Caribbean nation – the Dominican Republic. While there, I will observe the fruits of Dominican innovation. I will feast on slow-cooked and fantastically-marinated rice and beans, enjoy the sweetness of freshly-harvested fruit smoothies, and perhaps purchase a bottle of home-brewed shampoo. I will meet entrepreneurs who are using the abilities and engaging the dreams which God has sowed within them. The Dominican economy and its people are flourishing. Let’s hope Cuba is right behind them.

Microfinance: The World’s Best! …no Worst! Idea

Close to five years ago, I charged into employment with HOPE International, riding the surge of the microfinance movement. At that time, the only press you could find on microfinance lauded the concept. The idea of helping poor people borrow and save money was not just pitched as a good idea. It was the world’s best idea.

Because the concept was so potent, so preeminently powerful, some industry leaders claimed it would single-handedly put poverty in a museum. Every major news source in the country (NYT, The Economist, Newsweek, CNN, etc.) featured a steady stream of microfinance stories, all with the same message: We have discovered poverty’s cure-all—our silver bullet. There was literary and conversational “dancing in the streets” as we celebrated the discovery of the one-stop solution which would solve our world’s problems. The clear verdict: Microfinance eradicates poverty.

During early 2007, however, the news soured. The dancing turned to questioning as those bold proclamations were challenged. Research findings painted a less than glamorous picture of the impact of microfinance. Journalists (from these same publications) discovered microfinance clients who had taken out loans from one institution to pay off loans at another. Last month, it was revealed that some lenders’ high-pressure loan delinquency practices actually drove over 50 Indian microfinance clients to commit suicide, sparking agrowing unrest in the Indian microfinance sector. The clear verdict: Microfinance perpetuates poverty.

Here is my question: Why are we so desperate to label microfinance as either a panacea or pandemic? Might the reality be that microfinance is neither? When the Toyota acceleration debacle hit mainstream or NWA Flight 255 crashed, nobody suggested that the automobile, airplane, or transportation system in general were detrimental to our society. Similarly, when Waiting for Superman hit theaters this month, highlighting the sad reality that many of our nation’s public schools are failing our country’s youth, even the biggest of educational critics do not suggest that all schools be shut down.

On the flipside, we share a belief that for every pastor scandal or denominational split, there are many more positive examples of churches truly making a positive impact on our world. The reality is that no single idea, concept, industry or poverty alleviation strategy is perfect or devoid of abuse and corruption.  We all know hospitals, airlines, car manufacturers, schools and churches which are successful – and probably a few which have failed.

Microfinance is not a new idea – we all benefit from the core concept every day. Savings accounts, business training, loans, and insurance products are tools we all use every day. I am personally grateful for Graystone Bank and Wells Fargo, both of which have provided an immeasurably positive benefit to my life. I also know countless successful entrepreneurs across the globe whose businesses were fueled by mentoring, biblically-based business training and access to capital.

It is just as wrong to talk about microfinance eradicating poverty as it is to lump payday loan shops, ruthless money lenders and usurious banks with sound, values-driven, client-focused microfinance initiatives. Not all microfinance is created equal! Sadly, a nuanced and balanced perspective does not make headlines, but my encouragement is to critique every extreme story, on both sides, in the court of commonsense and sound judgment.

Please let me know if you have questions about any of the recent articles or news stories on microfinance. I’d love to dialogue with you!

Help the Poor …and Promote Alcoholism

“Moonshine or the Kids?” Nicholas Kristof, writer for the New York Times, stimulated much uneasiness with this question in his recent column on global poverty. He said:

“There’s an ugly secret of global poverty, one rarely acknowledged by aid groups or U.N. reports. It’s a blunt truth that is politically incorrect, heartbreaking, frustrating and ubiquitous: It’s that if the poorest families spent as much money educating their children as they do on wine, cigarettes and prostitutes, their children’s prospects would be transformed. Much suffering is caused not only by low incomes, but also by shortsighted private spending decisions by heads of households.”

Kristof went on to cite some clear data to highlight this disturbing “ugly secret.” At the same time I read this article, I heard a radio report about the rising prices of vodka in Russia. In the report, they interviewed an unemployed man who was frustrated by the rising prices. He said, “I just so desperately need to find a job so I can afford to buy more vodka.” The comment stuck with me. We work in Russia and I wondered if this man had ever attempted to start a business through HOPE to “grow his family’s income.”

It’s easy to romanticize the decision-making of poor people. Of course they’ll choose to send their kids to school over sending for a prostitute. Of course they’ll choose to feed their kids breakfast before feeding their alcohol addiction. But what makes us think that? What makes us wrongly assume that they don’t deal with the same brokenness that we do? This article and radio report made me uncomfortable as I contemplated whether HOPE’s work had ever helped poor Russians buy more vodka.

I’m more convinced than ever that helping people materially is not enough. Helping is enabling. My friend, Dr. Rob Gailey, articulated it more clearly. He said that “economic development is about increasing people’s choices.” If we help an alcoholic poor person – and there is no heart change – we will simply enable him to buy higher qualities and quantities of alcohol. Without heart change, as the BBC reported, helping families in India might actually be enabling them to perform sex-selection abortions, a problem which “prosperity is actually aggravating.”

In a sense, we could be enabling the oppressed to become the oppressors if we do not speak to more than business decisions. True change happens when we promote biblical values, boldly communicating the truth of the Gospel. Income growth is important, but it is only when hearts and minds are transformed that we will we see true change happen. When I hear stories like that of Mama Flores (video below), a salon owner who has trained and employed over 15 orphans through her business success, I am energized that our approach answers the unsettling questions which Kristof asks.

The Privilege of Influence

Down the road from Joshua Station, where my wife and I live, stands the second worst school in all of Denver. Greenlee Elementary School is failing. Last year, after four years of severe underperformance, Denver Public Schools terminated over half of the staff in an attempt to resuscitate it. The challenge for local families is that for most; Greenlee is their only option. This summer, the balance shifted.

A new school put down roots in our neighborhood. A branch of West Denver Prep, an innovative charter school with higher student growth rates than any other school in Denver, came into the community with a flurry. For this expansion branch to survive, the principal needed to fill the seats. And he refused to circumvent the at-risk families in the community. He came to Joshua Station, a transitional housing program home to two dozen low-income families, multiple times to recruit new families to join West Denver Prep.

Maria and her daughter were one of those families. Maria is a spirited and protective mother and she did not go soft on the young principal when he showed up. She pelted him with tough questions: How do you handle school violence? How tough are your teachers? How do you engage parents? Resiliently, he answered each question with candor and compassion. Maria left the meeting impressed and determined to enroll her daughter at West Denver Prep. She shared that with me proudly.

He came to my apartment three times and answered my questions honestly. Greenlee’s leaders only came after I told them I wasn’t enrolling my daughter there. They tried to convince me not to leave, because my daughter is a great student, but they didn’t fight for us like West Denver Prep.

Maria, a single, formerly homeless mom experienced the privilege of influence in a profound way. When Greenlee was her only option, she had no choice. She had no influence. That school, her only choice, was failing and there was very little she could do about it. She was on the receiving end of a bad gift which she was unable to refuse or return. This is a circumstance which plagues under-resourced, low-income families across the globe.

One of the greatest contributions we can make with our charitable efforts occurs when we shift the balance of influence to those who are historically without it. In the context of microfinance, one of the foremost ways we enrich the lives of our clients is through the provision of influence. Because they are customers, rather than recipients, they have a seat at the proverbial, and sometimes literal, bargaining table. If loan sizes are not flexible enough, interest rates are too high or branch offices are too far from their homes; they let us know. HOPE is a gift they can refuse. On the flip side, we are highly motivated to provide the very best services imaginable. Or our clients walk.

Jacqueline Novogratz, a leading voice in international development, describes this concept by comparing the market to a “listening device”:

If I give you a gift…you would be highly unlikely to tell me what was wrong with it. And in fact, when I visited, you might even put it out on the mantelpiece to make me feel good. That same thing happens with traditional charity. If I ask you to buy something from me, you suddenly become a customer with a big attitude as to what’s right about it and what’s wrong about it… So in that way, the market is a listening device.

When this transition happens, we change from the position of informing the poor about what they need, to adapters and listeners, responding to the demands, requests and influence of those we serve. We can empower and equip women, like Maria, when we open up the doors of influence.

A Tale of Two Cities — Education

Two months ago I started a journey, in monthly installments, to two fictional cities—Assetsville and Needsville—both cities representative of poor communities in Africa. While the issues, such as poor health care and dirty water, in these cities are identical, the responses to these issues could not be more different—both in philosophy and methodology.

Tomorrow’s leaders are currently studying in schools across our country and around the world. The importance of how we educate our children cannot be overstated. However, well-documented problems exist in the educational systems of even the wealthiest of nations, including our own, as we stare at a future where, for the first time in our history, illiteracy rates will be higher for our children than they are for us. These problems are only exacerbated in places like in Needsville and Assetsville, where infrastructures are broken, governments are corrupt, and safety nets are porous.

Needsville’s leaders are aware of the depth of the educational problems in their community. In some parts of the city, the schools are the issue. Accountability does not exist. Teachers rarely show up, or show up intoxicated, and students receive only a semblance of an education. In other parts of the community, government power-brokers perpetuate the problem. Teachers are poorly equipped and undertrained and some teachers have gone months without pay because the local government has withheld or distorted aid funding. To counteract the steady regression of Needsville’s youth, they have poured enormous amounts of resources and new strategies into resolving the problem. They have filtered huge amounts of foreign aid to government-run schools. Yet, the increase in funding has simply expanded a broken system, rather than driving positive reform, though it is not from a lack of clever ideas.

“Laptops for all!” was lauded as a quick-fix, but the actual citizens of Needsville had no role in the development of the final product, and the program failed due to limited demand and poor design. A few Christian missionaries have set up quality private schools, but the reality is that donor funding limits them to reaching just a fraction of the students in the community, and there are no missionaries in many of the city’s neighborhoods. Sadly, the future is not bright for Needsville’s children. The numbers are clear. Despite all the increase in funding, the schools are failing and 30% of Needsville’s children are still not attending school.

In Assetsville, the future of the city is brighter than its present because of recent reforms. Across the city, parents, frustrated with the quality of their children’s education, decided to take action. Fed up with the quality and bureaucracy of their city’s schools, dozens of aspiring parents became the solution. They started private schools, many held in local church buildings, to provide their children with a higher level of education. Students at their schools consistently outperform their neighbors in Needsville and attendance rates are much higher. The local government even got into the act. Encouraged by the results, government leaders began providing private school vouchers to families and training to these teachers.

These schools are run by “edupreneurs” who charge a small monthly fee to the students, though close to 20% of the students in these schools, predominantly orphans, are exempt from fees. This arrangement adds accountability for the edupreneur, as parents now have a real voice in their children’s education. While providing a much-higher quality education for the poor, the school is also providing jobs for the edupreneurs and teachers, and in many cases, bringing the community back into the church building. Encouraged by the progress, a new organization was launched to support these edupreneurs through teacher training, small loans for facility improvements through microfinance organizations, and through curriculum support. The Christ-centered curriculum is designed with the edupreneurs and emphases entrepreneurialism, with a vision of shepherding and equipping the next generation of Assetsville’s leaders. Next month’s final installment will look at the guiding values and principles of this series.

*Thanks to Professor James Tooley, whose research I drew upon heavily for this article

(Chris)

A Tale of Two Cities — Clean Water and Sanitation

Last month I started a journey, in monthly installments, to two fictional cities—Assetsville and Needsville—both cities representative of poor communities in Africa. While the issues in these cities are identical, the responses to these issues could not be more different—both in philosophy and methodology.

Clean water and sanitation are luxuries. The statistics are devastating: One billion of our planet’s citizens lack access to clean water. Unsafe water and poor sanitation cause 80% of all diseases and kill more than two million people annually, 90% of whom are children under the age of five.

When these realities became publicized in Needsville, the response from the international community was swift and profound. Wells were drilled. Rainwater was collected and purified. Water filtration plants were installed. The challenge was big and the response was inspiring.

Sadly, the outcomes fell far short of the aspirations. Shockingly, 80% of the new wells fell into disrepair. The entire region became a “wasteland for broken water and sanitation infrastructure.” The working wells became overworked, plagued by shortages and unmotivated staff. Long lines developed at these wells as the meek recipients waited anxiously to fill up their jugs with the “free” water. Even some church well projects, while well-meaning, were not sustained. The wells were drilled for the residents of Needsville by missions trippers, not by or with them.

In sharp contrast, the streets of Assetsville are now flowing with clean water. Local ingenuity, entrepreneurial grit and sustainable models abound. A local church recently built a water purification center with the help of a Christian ministry and is now providing affordable clean water to their community. The water business employs a handful of church members and creates a revenue stream for the church to pay its underpaid pastoral staff. Refreshing: The local church is providing affordable pure water and sharing about the Living Water.

A microfinance program in Assetsville built a purification system in its branch office. Dozens of clients subsequently took out loans to purchase the clean water in bulk. These water vendors load up their bicycles with jugs of water and sell it in some of the most-underserved communities in the city. Through this model, they collectively sell over 300,000 gallons annually and experience the dignity of work. Innovative: Water solutions—microfinance-style.

Down the road, a pioneering new business is a booming success, bringing dignity to sanitation, through its high-quality, public, pay-per-use toilet and shower facility. Counterintuitive: “The poor” paying for the privilege of using clean bathroom facilities.

Even the children are involved in the movement. They pump clean water into their schools while they play on merry-go-rounds. The excess water is sold to the community and advertising space on the water tanks is sold to ensure the pumps are maintained. Clever: Sustainable clean water fueled by the play of children.

All throughout Assetsville, fresh ideas and entrepreneurial tenacity are charting a new course—a course fueled by smart solutions, and framed by healthy partnerships between the residents of Assetsville and those who are descending on the city to provide help. Next month’s installment: Education.

(Chris)