The past two weeks have been a whirlwind of activity and a flurry of meetings. We finished our time in Thailand meeting with the Asia Pacific Director for Opportunity International then headed South to Jakarta where we met with the third largest microfinance NGO there. They have 25k loan clients in 14 branches throughout 3 of the islands. We had an in-depth look at their operations, staff and motivations for their work. We came away from the last two countries fully content in how God has been leading us each step of the way. Then we made our way to Manila.

We arrived in the Philippines last week and its been great to connect here with our friends Dan and Esther who are pastors at the church, Cathedral of Praise. We were overcoming our disappointment though in the first few days when one of our meetings with the co-founder of Opportunity fell through. What we know of him encourages us all the more: here is a guy who helped co-found the largest Christian microfinance NGO in the world and walks away at the height of its "success" because doing microfinance in Jesus name became more of a mantra than a reality. Not to say it can’t return to its former ambitions, but at this point it is not making steps to correct their priorities. This is forever at the forefront of our minds- creating an outreach that is unwavering in its mission and purpose. This year has been an eye-opener as to groups starting in the right direction, only to get sidetracked and stumble somewhere along the way.

We have successfully completed taking the Leadership Matters Course in Kanchanburi, Thailand. It was quite the intensive 2 weeks of study, but for great results!

We were able to work through some strategic planning with people who have had quite a lot of experience in the world of non-profits and ministry, etc. Since we are just a couple of months from the close of Paradigm Shift’s Phase One research trip, we are putting together 6 more months of travel within the US to raise funds and partners for the pilot program. It was great to have the time to work through some of that planning and preparation such as public relations plans of action and so forth.

Tomorrow we head to Indonesia for one week, then we will be in the Philippines for a month, then to the Marshall Islands to study and minister for a few weeks before heading back to the States. So the traveling continues! Keep your emails and comments coming…they are precious and inspiring!

The LOCATIONS PAGE is the latest webpage to be unveiled on www.shiftingparadigms.org by our fantastic web designer Timothy Burch at Visual Prophesy!

The locations page gives concise and poignant descriptions of who Paradigm Shift will work with in the coming months and downloadable 1 Page PDF Country Briefs for each country we’ve worked in with descriptions of what took place.

So, go to the top of the page then click on the Locations link to get a better sense of what is happening for Phase One at Paradigm Shift.