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!

We met with missionaries doing some incredible work here in Asia. I can’t list the countries, but it suffices to say they are closed countries that are not open to the Gospel or the advancement of the Christian faith.

But in the midst of the adversity, the stories we heard from people translating the Bible into languages that have never been written, establishing churches where one doesn’t exist, to training nationals to take on the risk and reward of communicating God’s love in their own culture.

This group of people was incredibly diverse as some previously were architects, teachers, pilots, doctors, nurses and a host of other professions. All of them are using their talent to impact the lives of those living in these difficult places. The reward is far greater than the cost and these are people who believe that wholeheartedly and it challenges us to not give up when things get tough.

A friend recently pointed out this interesting website: http://www.prec.com/

I thought I would share it here because the premise of the study is quite fascinating, below is an excerpt from their about us page:

The goal of the Project on Religion and Economic Change is to evaluate the effect of religion on economies around the world at the national, community, and individual levels.

PREC is unique in its scope and design. Our data sets, based on missionary documents, permit an unprecedented look at the cumulative effect of religious influence on economies over 190 years and in every non-Western society.

We were planning on leaving Thailand last Tuesday, but a run in with the former International President of Wycliffe Bible Translators invited us to a two-week intensive leadership training course.

We took the opportunity to come and have been meeting some incredibly fascinating people who are using economic development in China, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Sudan, and a variety of other countries in the developing world.

What’s great is the variety of approaches and understanding the methods they are carrying out their initiatives. More on that to come.