Backstory: World Vision International

The vision and work of World Vision is both inspiring and aligned with my core values. Sometime in 2010 I began monitoring the World Vision employment website submitting one unanswered application for a program management role in Haiti and another for a role leading People & Culture (HR) for the Latin America and Caribbean Region, based in Panama City, Panama. Also around that time I was reading The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns the President of World Vision U.S. and found that the book provided exceptionally detailed information on the needs of the poorest of the poor and the hopeful yet inadequate response of individuals, organizations, and governments to address those needs. The interviews and candidate selection process was set to be completed just prior to Thanksgiving (2010) and I felt very good about the interviews, although I would not actually learn the outcome until the second week of December...

From World Vision International's website: http://www.wvi.org

World Vision is a Christian relief, development and advocacy organization dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice.

Inspired by our Christian values, we are dedicated to working with the world’s most vulnerable people.

We serve all people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender.

           

            Our vision for every child, life in all its fullness;

Our prayer for every heart, the will to make it so.

Backstory - Beginning the Transition

I left Kaiser Permanente in August 2010.  Almost immediately several opportunities presented themselves, most with lucrative salaries and opportunities.  A series of conversations and interviews with Google ended in the recruiter’s conclusion that I should probably work for a non-profit due to my desire to serve and time allocation devoted to missions. A short term consulting assignment with the Santa Rosa Community Health Centers (through Resources Global Professionals) was especially fulfilling and I also began working on a change management book I had set aside a few years back. While these opportunities were reassuring and genuinely entertained, it was through prayer, not planning, that my next steps were chartered.  My attention was ultimately drawn to two organizations that would offer an opportunity for immersion in the field of social justice and humanitarian aid: World Vision International and Pepperdine University's Graduate School of Education and Psychology.

Backstory: Short-Term Mission Immersion Continues

Over the six months following The School of Nations I participated in missions to the Amazon (June 2010) with Mike Silva International, Indonesia (July/August 2010) with Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara and Revive Indonesia, and again to Indonesia (October 2010) with Revive Indonesia. Whether providing medical or dental clinics, or sharing and showing God’s love, I found each trip reinforcing the call to help and refining and confirming ways in which I could make a difference in the lives of people throughout the nations. I was fortunate to be born into the wealthiest nation of all time in the course of human history.  It was neither my right nor my fault.  It is my privilege, and with that privilege comes responsibility.  I am called to serve.

“If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth”.  1 John 3: 17-18

Backstory: The School of Nations

In December 2009, following the trip to Fiji, I enrolled in a newly developed program sponsored by the same group (The Mission, Vacaville, CA). The School of Nations evening program had ten students, and each week from January through April, we studied a different region of the world. Each student would prepare and present a five-minute presentation on a country within the given region for that week. The weekly research, done mostly online and through multiple media sources, was eye opening and humbling.  It again reminded me that there is no excuse for inaction, no excuse for ignorance, no ability to say “I didn’t know”.  Each week we also hosted indigenous people or missionaries from a country within the studied region and learned from first hand experience what was happening in that country – areas of success and areas of need.  I heard chilling first hand accounts of ethnic cleansing in Croatia, starvation in Malawi, oppression in Romania, and devastation in South Africa caused by Aids and lack of clean water.  The reports were real-time, not historical recounts from 50 – 100 years ago.  Right now.  This course and community provided an amazing heart broadening experience that helped solidify my call to serve and informed my decision in  May 2010 to leave my executive post with Kaiser Permanente to create more flexibility to pursue my passion to serve those in need throughout the nations.

Backstory: Short-Term Mission Immersion and Important Realizations

In October 2009 an opportunity was presented to participate with another organization on a mission trip to Fiji. This trip was quite different from the trip to Indonesia. We happened to be there during a two-week national campaign to raise awareness to the social issues of gender inequality and child abuse. The dynamics in the groups we were leading, the Tala Tala, who were both the church leaders and village chiefs, confirmed what I was reading in the papers in the areas of gender inequality and the importance of addressing it for the stabilization and future of Fiji.  This trip also provided additional insight to the importance of respecting, and in some cases restoring, indigenous culture.  As in Indonesia the culture supports community and sharing to a much greater extent than most Western cultures. It was a reminder that providing aid or assistance to another culture is a delicate venture.  The West does not have all of the answers and many of our ways are not only unappealing to other cultures, they can create disharmony in well-balanced communities if not done appropriately.

Backstory: Serving Through Short-Term Missions - Kupang, Indonesia

In 2008 I felt a strong calling to service and international missions that had been tugging at me for some time, increase to the point of demanding action and I signed up for a mission trip to Kupang, Indonesia.  What I experienced on that trip was truly life altering and when I returned to from that trip I knew without a doubt that a new season was opening and my calling was again being refined. On that trip in July 2009, to Kupang, Indonesia, on the Island of Timor I was able to experience, first hand, the love and similarities between people from distant nations, as well as the stark differences in access to clean drinking water, medical supplies and services, and shelter following devastating events such as earthquakes and tsunamis. An entire people group and region of the world became immediately real and tangible. It forever changed my life. I knew the time to make a difference was now. I just wasn’t clear on how to do it.  I did note that friends, family, and neighbors were eager to hear about my trip. Colleagues I had never even had lunch with invited me to their homes for dinner to hear about the trip. I shared my experiences mostly through the photos I had taken, and found it to be a great opportunity to expose people to the needs of others and to share my faith.  

Backstory: An Important Personal Question

From 2002 to 2009 as I was maturing both as an individual and in my faith, my worldview and life perspective began to change significantly. Up to this time the full-page magazine ads and other reporting on modern day genocide, ethnic cleansing, starvation, and human trafficking were so far removed from my daily reality that I could see them yet still not grasp the magnitude and realness of them. Over time, however, it became more and more difficult to ignore or gloss over the harsh realities that people were experiencing throughout the world. Documentaries, movies, and books, such as Born into Brothels, Schindler’s List, and Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea, kept the issue of ongoing social injustices visible. They also pointed out something else – that individuals could make a difference.  The concept is both inspiring and condemning.  If individuals could make a difference, a real difference addressing grave social injustices, then why wasn’t I?  It’s a simple question, and unfortunately too easy to answer with rationalizations.  I had to change my question to “how can I use my talents and abilities to reduce social injustices on a global basis?”