A Christmas Blessing

During this Christmas season, my prayer, and the pray of all those at Partners Worldwide, is voiced in this Benedictine Blessing:

May God bless you with a restless discomfort
about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships,
so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression,
and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for
justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer
from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may
reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that
you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able,
with God’s grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

And the blessing of God the Supreme Majesty and our Creator,
Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word who is our brother and Saviour,
and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide, be with you
and remain with you, this day and forevermore.

AMEN.

Sister Ruth Fox, OSB

Strategic Planning

Cuenca Partners spent time this past Saturday working on a strategic growth plan for the next four years. During a retreat in Yunguilla, ten members of the leadership team reviewed the ministry's vision and mission before delving into a debate of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunites and threats for Cuenca Partners. Over the next 3 months, they hope to complete the plan and begin putting it into action.

In the meantime, the weekend retreat resulted in an immediate commitment to more frequent team meetings and a renewed focus on mentoring for training graduates.

César Borja leads a discussion of Cuenca Partners' organizational strengths

A Conference in Cuenca

What would happen if business and church leaders met together to delve deeper into the issues of poverty in their community? What would happen if they went beyond that to consider how to work together on long-term solutions to poverty?

That is the premise of a conference being planned for April by Cuenca Partners in conjunction with Partners Worldwide and PovertyCure.

During the October Marketplace Revolution Conference, Boris Ordonez and Felix Hernandez, the respective leaders of the Ecuadorian and North American sides of the Partners Worldwide partnership in Cuenca, caught the vision of engaging not only their church in their city, but the entire ecumenical Church in Ecuador in this question.

Boris is a leader in the Verbo Church of Cuenca, with two thousand members, several ministries, and different organizations from an orphanage to a medical clinic to a radio that meet various needs in the community. However, he says that, "I think our ministry here lacks an understanding of why and how [we can] help people overcome poverty. We do a lot of charity but nothing with the vision of Business as Mission." His hope is to invite leaders from over 30 Verbo churches in Ecuador, as well as leaders from the Catholic church, other evangelical churches, government ministries, and business people to engage with PovertyCure and Partners Worldwide in a 2-day conference.

Over that time, PovertyCure would help Christians develop an awareness of the church's responsibility in addressing poverty. Through Partners Worldwide, they would take the next step and consider how churches and businesses can develop sustainable programs to create jobs and increase the ability of entrepreneurs to successfully go from poverty to having an income and even being able to employ others.

We still have four months and a lot of planning to make this a reality, but the enthusiasm for this event is tangible!

MR14 Workshop on the "Call to Business and the end of Poverty"
Cuenca Partners was inspired by this workshop to plan a similar
conference for April of 2015

Marketplace Revolution 2014

Today marked the end of an amazing experience with 10 Ecuadorian visitors. While many of them have hosted me at times over the past 4 years while I visited their city and worked with them in the cities of Cuenca, El Guabo, and Guamote, this week was my chance to play host.

During the last two days, over 500 attendees descended on Grand Rapids, Michigan for the biannual Marketplace Revolution Conference hosted by Partners Worldwide. Some highlights of that time have been:

• Dinner together with 22 members of our 3 Ecuadorian partnerships on Thursday night
• Connecting leaders from our Latin American agricultural partnerships with Justin, a Zambian expert on bringing farmers from subsistence to sustainable production to reaching the level of agribusiness.
• Three Ecuadorians presented on our church-based model, mentoring program, and agricultural work in breakout sessions.
• Cesar Luzuriaga, one of our Cuenca Partners leaders, participated in the closing ceremony and delivered part of the commissioning.

Tomorrow I will head to Hudsonville and New Era, Michigan with attendees from Guamote, Michigan to meet with donors and visit a dairy processing facility.

Things Come Together

From June 25 to July 9, the dates when I arrived back from the US and when my visa was set to expire, it was crunch time to get my paperwork in order and ensure Ecuador’s immigration office would let me remain in the country, at least until I could finish the required steps to get residency.

Originally, I thought everything was set. I had my documents, and the church said they had everything else for me to get a renewal on my missionary visa. And then I went to get the visa, and was told that one document was expired. Come to find out, that document had been a back-and-forth issue for the church for the past year, and even when a government ministry in Quito mailed a new document that week, it was missing one single line of information—the exact thing that I needed for the visa.

One week before my current visa was to expire, I felt lost. I was doubtful of whether I still should be in Ecuador. And this creeping uncertain had me playing the worst-case scenarios in my head. Thoughts of getting stuck at the Peruvian border and unable to return to Ecuador had me worried. I finally had to step back and realize that everything was out of my hands. No amount of anxiety would bring that simple sheet of paper that I needed. The one thing I could do was pray.

Not only could I pray, but I could also invite others into the journey. I could explain my situation and ask friends, family, and coworkers to pray that everything would come together. On Friday I asked for prayers. That evening, in the course of a conversation, I felt clarity that I needed to leave things over the weekend and then on Monday go back to the immigration office with the documentation for a 6 month “commercial activities” visa.

When Monday morning rolled around, it was surprisingly easy to assemble the necessary documents. I already had all but two, and by late morning I stepped into the immigration office. The young woman who helped me not only reviewed the document, but started telling me “Sign here. Let’s paste your passport picture onto this document.” In the course of a few minutes, she was looking at her computer screen to schedule an appointment for Wednesday to officially make the switch to my new visa, which was all but stamped in my passport at that point.

All I could think as I walked out of the immigration office was, “God answers prayers.” I had only asked that by Wednesday I could work something out to not have to go to Peru and hope for a 90-day tourist visa when I returned to Ecuador. This was Monday, and I already had confirmation that I could get a visa. Moreover, I had an appointment, which meant I did not need to show up Wednesday morning at 7:30am to get in line.

When Wednesday arrived, things went smoothly, and by 1:30pm that day, I had a 6-month visa. God provided, and things came together.

Newsworthy

Our local partnership is making an impact in the city of Cuenca and is receiving increasing attention for its work. Through the coordination of one of our local team leaders, Gabriela Granda, and her publicity firm KreActiva, we've been able to share the story of Cuenca Partners in both of the major local newspapers. Here is a sample of the stories that were run back in April. (Yes, I'm a little behind on posting stories!)

Practice your Spanish by reading the print screen copies of the articles or scroll down for links to the English translation!

Cuenca Partners ayuda a iniciar emprendimientos from diario El Mercurio.
Read this article in English.

Se desarrolla seminario para microempresarios from diario El Tiempo.
Read this article in English.

Training Public Servants in Leadership

One of the amazing things I have witnessed in the past year is the way projects and plans have grown beyond any one person's power. When I first arrived in Cuenca, I was consulted whenever anything new started. That meant I had a lot of input, but it also meant a heavy responsibility to ensure everything came together. The leadership team of Cuenca Partners, our Partners Worldwide affiliate, has since taken the lead and given the impetus to start new projects and bring in the people necessary to make sure everything runs smoothly. I get to take a back seat and watch with a smile as responsibility is delegated into the hands of volunteers and new people step up into leadership. The training with ETAPA, detailed below, was one of those situations in which we saw that no single person could cover everything. However, through teamwork we were able to have a broad impact, and now the municipal government is asking us to bring the same training to their work force.

Since December 2013, Cuenca Partners has been collaborating with the public enterprise for telecommunication, water works, and sewers in its city, ETAPA EP, to offer training in leadership and topics of family unity to the public servants who work in the company. Although ETAPA can give employment and a dignified salary to over a thousand people who work in the various divisions of the company, it is the responsibility of each employee to use wisely the money they bring home each month. For that reason, the training seeks to motivate the employees to be responsible leaders in their daily work and also wise leaders in their homes.

Translated Report from ETAPA EP News:

The Family, Fundamental Pillar in Job Performance

ETAPA EP in coordination with the Submanagement of Human Resources is hosting a series of lectures focused on seeking the wellbeing of our coworkers and generating a stronger sense of ownership in the Company. For this reason, the Department of Social Wellness, Industrial Safety, and Occupational Health is executing motivational workshops for the personnel of the company as well as their families.

In topics relating to the company and its workers, the workshops seek to integrate the workers so that they value the importance of team work and meting one of the primary strategic objectives of ETAPA EP, “Improve Customer Satisfaction.”

[Photo: Boris Ordóñez of “Cuenca Partners” during a leadership seminar in the SIAPA building]

A New Partnership, A New Province

Boris Ordonez, who brought PW to Cuenca, shares with leaders in El Guabo 

Our partnership with the Verbo Christian Church in Cuenca began with a God-appointed meeting and conversation. In a similar way, the movement of that partnership to plant the seeds for a new group in a new region began with a divine appointment.

The Verbo Church in Cuenca started a church years ago in the town of El Guabo, just outside of Machala, a city of 250,000. When that church broke ground to build their own physical structure for worship, they invited one of the Verbo Cuenca leaders to share in the celebration, and that leader—Carlos Serrano—just happened to be a leader of the PW affiliate Cuenca Partners.

One thing led to the next, and over the course of several meetings in El Guabo and Cuenca, the vision for a business ministry was planted, and a leadership team was formed. This partnership is unique because it draws on business and church leaders from not one church but four. The Verbo Churches of the province of El Oro minister to four cities in the region as a team. 

Fittingly, they have taken a team approach to bringing business training, mentoring, and a vision of business as ministry to their congregations, their cities, and with God’s help, their entire province.

A Cuenca Partners leader teaches mentoring skills to future leaders in El Oro

Courageous business leaders from these churches are taking steps toward something new and unknown in their province as they form Camino de Emprendedores, loosely translated “Entrepreneurs’ Way”—the name they selected for this ministry. However, they’re not alone in the process. Leaders from Cuenca Partners have committed to travel the three hours from Cuenca to El Guabo to use what they have learned in the past two years to support their brothers and sisters in the ministry. And Partners Worldwide is actively connecting with Christian North American businesspeople who are interested in partnering with this local ministry.

That is what partnership for business as ministry is—planting the vision, walking together with other Christian businesspeople in diverse geographic regions, and stepping out in faith to pursue God’s calling to impact the businesses, families, and communities in a specific place through the marketplace.

I'm Back

After almost a year hiatus from posting in this blog, I'm back.

Teaching a Business Training Course in a rainforest community

"Why?" you might ask. Why did I stop posting? It wasn't that I left Ecuador or that there was nothing to talk about. Quite the contrary. By the end of August 2013, I found myself traveling at least once a week, diving into a new business training program in the rainforest, visiting Nicaragua for a regional team meeting, guiding North American groups literally across most of the country of Ecuador, and almost reaching the point of total exhaustion at several key times.  There was so much to tell, but so little time to clearly express it.

However, the next logical "Why?" is Why am I starting to post again?  Life hasn't necessarily slowed down, but I realize the importance of communicating what we are doing to a broader audience. There are people around the world supporting this work through their prayers, finances, and expertise, and as one of the few bilingual people involved in this work in a Spanish-speaking country, I have the opportunity to either keep these experiences to myself or express them as best I can, inviting friends and family, acquaintances and strangers to gain a glimpse of this vision of what business can do to transform communities.

So there's the short answer. Expect more posts. Expect stories and pictures and newspaper articles and links to other stories of what is happening in the rainforest, mountains, and coast of Ecuador. We're at an exciting moment when growth is mushrooming and new opportunities are springing up constantly. Come along and join in the adventure of both the work of Partners Worldwide in Ecuador and my side trips and adventures when I'm catching my breath on the weekends.

Enjoying nature on the weekend - hiking with Corrie (and her husband Matt) in Cajas National Park