FH Leadership Gathering

Greetings from the Mexico City airport. The place is electric watching the World Cup where Mexico just beat France 2-0. Mexico is my last stop before Lima on my return from FH's Leadership Gathering in Thailand. This has been quite a trip, 65 hours door to door to get there (Lima-Atlanta-Miami-Minneapolis-Tokyo-Bangkok + 3 hour shuttle to hotel). The return will only be about 57 hours. I will probably be over my jet lag somewhere around September!

Over 100 leaders from all of the countries FH works gathered in Thailand for this gathering. It was quite inspirational to be our mini United Nations and the sharing between countries was quite enriching. In general our different regions share the similarities of addressing physical and spiritual poverties though their expressions differ. In Africa FH operates large scale food security programs addressing some of the basic needs of the severely vulnerable, in Asia FH there is fascinating work being done teaching transformational biblical values and working with churches in non-Christian countries, while our Latin American region is implementing a truly holistic model blurring the physical and spiritual distinctions of our work and challenging our savior mentalities by seeking the mutual transformation of all involved – community, FH staff and donor. The richness and diversity of our projects and our FH brothers and sisters was something evident to all.

At the same time FH finds itself in a period of trying to align itself together after many schisms and shifts over the last several years. We are seeking to align in our understanding of God's call on us as an organization and further to align our structures and processes to serve this end. To accomplish this FH is implementing a shared leadership model in its board, co-chaired by an American pastor and a Kenyan businessman. FH's directorate is led by three presidents, a Bolivian in La Paz in charge of field operations, an American in Washington DC in charge of international programs, and a Brit in UK in charge of finance and IT. Operating in a shared leadership model forces them to align decisions together and is already remedying some of the unhealthy relational dynamics between our offices in the past. Finally, a structure called the International Council was created, comprised of 19 members, it is a consultative body to represent the voices of all the four corners of our ministry to the presidents and board. The head of FHUK and I co-chair this council and are working with staff and even some non-FH employees to gather opinions on strategy-related issues, deliberate upon them and provide consolidate these opinions into concise position papers.

Please pray for FH in this alignment process. God has given us an amazing vision and we desire to organize ourselves in such a way as to be able to carry it out.