Ideas Can’t Change the World… (Part 2)

This series is about how to turn your ideas into reality. The first post in this series gave you some thought provoking questions to help assess a need and how to best meet that need. Check it out here.

Once you’ve identified this need, you are going to need people to join you in providing time and/or resources. Not to mention that depending on your age, experience, and reputation, there may be people who will be skeptical to support you and your work. So, what can you do to earn their trust and establish credibility?

As I alluded to above, hopefully your character speaks for itself and people will invest in you regardless of the cause. However, that will only get you so far and if you don’t have a clear vision and strategy, you won’t fool people more than once.

In my case, I was only a junior in college when I decided to start CFA with no international work experience, no non-profit experience, no HIV/AIDS experience, and a very small circle of influence to work with. One of the ways that I was able to close that credibility gap was by creating a plan that communicated a compelling vision with a focused and well-reasoned strategy. That along with my evident passion for the cause made up for what I lacked in experience. I have been asked some tough questions in my short career, some more constructive than others. The better you can anticipate those tough questions in a plan, the more convincing you can be.

Mission and Vision

The first place to start when creating a plan of this nature is to determine the mission and vision of the organization or project. If you don’t have clarity on this, there is no way that anyone else does. One of my favorite sayings on vision is, “When it is misty in the pulpit, it is foggy in the pews.”

Many people interpret the terms “mission” and “vision” in different ways but I think it is important to reach a consensus on this if we want these statements to build the foundation for our cause. The mission is the reason you exist at the broadest level. It is a general heading for the organization and it rarely changes. For example, there are many organizations that exist to end homelessness in their city. That is not a bad thing, but the mission is not necessarily what distinguishes them.

Our Mission: CARE for AIDS exists to mobilize the church in caring, both body and soul, for families affected by HIV/AIDS.

The vision is where you get to capture the imagination of your audience with a picture of what could be. A compelling vision will move people to action. This will also be the filter through which you will make decisions about what activities are productive to your mission and which are distracting. A vision is usually achievable in 1 to 5 years. It is not uncommon to have multiple visions over time that all support the same mission.

Here are some important characteristics of great visions. They are:

Unique – The first question out of most people’s mouths is, “What makes your vision unique?” If your vision already exists, people will be less inclined to support it.

Focused – If you try to do too much, you won’t do anything well.

Energizing – It should be what gets you, your staff, and your volunteers out of bed in the morning.

Concrete – Make sure it is measurable. It is not easy to engage people around a vague, indefinite vision.

Aggressive – It is hard to get others excited about a small or insignificant vision.

Achievable – It is good to be ambitious and dream big, but if you continuously fail to reach the vision, it can damage credibility and morale.

Our Vision: In the next five years, we will mobilize 75 churches as CARE for AIDS centers throughout the most highly HIV-infected communities in East Africa. These centers will serve over 5,500 families annually. Meanwhile, CARE for AIDS will be employing nearly 200 full-time African staff members to deliver this care and spread the gospel to the continent.

Have you ever been fully engaged with a vision? What made it so engaging?

Living Hope

“A feeling of death ran through my body, as though the soil underneath me was split.”  In these dramatic words, Elizabeth describes her reaction to her HIV diagnosis in 1990.

Like most Kenyans, Elizabeth was raised in a Christian family. Her family could not afford basic needs, and there were frequent quarrels among her seven siblings. Desperately seeking peace and prosperity, Elizabeth and her family, including her parents and grandparents, became involved in witchcraft. They spent the little that they had in paying the witch doctors who kept on deceiving them. Not surprisingly, they didn’t find the peace they sought!

In fact, at the time of her diagnosis Elizabeth was already in the full-blown AIDS. After a hospital stay she was discharged and was staying with her aged parents, who were struggling to provide her with food and other necessities.

One day a friend invited Elizabeth to their church in Kangemi for a Sunday service, and after the sermon she received Christ as her personal savior.  At the church she met some brothers and sisters in Christ who encouraged her to pray and read God’s word. They also introduced her to a HIV/AIDS support group, which happened to be part of the CARE for AIDS ministry. Elizabeth found peace in God’s word. Since receiving the Lord, “I often sense His presence, His guidance and protection for me wherever I go.”

God had another gift for Elizabeth – having joined the CARE for AIDS center, Elizabeth’s physical condition continued to improve.  “At the time I came to God, my physical body was very weak since I was in the last stages of HIV/AIDS – I could hardly walk”, she remembers. “But praise God… a miracle just happened. My CD-4 count improved, I started gaining weight, and my health came back to me.  Nowadays, she even goes with the group to visit people affected by HIV/AIDS in hospitals to offer encouragement and share the Good news of Jesus Christ.

Jesus provides strength and uses us as a channel of blessings to others, to show people the way to God and expand His Kingdom.

Moving Forward, Elizabeth is filled with new life in Christ, and the ground is firm and steady beneath her feet. “I know the coming years of my life will not be easy,” she admits, “but the Lord will never leave me. He will provide for my needs and strengthens me.”

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  –Philippians 4:13

Elizabeth

Tough Break, Great Ending

After a not-so-normal break, I am back in Kenya as a married man. I am overjoyed with my new married life and excited to be continuing the work I love with CFA. However, my break did not go nearly the way I had planned it. I left Kenya with the intention of flying to the UK, preparing for my wedding, and getting married to my fiancé Anna Davies on December 30^th.

After a long flight from Nairobi in December, I landed in London ready to see Anna who had driven three hours to pick me up. When I got to the airport Immigration, they questioned me about what I was doing and how long I would be there. Once the officer found out I was getting married, I was told that I could not enter the country without a marriage visa. My heart dropped. Despite all the planning and research for the wedding, I never found that I needed a marriage visa to enter the country! I was detained at the airport, labeled as “inadmissible”, and escorted to the next flight back to the US.

Once back in the US, I immediately began my paperwork to apply for a British Marriage Visa. After five days, I had sent the application in and was waiting to hear back. Unfortunately, what was supposed to take a few days ended up taking much longer. As the days approached the intended wedding, I was still stuck in the US waiting for my Visa and the decision was made to postpone the wedding. With no idea how long the visa process would continue on, the prospect of  getting married before returning to Kenya was unlikely. In fact, I had all but given up hope. Anna and I began talking about plans for a wedding months later, perhaps in Kenya.

We decided that if I was going to make it back to Kenya on time, I would have to withdraw my marriage visa application on Friday January 6^th in order to receive my passport back. But, in an act of God through a random connection, we were able to get contact with the British Embassy and make a “special request” with my visa application. The day before I was going to withdraw, we found out that I was going to receive the visa. Friday the 6th, I received my passport with my marriage visa was able to fly back to the UK. In an incredible fast turn-around, everyone was able to reschedule the  wedding for Saturday January 14^th and I was able to marry my bride, Anna Davies.

As I look back over the past month of frustrations and confusion, I cannot tell you why everything worked out the way it did. But I know the Lord was in it. I learned about trust and patience and grew so much in my relationship with Christ. I know that He is gracious. He is loving. He is involved and He walks with us every step of the way. I may never know why the Lord allowed this, but I do know that He had a reason. And ultimately I know that my marriage and beautiful wife is purely a gift from God.