Pan Dulce

Children of the Nile

Wednesday was our first full day in Cairo, Egypt. I can see the Nile River right outside the window of my room. It has been an amazing day that included meetings with leaders from the Evangelical Church in Egypt and leaders from NGO’s interested in inviting Buckner to collaborate. See Ken Hall's blog at www.bucknerprez.typepad.com for all the details.

The highlight of the day was a visit to the Fowler Orphanage. The orphanage was founded in 1923 and later operated by the Faggala Presbyterian Church. The home serves about 76 girls supported by five staff members and a few volunteers.

I have to stop here and reflect on what I just wrote. It is amazing to think about Egypt. Egypt is the place where Jesus fled with his parents shortly after his birth fleeing King Herod who sought to find and kill him. Egypt is the place where Joseph landed after he was sold as a slave to a traveling caravan. Egypt is where he served Potiphar and was tempted by Potiphar’s wife. This is the place where Joseph practiced his management skills, became second in command under Pharaoh, and later used his skills to save his family and the nation of Israel as well as the Egyptians. This is the place of the Exodus and the ministry of Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb. This is where much of redemptive history has its footprint.

Today there are 3,000 churches in Egypt which include Coptic, Catholic, and Evangelical. There are 200,000 to 1 million street children in Cairo and Alexandria alone.

I was asked to lead the first devotional of this trip, so here goes: According to Darrow Miller, in Discipling the Nations: The Power of Truth to Transform Cultures, there are two Great Commissions in the Bible. The one that we are most familiar with is the 2nd one found in Matthew 28:19-20. The 1st one is found in Genesis 1:28. It says “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it…” The 2nd Great Commission focuses on Discipling Nations and the 1st Great Commission focuses on Developing the Earth.

Thom Wolf developed a model for discipling the nations that starts with spiritual regeneration of the individual, moral transformation of families, and social reformation of the culture.  Darrow asserts that moral philosophy provides for stewardship of all that God has placed in our hands. Stewardship emerges from the word “Oikos” found in Acts 16:31 and gives us words like oikonomia for economy and management. In other words, our role is to manage or steward what God has placed in our hands like the garden he placed in Adam and Eve’s hands.

This brings us to the issue of Resources. Julian Simon, in his book, The Ultimate Resource, argues that resources are not really limited. He says “Resources are limited only by man’s moral imagination, creativity, and stewardship. Resources are found first in the mind, secondarily in matter.” May the Lord of creation help us develop imagination, creativity, and effective management for the children of the River Nile.

One more, “Welcome to Buckner, Arnie”

Today I have asked Victor Upton, Vice President Missions Resource Groups to share with us while I’m in route to Cairo Egypt.  You'll hear from me later in the week.

Arnie is correct in his comments that, “Relationships are what make the world go ‘round’”.  Relationships are the core of the Buckner ministry. The relationships we have with those that God brings to us around the world and the relationships we have with those who walk with us in being change agents for the disenfranchised are the essence of Buckner.

I’ve asked Arnie to guide our efforts to align Buckner’s mission and strategy, ‘to make life better for orphans, at-risk children, and families’, with our constituent churches interest and passions, by  providing leadership and direction for Buckner’s development, implementation, and management of a contact management system that connects churches in their work to fulfill God’s mission.

In so doing we’ll establish a centralized, coordinated and personal contact management structure to maximize our relationships with churches, institutions, Para church ministries and other groups desiring to serve. We will create a data driven tool to monitor, record, share, and add value to Buckner ministries

We will enhance existing relationships, embrace new relationships and eliminate missed opportunities by magnifying relationship as a core competency and key cultural value in the tapestry of Buckner ministry.

Our strength is not just our interaction and relationship with those who have come alongside us but the depth of those associations. We have a responsibility to be good stewards of the gift of relationships. To cultivate, nourish and grow our interactions is a reflection of our commitment and seriousness in fulfilling God’s plan for Buckner and those within our sphere of influence and ministry.

We will value our relationships and be intentional about our contacts. We will be strategic about our dealings with others. We will develop systems and tools that translate the interest and passions of our constituents into the love of Christ.

Again, Arnie is correct, it will be fun!

Welcome to Buckner

Today I have asked one of our new staff members Arnie Adkison, Director of Church Relationships to share from his heart as he joined our Buckner family on yesterday.

"Welcome to Buckner!" I wish had a nickel for every time I heard that yesterday. Coming to Buckner has been (and I’m sure will continue to be) incredibly overwhelming, mostly at the “bigness” of it all. Like others who have only experienced the “outside” of this great ministry, I have had to learn how little I really know about the big work of Buckner in being an ambassador of Jesus to a world in need. Big staff, big dreams, big opportunities. Not many things are more humbling for a guy like me than meeting 50 new people—20 of which whose names I won’t remember, and another 20 of which I will swear had a different name the day before…fortunately there were 10 people I already knew.

My journey to Buckner has not been intentional, at least not on my part. I grew up in the oil patches of Oklahoma, New Mexico and West Texas. Probably the single most track-changing decision of my life was to attend the University of Texas at El Paso. In spite of its reputation as a dangerous border town, my 19 years in El Paso changed me for the better. Living on the border gives you a different philosophy of life and work, and a wonderful appreciation for people (not to mention real chiles rellenos). It was in El Paso I fell in love with Latino culture, and with an Argentine girl. It was there that all three of my cross-cultural kids were born. In El Paso I cut my ministry teeth as a pastor and parachurch leader. Then our last five years were in San Antonio at Baptist University of the Américas, another wonderful place of people and relationships.

My assignment at Buckner involves relationships. Relationships are what make the world go ‘round. Quick, here’s a pop quiz: when was the first relationship in history? No, before Adam and Eve. Before Adam and God. Yes, even before God and the angels. The truth is it’s a trick question. Relationship has always existed within the triune God we serve. He is relationship within his own person, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Consequently I have come to understand that relationship is the greatest thing that human beings can ever experience.

Specifically I am assigned to manage Buckner’s relationships with the 9,000 or so churches in our database, plus some denominational groups, parachurch ministries and a few other external groups. Talk about overwhelming!

Buckner has hundreds of staff who maintain thousands of touch points with churches all around Texas, the U.S. and the world. Whether you’re talking about program folks providing childcare, missions resource staff leading international mission trips, or Buckner Foundation’s development officers looking for ministry funds, you’re talking about people who have relationships with churches. My assignment, as I understand it, is to work with all of those people and more, managing the relationship information on churches, and ensuring high quality “customer” satisfaction for Buckner’s partner churches, denominational groups and other entities. Sounds like my kind of fun!

Opportunity Management Part II

Last week I started blogging on how we are handling new opportunities that come our way? Kenton Keller, Chief Strategic Initiatives Officer for BCFS has introduced a new way of thinking about and processing new opportunities. He calls it the Opportunity Management Pipeline. The OMP is a process that funnels new opportunities through a process grid with 7 steps including: Ideation, Screening, Exploring, Shaping, Structuring, Formalizing, and Launching.

Shaping – During this part of the process, we develop a clear ministry plan that would be used to communicate with partners. This would be the first draft of an operating model for how we would conduct ministry in a given area.

Structuring – During this part of the process we would develop a complete business plan that communicates roles and responsibilities, processes, outcomes, and resource commitments to underwrite the project.

Formalizing – In this phase, we would delineate funding sources and resource responsibilities with our partners for that ministry. We would develop a letter of understanding to formalize these agreements.

Launching – Once we have a formal agreement a launch date would be set and operations would begin with an effort to stabilize the ministry. A process of continuous improvement begins at this point.

The process may seem lengthy and arduous. However, I believe it will help us grow responsibly and sustainable fashion. We reserve the option to discontinue the discovery process at any time if we are not able to move to the next phase in the process. This method allows us time to discover resources and build a business plan that can be implemented with excellence year after year.

Today I am leaving for an exploratory trip to Egypt, Palestine, and Israel to discover possible points of ministry among children in the Middle East. We will be meeting a group of leaders from Nevada and from Palestine, Texas while we are there. The trip will be exciting and shows high promise for what the Lord might do in that part of the world. I will be blogging about this trip over the next two weeks and may send some pics as well. Stay tuned. On Tuesday of this week I am asking Arnie Adkison, our new Director of Church Relationships to tell us about himself as well as his passion and vision for our work at Buckner.

Opportunity Management Part I

There are so many opportunities to serve children at risk, orphans, and families that it is sometimes hard to know where to start. Calls for assistance come in weekly from nations around the world as well as within our own communities in Texas and states across the nation. We have recently begun new work in Illinois and are exploring new possibilities in New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Florida. We have expanded work in Lubbock with the addition of My Father’s House as part of our Residential and Transition Care Network. Internationally, we have added Mexico to our Latin American network of ministry. We have also completed an exploratory visit to Viet Nam and are about to leave for Egypt and Palestine with India planned for later this year. In the meantime we have requests pending from three other countries.

So how are we handling new opportunities that come our way? Kenton Keller, Chief Strategic Initiatives Officer for BCFS has introduced a new way of thinking about and processing new opportunities. He calls it the Opportunity Management Pipeline. The OMP is a process that funnels new opportunities through a process grid with 7 steps including: Ideation, Screening, Exploring, Shaping, Structuring, Formalizing, and Launching.

Ideation – Ideation helps us capture ideas from internal and external sources. In this phase a one page Ministry Opportunity Summary is produced by the person who generates the idea.

Screening – In the Screening phase we are placing value on the proposal and considering feasibility. We will use a set of criteria to evaluate the location and the opportunity by filtering the idea through a qualifying matrix. At this point we plan to eliminate unsound concepts prior to making a decision involving the commitment of resources. Once this process is complete, a team of leaders will decide whether or not to request a Ministry Opportunity Invitation Letter.

Explore – Once a Ministry Opportunity Invitation Letter is received we move into the Exploration Phase. During this phase we consider alignment with this opportunity around real needs. We will verify the need and whether or not we can affectively address it. The end result will be a preliminary proposal.

On Friday I will deal with Shaping, Structuring, Formalizing, and Launching. As you can see, we are putting together a process to grow responsibly with focus and discipline to best serve the needs of children with the resources the Lord has blessed us with.

Send Me: Four Missionary Movements

My message last week at the first Go Be Do Global Missions Conference was an interactive experience involving sight, sound, and touch senses. I explored the experience of Isaiah the year that King Uzziah died and he saw the Lord as the framework for personal reflection for mission.

Sometimes we focus on the “Going” part of missions without thinking about the “Being” part. I asked the group to consider reflecting on what we are sending in the going…us. Isaiah choreographed four movements that led him to the response: Send Me!

The Movements, in brief, are as follows:

His Invitation and My Response
The Bible says that “He never sleeps, he never slumbers, he is always watching over me. The Father invites us, the Spirit invites us, and the Son invites us to participate in what he is doing. God is inviting you whether you serve as a pastor, a Director/Team Leader, a direct care giver, a business professional, a medical professional, a student, a teacher, an administrative professional, etc.

His Holiness and My Sinfulness
The Steadfast love of the Lord never fails and his grace is new every morning. This theology helps me become comfortable with my own shortcomings as well as those around me. We are not perfect, but we are growing into the image of God through Christ. So I am comfortable with folks making mistakes as long as they acknowledge shortcomings and learn from them.

His Grace and My Gratitude
Wonderful, infinite, matchless grace! These are the words that I used to sing when I was a teen as part of a quartet. In fact, I was singing this song when I met Belinda at her church when we were teens. If God did not spare his own son to save us will he not also freely give us all things? All we can do is say thanks with out lives.

His Commission and My Mission
This is your specific assignment. For those of you who have gone through the LDP, this is what I mean when I say mission: your specific assignment as an expression of your life. It is a joy to know that God has an assignment for me in his Kingdom.

Click here to listen to this message online. You can also see the manuscript on this blog under Sermons and Speeches.

Buckner at the Ends of the Earth

What an incredible weekend! All of our Buckner international staff came to Dallas for the first time in our history to celebrate Founders Day and to launch the Go Be Do Buckner Global Missions Conference. We had several opportunities to celebrate the work that God is doing through Buckner International last week.

We started off with a reception of the nations on Wednesday morning in the Buckner Board Room. It was a fun time of fellowship featuring our Country Directors and the staff of Buckner International. Each of the Country Directors introduced themselves and provided a greeting in their native language. It reminded me of the reunion we will have one day where people from every language and nation will gather to worship the Lamb around the throne.

Next, the BCFS Leadership Team Meeting was held on Thursday where we brought together our executive leadership along with our Director/Team Leaders in Texas, our Country Directors, our Network Directors, and Ministry Development Directors for a time of fellowship, information sharing, and planning. Melissa Opheim planned this meeting and prepared the time of interaction. It was an awesome time. We spent a significant amount of time showcasing our international work and our domestic work. For both international and domestic staff it seemed like an eye-opening experience. I was thrilled to meet our international staff, some for the first time.

Our Founders Day Banquet with close to 800 in attendance was a phenomenal display of the Agenda of Jesus. Susan Gray and Geoff Moore sang in Spanish, shared a bit of their testimony, and Dr. Hall spoke a prophetic word that seemed more compelling than ever. Each of our Country Directors was introduced as well as other guests. I don’t know how this can get any better but each year, Scott Collins and his staff do a tremendous job with this event. Some of the comments I heard spoke to the wide scope of Buckner. Dr. Randel Everett, the new Executive Director of the Baptist General Convention, was also there to celebrate with us.

On Saturday, we launched the first Buckner Global Missions Conference with more than 350 in attendance. I was so pleased with the participation, especially since we have only been working since the first of the year to plan and prepare for this event. We are already planning for next year’s conference. We had an excellent time of hearing from our Country Directors, Susan Gray, and meeting new friends.

The Lord gave me a message to speak at our conference entitled “Send Me: Four Missionary Movements.” Tomorrow I will comment on this message.

Making History Part 2

I have asked Melissa Opheim, Director of Strategic Planning to write about the history making events of this week.

These are interesting days to be an employee with Buckner Children and Family Services.  We are seeing history in the making as we live out our strategic plan.  Even this week, we are making history.  Among this week’s history making news:
* We will host our first BCFS global leadership team meeting with representatives from each of our ministry regions and countries, April 10th, 2008. 
* We have representatives from each country where we minister to children and families present at Founder’s Day, April 11th, 2008.
* We will have our first Global Missions Conference at Park Cities Baptist Church this weekend, April 12th, 2008. 

For several of our In-Country staff it will be their first visit to Texas and the corporate offices of Buckner International.  I thought you might be interested to hear about the experience and education that they offer in service to children and families in their respective countries and the impact that they have on children and families.

Africa:
Getahun Tesema, Director of Ministries for Buckner/Bright Hope, Ethiopia.  Getahun earned degrees in Christian management, theology and Christian counseling.  In 2007, he earned his doctorate in Christian leadership.  Getahun returned to Ethiopia in 2001 and established the Bright Hope Organization, caring for orphans and street children.  In January of 2007, Buckner officially merged with Bright Hope.  Through the various ministries of Buckner/Bright Hope in Ethiopia, more than 300,000 people are served including foster care, adoption, training, education and humanitarian aid.  Getahun is best described as a preacher with a heart for children and the future of Ethiopia.

Dickson Masindano, Director of Buckner Kenya since 2001.  Dickson has developed Buckner Kenya in Nairobi from a one-building orphanage housing 26 children in Nairobi, to a comprehensive center caring for 52 children with four stone buildings, a medical and dental center for the community, a school, and a vocational training program for teenage girls.   Dickson’s responsibilities have expanded to include 62 more children as Buckner assumed management of the Seed of Hope children’s home in Kitale, Kenya.  Dickson has been instrumental in shaping the country’s foster care program which now includes locations in Nairobi, Kitale and Busia.  This week Dickson was honored by Hardin Simmons University as a recipient of its Outstanding Young Alumni award for his achievements in serving orphans in Kenya and establishing the country’s foster care program.

Latin America:
Chiqui Mollinedo, Director of Buckner Guatemala.  Chiqui is well known in Guatemala City for her work with children.  She was part of the initial Buckner ministry team when Buckner began work there in 2003.  She and her husband Sergio run a medical clinic that provides medical services to children in Buckner care. Chiqui has been instrumental in bringing awareness and improvement to the conditions of children in orphanages in Guatemala.  She oversees the staff and ministry teams that support local orphanages, direct operations for residential care, foster care and transitional programs in Guatemala.

Claudia Leon, Director of Buckner Peru.  Claudia is an experienced attorney, specializing in family law, children’s rights and programs for children at-risk.  Claudia began work with Buckner in January 2006 and has been instrumental in growing foster care and transitional living programs as well as support for local government and private orphanages.  Claudia leads her team to support mission opportunities in Peru to provide humanitarian aid and evangelistic opportunities to children and families that are impacted through Buckner Peru.

This Thursday, April 10th, our BCFS President, Albert Reyes, will lead a meeting with global impact.  He has gathered the BCFS Vice-Presidents, Network Directors, National Team Leaders, Country and In-Country Directors together to meet for the first time in our history.  It is hard to describe how humbled we are to see God’s work as He blesses the nations and to see the representation of his blessing, his people gathered together in one place. 

Making of History

I have asked Melissa Opheim, Director of Strategic Planning to write about the history making events of this week.

These are interesting days to be an employee with Buckner Children and Family Services.  We are seeing history in the making as we live out our strategic plan.  Even this week, we are making history.  Among this week’s history making news:
* We will host our first BCFS global leadership team meeting with representatives from each of our ministry regions and countries, April 10th, 2008. 
* We have representatives from each country where we minister to children and families present at Founder’s Day, April 11th, 2008.
* We will have our first Global Missions Conference at Park Cities Baptist Church this weekend, April 12th, 2008. 

For several of our In-Country staff it will be their first visit to Texas and the corporate offices of Buckner International.  I thought you might be interested to hear about the experience and education that they offer in service to children and families in their respective countries and the impact that they have on children and families.

Eastern Europe:
Dace Rence Rencis, Director of Buckner Latvia, Dace is a graduate from Concordia International University Estonia.  In 2003, she began working for Buckner and in 2006; Dace coordinates services to government orphanages and the foster care system through the delivery of humanitarian aid, coordination of mission teams and the provision of follow up staff to implement orphanage improvements and evangelistic efforts.

Natasha Votyakova, Director of Buckner International’s ministries in St. Petersburg, Russia is a native of the city.  She graduated from St. Petersburg Teachers Training University where she majored in languages and earned a master’s degree in art history.  She began to work for Buckner in 1988.  “It has been a blessing for me all these years to be a part of the Buckner family and to be a part of what Buckner is doing,” she says.  Natasha coordinates services to over 39 orphanages in and around St. Petersburg.  She helps coordinate humanitarian aid, transitional programs, foster care and adoption, mission teams and follow-up teams in support of the local orphanages. 

Dacian Moldovan, Director for Fundatia Buckner Romania.  Dacian is a graduate of Electronic College.  He has worked for Buckner since 2002.  Dacian coordinates mission teams, humanitarian aid, and support to orphanages in the Targu Mures region.  He also supervises follow up staff, and support to transitional and foster care programs and develops new programs for Buckner ministries in Romania.  In 2007, we celebrated the opening of a child development center in Tarneveni.

Tomorrow we will feature our staff from Africa and Latin America.

Investing in a New Generation of Leaders: Destino Pilot Grads

The first graduating class of Destino: Leader Development Profile finished the pilot group experience this past week. About a dozen Buckner staff completed two sessions learning about and working through the development of their personal mission statement. These Buckner leaders have a sharper sense of mission and purpose and have worked hard to put their life mission into one cohesive statement.

I challenged the group to choose one verb to summarize their sense of mission. It was a very difficult task but very rewarding. The first session was designed to provide an overview and to help each participant gain some basic information for the what, why, how, and when of developing a life mission statement. We did this via a conference call with some of the group there in person. This was a little hard to do but we were able to get the information across to our group. The second session was held in person as a large group. By far, the observations were that a face to face session is preferred. I agree. It was a fun time of reviewing our previous work, working in small groups to gain feedback and support from peers, and test driving brand new mission statements.

I want to affirm each of these participants for several reasons: First, it took lots of courage to go public with their statements and inviting feedback. Second, they worked hard since the first meeting to think about their life’s purpose and direction. Third, they were accountable to the whole group and rose to the occasion. I am very pleased with the results.

Each time we met, I asked for feedback and constructive criticism in order to improve the training experience. I am still open to additional input as we get ready to make this training available across BCFS and possibly across the Buckner system. I am hoping we can implement the LDP in BCFS by the end of the year.

This week I am also launching another pilot group but this will be an external group made up of pastors and church members from across the USA. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to bring this group together in person unless we make special arrangements. My hope is that ultimately, this tool will be made available to pastors, congregations, and ministries who are serious about developing emerging leaders.

The purpose of this LDP is to provide emerging leaders with a personal sense of mission that will serve as a foundation for career planning and succession planning for Buckner and other ministries. Our next step is to conduct resource asset mapping for our staff, career coaching, and then to establish leader succession plans. I know that the non-profit sector is facing a leadership crisis. See the study entitled “Ready to Lead” posted on this blog for more information. As usual, Buckner is in a position to “do something” and provide solutions for leaders and organizations. Let us know how we can help your organization or ministry.