It is always a treat to return to Honduras.

After having spent five years there in the 1980s, working with a Honduran Christian relief and development organization, the country is near and dear to my heart.  Our Masters in Organizational Leadership in Latin America, with a concentration in International Development, has given me the opportunity to get back there three times over the last year and a half since we launched that program.  Just as we do with our programs out of Africa, we bring students and faculty together, in this case from all over Latin America, for two and a half weeks, delivering the introductions to six courses that will be followed up online for the rest of the year.

Even though a lot has changed in Honduras, the basics remain the same.  The same, familiar “smell” of the country as I walk through the airport terminal.  The breathtaking landscape of steep mountains dotted with pine trees clinging to a bit of thin topsoil, from which subsistence farmers try to eke out a living for their families.  The desperate poverty of the country, traditionally ranked second or third poorest in the Western Hemisphere, after Haiti and Nicaragua.  And, the hope that fills one’s heart in talking, sharing, studying, teaching, learning, and praying with our brothers and sisters from Honduras and the rest of Latin America.

This hope I feel is rooted in the deep commitment of those students, and the students that God sends our way from the United States, Africa, and around the world, to follow His calling in their lives wherever that may take them.   And, for me, it has been bolstered over these last years since I joined Eastern by seeing how the evangelical movement is reawakening to the importance of being obedient in the areas of tackling poverty and working for justice.  “I’m here because I feel like I’ve missed something central to the Gospel,” shared one of our students in Honduras, a leading pastor in the evangelical movement in that country.  This is a sentiment that in the 1980s in Honduras would have led any pastor to have run the risk of being labeled a “liberal” or a “communist” by fellow evangelicals, with their commitment to Christ being serious questioned.

It is a true blessing to be working at Eastern University where we are called to help students work through how to prayerfully combine evangelism and social action.  Unfortunately, holding fast to the centrality of verbally sharing the saving message of Jesus Christ; being obedient to His call to tackle poverty and work for justice; and deepening our relationship with Him and our own processes of becoming more like Him in word, thought, and deed, is not an easy one either at a personal or organizational level.  Christian agencies and organizations fall prey to the secularizing tendencies of the world by going for “easier” sources of funding or a host of other pressures which drive them to drop the proclamation of Jesus as Lord.  They also fall into the temptation of not prayerfully examining the call to go beyond just relief and engage in advocacy and development work.  And, in both cases, keeping the Bible and prayer front and center as the lens through which to inform, critique, and nourish one’s actions tends to fall by the wayside as we struggle to get all things on our plates done quickly.

“How can we not share Jesus Christ?,” asked one of our development students in class recently, trying to make sense of why self-labeled Christian development agencies struggle with this issue. “Why is it even an issue that you would combine both?,” asked a person in one of our Adult Sunday school sessions two weeks ago in the “conservative,” evangelical church of which we are blessed to be a part, and in which a decade ago the “social” aspect would have been absent.

Indeed.  As I listened to our Christian brothers and sisters from the South go around and share about themselves in the classroom in Honduras, I was struck once again by how God works so amazingly in both areas, and the blessing of hearing the testimonies to that effect.  “I come from a family of [more than 10 children]…” shared at least four or five.  “I come from the rural area, from a family that had nothing…” shared at least another as many.  And, here they were, having overcome all kinds of obstacles that most of us can only imagine, in a Masters program, having graduated from college, leading organizations like World Vision and Plan International, pastoring churches and leading the administration of different denominations, and heading up management consulting companies.  And, all driven by the commitment to let people know about Christ, the source of their hope, and to be more effective in their social and spiritual outreach.

The challenges of this world are tough.  As we talked and shared in the classroom in Honduras about how to engage in biblically based development program planning and fundraising, in the rest of the country the legacies of the coup of last year continued to play out.  Torture, assassinations, and disappearances perpetuated by a lethal mix of corrupt government, military, rich businesspeople with their private bands of thugs, and drug traffickers geared towards protecting their own are rapidly becoming the norm, even as the poverty of that country continues to rage on.  The hopelessness, frustration, and fear of my friends involved in politics and business is palpable.

But, as Christians, our hope in Christ is great.  We live in a fallen world, one in which we are called to be yeast.  And, I feel incredibly blessed to be part of a group of students, staff, faculty, alumni, and brothers and sisters all over the world who feel called by Christ to act in this fallen word, prayerfully discerning where God would lead them and building up more and more tools with which to do so effectively and faithfully.

If you're interested in learning more about Eastern's international development programs, feel free to ask me or explore the program on Eastern's site.

I admit it: I like conferences. I’ve been to a variety of them during college, grad school, and at various times in between, and I’ve almost always had a great time. I’ve recently seen promos or otherwise heard about four upcoming conferences in particular that strike me as awesome, though it sadly looks doubtful that I’d be able to attend any of them. I offer them here anyway as a sort of public service announcement. If you’re at all connected to the field of community development, whether domestically or abroad, and are inspired and/or informed in your work by your Christian faith, these four events look simply fantastic.

1. CCDA National Conference
Christian Community Development Association
Oct 12-16, Indianapolis

Each year, the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) National Conference draws over 3,000 people from around the world to share in best practices of Christian Community Development. Experts and scholars teach workshops around relevant themes. Practitioners find support in networking with others facing similar challenges. Advocates bring attention to issues affecting people at the grassroots. And provocative speakers challenge our assumptions about what it means to embody Christ’s love to the poor in our communities.

2. Spiritual Metrics Conference
Eastern University
Oct 21-22, St. Davids, PA

What is Spiritual Metrics? How Do You Measure Impact? Why Now? We’ve heard it all before ... “We’re not quite sure if and how to measure whether our programs are having the kind of spiritual impact we’d like to see...” and so we are creating a space where we can explore, prayerfully and in detail, the theological and practical dimensions of measuring spiritual impact.

3. Developing Excellence Forum
Accord Network
Nov 15-17, Baltimore

Don’t miss this chance to shape the future of relief and development: Join one of these five summits [Transformational Development, Water, Sanitation & Hygiene, MicroEnterprise Development, Advocacy, and Gifts-in-Kind] and be ready to network, collaborate, and assist in the developments of Principles of Excellence in that arena.

4. The Justice Conference
World Relief & Kilns College
Feb 24-25, Portland

The Justice Conference 2012 is the second annual international gathering of advocates, activists, artists, professors, professionals, prophets, pastors, students and stay-at-home moms working to restore the fabric of justice. For some it means speaking. For others it means singing. For some it means going. For others it means giving. For all, it means living with mercy and love. You are invited to come weave your voice and gifts into the conversation. Join us, and discover that in the garment of justice, your love is an irreplaceable thread.

And as a bonus, Calvin College’s Faith and International Development Conference, which will likely happen next February, will certainly be a goodie too, though details won’t be released until next month.

In the meantime, in case you've missed some of my recent stuff, feel free to read my review of Little Princes by Conor Grennan in PRISM. Also, be sure to check out my recent interview with Scott Moore (parts one and two), and consider supporting his Kickstarter campaign to fund his important next film, Becoming Fools.

I'm grateful for each of you that you continue to take the time to read the blog and give your comments; it means a lot to me.

Grace and peace.

What makes Guatemala different from the rest of Latin America? Guatemala has a long history of Protestant missionaries coming from the United States, one that begins in the late 1800s and early 1900s, said Timothy Steigenga, chairman of social science and humanities at the Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University. He studies Guatemalan religion and politics. The missionaries planted “the seed,” Chattanooga’s García said. “Now the majority of Hispanic pastors here are from Guatemala. What the United States sowed, the harvest is now coming here."

2. Capitalizing with the poor
The Q blog has a post spotlighting three companies/organizations experimenting with multiple bottom lines in order to better serve the poor. Nothing too groundbreaking here for those who have followed the emergence of CSR (corporate social responsibility) and social entrepreneurship, but some encouraging examples anyway. The conclusion:

There certainly are tensions caused by profit seeking enterprises operating in poor areas of the world. Good intentions are not enough. Careful attention must be paid to sound ethics and definitions of “development” that transcend economic gains alone. No single sector can end poverty on its own, including business. Many governments and NGO’s are already playing critical roles. Given the influence of business and the need to reclaim its legitimacy, however, this is an opportune time for business to act as a key player in alleviating poverty. The world needs the wealth creation, knowledge transfer, and ability to scale that businesses excel at.

3. Rules for reviewing books
Alissa Wilkinson at the Cardus blog has some great pointers for those of us who review books. Three of the pointers are tried and true hand-me-downs, three are her own, all six are solid. I especially like the final one:

6. Remember: It’s usually better to start a conversation than close it down.

4. Books on why poor countries remain poor
Christine Jeske, a fellow alumnus of Eastern University who’s now teaching some classes there, has a good recommended list of books on poverty and development on her blog. I made one suggested addition to the list.

5. Stephan Bauman’s blog
World Relief’s new president has started a blog, and I think it’ll be a good one. From his introductory post:

We’re close to a tipping point on poverty. Perhaps we’ve reached it. When more people in the middle think about the 2 or 3 billion people on the edge, it’s a good thing. Still we need to do our best to make sense of it all. What help is good help? What kind of change lasts? How do we best sort through the choices that confront us everyday? If, in fact, we are called to change the world, how do we go about it in the best way possible?