Spiritual Integration Archives | Page 14 of 19

How HOPE’s staff prays for clients

HOPE’s culture is steeped in prayer. Every day, staff members throughout our network boldly make requests known to God on behalf of those we serve. Yet when we seek God’s will for our clients, we don’t just envision an absence of problems. We see God moving into places of brokenness, discord, and shortage with healing, wholeness, and abundance.

Jesus himself urged us to make our requests known to God with persistence and “shameless audacity” (Luke 11). Adrienne Wanner, HOPE’s office manager, wrote the following prayer for our clients (on the right) to correspond with Isaiah 35 (on the left). We invite you to join us in audaciously asking for complete transformation and overwhelming joy for our clients.

Download a printable pdf of this prayer.

A holistic approach

HOPE’s commitment to holistic transformation—addressing the material, social, and spiritual causes of poverty—is shared by our partners around the world. In 2010, Esperanza International, our partner in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, started the Institute for Holistic Christian Transformation to promote a biblical approach to development. In this video clip, Luis Sena, the Institute’s director, discusses the unique perspective the Bible offers in poverty alleviation.

19 Women, 2 Children, 1 Cat, and a Lone Rooster

On my trip to the Philippines, I was privileged to visit microfinance client meetings with HOPE’s partner CCT. Microfinance is CCT’s largest ministry, and senior leaders refer to it as the “backbone” or “platform” on which their other outreach programs reside. We visited groups in a poor section of Manila near the national prison. Our first meeting was with “Fellowship Group 23,” a group of 19 women (joined by two kids, a cat, and a rooster), all dressed in red shirts to show solidarity with one another.

As I entered data into an Excel spreadsheet in the small office in Nizhin, Ukraine, the quiet laughter of a little girl caught my attention. The girl nibbled on a snack near the back of the room while her mother filled out a survey as part of HOPE’s Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) project. HOPE, with assistance from Metrix Research Group, began testing a new M&E client survey in Ukraine in October. Despite their busy schedules and the cold rain outside, 36 men and women flowed through HOPE’s small office in the village of Nizhin on that Friday afternoon to participate in the survey.

The HOPE Bankers’ Club could never be confused with one of HOPE International’s community banks—after all, members meet in an air-conditioned room off a paved street in Lancaster, PA—but there are striking similarities between this group and those meeting overseas. Much like HOPE’s clients, the group of 10 entrepreneurs meets regularly to trade business best practices and learn from one another’s experience. They work in different sectors—from real estate, to insurance, to food packaging—but each is an entrepreneur from the same community, with an understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities of their operating environment. Like so many of their community bank counterparts, members of the HOPE Banker’s Club also spur one another not only to greater financial success but also to glorifying God through their work.

For HOPE staff in Ukraine, reevaluating their spiritual integration (SI) efforts meant reflecting back to the time of Jesus. How could they more effectively apply a 1st century model of evangelism to the 21st century? Their conclusion was simple: discipleship.

Staff started by asking if what they were doing was working and realized that their efforts were spread too thin. Many clients had a basic understanding of Christianity, but far fewer had committed their lives to Christ or joined the local church. Staff members tried to evangelize every client—a daunting task when most branches have just two or three staff members. Their efforts ensured a wide breadth of outreach but left little time to invest deeply in clients’ lives. HOPE Ukraine staff wanted more for their clients.

At the same time, several other countries using an individual lending model were facing similar challenges. In February, leaders from HOPE-led programs in Ukraine and Russia were joined by HOPE partners from Moldova and Romania for a Spiritual Integration Summit. These leaders thoughtfully and prayerfully decided to refocus their programs—moving from general evangelism to personal discipleship after Jesus’ model. Each staff member will invest in a few deep relationships with clients, responding to their unique needs with the hope of the Gospel and raising up disciples who may someday become disciple-makers.

Archives For Spiritual Integration

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How HOPE’s staff prays for clients

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A holistic approach

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19 Women, 2 Children, 1 Cat, and a Lone Rooster

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Group Members Glorify God Through Business

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About HOPE

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