Hospitality. Simplicity. Hope. Delight.
The last six weeks have been a whirlwind of laughter, tears, dancing, songs and good food shared with dear friends. And as is usually the case, I’m struggling to wrap up our time in Asia with a succinct, blog-able summary.
I’ve written and rewritten this post about six times, and I can’t get a decent summary of our trip that’s less than a couple thousand words.
So I’m going to give up on all that and share just a few words — and a bunch of pictures. If you want to hear more, let’s connect back in the states. My email is john@asiashope.org.
For the past couple of years I’ve been working to discern, define and articulate our organization’s shared cultural values. On this trip, I spent a lot of time discussing these with our key staff and leaders on the ground.
Turns out we’re all on the same page. Which isn’t too surprising, because I learned all of these from them. Here are four key values that we’re focusing on in this season:
Hospitality
We take time to make sure that everyone in our care — guests, staff, kids, supporters — feel genuinely welcome. Shared meals aren’t just a perk, they’re something of a sacrament.
Our commitment to hospitality is an act of war against the Devil’s lie that God’s resources are finite and our empathy is weakness.
Simplicity
When presented with options, we usually choose the less complicated path, the one that can be achieved with fewer bureaucratic obstacles and is governed by principles and vision, rather than rules and regulations.
Our commitment to simplicity allows us to do more with less, to respond rapidly to new opportunities and challenges, and to empower local leaders to take real responsibility as stewards of our projects and parents to the children in our care.
Hope
We define hope as “the promise of positive transformation.” We believe that we are on God’s side in the war against child exploitation, generational poverty and spiritual brokenness.
We may be small, we may have budgetary restrictions, but we move forward in confidence, acting boldly in accordance with our belief that God wants to use us to transform individuals and communities – and models of orphan care.
Delight
We choose joy. We choose laughter. We choose delight. Our jobs are difficult. The children in our care come from some of the hardest places you could imagine. The work we do is serious, but we refuse to take ourselves too seriously.
We accept opportunities for delight as a gift from God to bind us together as a community of caregivers, to heal the hurts of orphaned and vulnerable kids, and to foster joy among the churches, businesses, families and individuals who give sacrificially so Asia’s Hope can thrive.
You’ll be hearing more about these values over the next couple of years. And many of you will have the chance to experience them first hand as you support Asia’s Hope and maybe even visit our office in Columbus or visit our projects in Cambodia, Thailand and India. But for now, I’ll leave you with some pictures from this trip that I think capture these values pretty well.
May God continue to bless you as you bless the kids and staff of Asia’s Hope.
