ECFA Approved!

Great news!  Providence is now an ECFA member - ECFA (Evangelical Council of Financial Accountability) is the preeminent seal of approval for financial accountability in Christian non-profit work.  Here is the press release announcing this big step in the life of our ministry:

Providence World Ministries Accredited by National Financial Accountability Organization


NASHVILLE, TN – The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) announced today the accreditation of Providence World Ministries of Nashville, TN.


ECFA accreditation is based on the ECFA Seven Standards of Responsible StewardshipTM, including financial accountability, transparency, sound board governance and ethical fundraising.


Providence World Ministries joins a growing number of Christ-centered churches and ministries across America, supported by over 20 million donors that have earned the right to display the ECFA seal. When an organization is accredited by ECFA, it demonstrates its willingness to follow the model of biblical accountability.


“We are pleased to include in our membership a ministry committed to inspire and equip others to love orphans, widows, and at-risk communities as God loves them,” said Dan Busby, president of ECFA.


Founded in 2001, Providence World Ministries (www.providenceworldministries.org) ministers to and advocates for orphaned children and widows. They seek to establish innovative, culturally appropriate communities of care for orphans and widows, while advocating for them among governments, society and the church.


To learn more about Providence World Ministries and their stewardship opportunities, visit ServantMatch®, ECFA’s program that matches God’s servants with the stewardship options of ECFA members based on ministry sectors and categories. It is ECFA’s newest online feature that allows you to quickly and easily find giving opportunities.


ECFA, founded in 1979, provides accreditation to leading Christian nonprofit organizations that faithfully demonstrate compliance with the ECFA Standards pertaining to financial accountability, fundraising and board governance. For more information about ECFA, including information about accreditation and a listing of ECFA-accredited members, visit www.ECFA.org or call 1-800- 323-9473.

An Afternoon with Onix

This afternoon I had the pleasure of spending a couple hours and sharing a meal with Onix Flores.  Not only is she the sister of La Providencia's director, Mizael Flores, but she also is the namesake of Centro Onix at La Providencia.  What an amazing couple hours it was.  After meeting her and hearing her testimony first-hand, I am even more excited that her faith and courage will always be a part of La Providencia and will always serve as an encouragement for our children.  I know that I was extremely encouraged after just a short time with her.

For those of you who don't know her story, she has a rare disease and was not supposed to live past the age of 19 or 20.  Her mom and dad thought differently and as she grew up, so did she.  As she said, the doctors didn't know, she knew that God wouldn't take her home until she finished the work he had for her on Earth.  Now, at the age of 52 years old, she has quite a story to tell and God has done quite a bit through her already.  While there isn't enough room in this blog to share it all, I'll give you some snippets and encourage you to spend some time with Onix to get the rest of the story if you're ever in Chicago.  

After beating the odds for many years through a deep faith in God,a difficult childhood and various doctors, Onix ended up in a hospital in the US where she, again, was not supposed to ever make it out of the hospital.  And, she wasn't supposed to be doing a whole lot while in the hospital.  The doctors making that prognosis obviously didn't know Onix or the fact that God had other plans for her.  One day, a nurse came by her room with some painting supplies and told her that she should start painting with all of her free time.  Onix said that she didn't think it would happen because she has no real use of her arms or legs.  But Onix gave it a shot anyway - why not, right?  She started painting with her mouth and, without getting into details, has painted some beautiful paintings, won several awards with her paintings, and now is painting birdhouses that she is selling at festivals all over the region.  The paintings look great without any qualification for the fact that they are painted without the use of hands - they are much better than most paintings by people with full mobility and use of all their limbs.  She truly has a God-given gift.  And not surprisingly, Onix is extremely humble with regard to her gifts and gives all the glory to God.

I could go on and on, but I won't - just want to say that I was so blessed this afternoon and I can say without a doubt that my life is fuller after meeting and spending some quality time with Onix.  Oh yeah, don't want to forget to tell you that Onix not only has lived for over ten years since she entered the hospital where she was supposed to die - she has spent those years sharing the Gospel with every person who has come into her path, led many to the Lord, and is now living at her home with her husband of over 20 years and a caretaker.  How cool is that?

A Few Good Books

Every so often, I like to give some book reviews and recommendations.  A couple of the past must-reads have been When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself, by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, and Spiritual Leadership, by Oswald Sanders.  Well, over the past few weeks, I've been able to read a few good books in addition to the Bible (I get to start every day by reading wisdom from that GREAT book).  And I'm ready to share a few more great reads with you . . .

(1) Toxic Charity: How the Church Hurts Those They Help and How to Reverse It, by Robert D. Lupton -- In this book, Lupton, an urban developer in Atlanta, shares the good, bad, and ugly from his experiences working with the poor and oppressed in Atlanta, and projects the principles onto how to be agents of development, rather than simple relief, around the world.  The book dives into how to do micro financing, missions teams, inner-city projects, and many other things well, in a way that is productive rather than destructive.  If you work with the poor in any capacity, you will learn a ton from this book and will definitely not be sorry that you read it.  At Providence, we are using much of this book to prepare our La Providencia community and summer teams for a very productive summer in Honduras.

Here are a few tidbits from Toxic Charity to whet your appetite (there is a whole lot more where these came from):

• "If we want to see substantial change in a troubled neighborhood, we must concentrate energies and resources there over time."
• "In for-profit corporations on the cutting edge of their fields, research and development (R&D) is key.  Yet seldom do nonprofits spend money on R&D, with universities and medical research being notable exceptions. Innovation and risk taking are at least as important to the world of compassion as to the world of business.  Organizations that test new methods and document their trial-and-error findings are likely to be the ones that shape the best practices of the future." (this is why we at Providence focus on R&D to the extent we do)
• "To do for others what they have the capacity to do for themselves is to disempower them."
• "Anyone who has served among the poor for any length of time will recognize the following progression: give once and you elicit appreciation; give twice and you create anticipation; give three times and you create expectation; give four times and it becomes entitlement; give five times and you establish dependency."
• "Don't presume that because an area is poor and run down it is devoid of leadership and resources."
• "Getting to know community leaders first requires us to listen and respect indigenous leadership and learn the dreams of the people.  And be willing to have our own ideas transformed.  Both the community and its leaders may have different goals from those that volunteers might bring."

(2) The Day Metallica Came to Church: Searching for the Everywhere God in Everything, by John van Sloten.  This is a very different book from Toxic Charity, but just as convicting.  It focuses on how God is working in and through everything in the world - often not in the ways that we would think or see at first blush.  From lyrics of Metallica songs, to Van Gogh's paintings, to movies such as Crash, The Dark Knight, and No Country for Old Men, to several other unexpected examples, van Sloten gracefully provides insightful examination of how we can see God in these things, and challenges us to do the same with everything that we come into contact with in this world.  And he ends the book with the verse that tells us why we should believe that God is working through EVERYTHING in society: "For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be the glory forever!  Amen."

(3) Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett - Next on the list is a fun one that is for the serious novel reader, as the 960 or so pages requires quite an investment of time.  This is a great novel based in twelfth century England.  I usually do not read historical novels, but this one came highly recommended and gripped me from the start.  It follows Tom the builder and his quest to build a great cathedral, struggles for power in the church and in the kingdom, and has some great interactions between the characters and within the psyches of the characters that provide us with insights into our own lives and raise questions as to how we'd respond in similar situations.  If you like novels with solid character development, intrigue, and suspense, this is a worthwhile investment.

Several other books that are very good and definitely worth your time are: (a) Fatherless Generation, by John Sowers, which delves into the issues of fatherlessness in our world; (b) The Beckham Experiment, by Grant Wahl, which chronicles the highs and lows of the experiment involving David Beckham's move to the MLS in which we are all participating (whether we know it or not); and (c) Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer, in which Krakauer tells the story of an ill-fated climb to the summit of Everest and examines different aspects of the human psyche in the process.

You won't be wasting your time if you read any of these books.  To the contrary, they will all likely teach you many things about yourself and our world.