It’s been a while since I posted on this blog, but today is just too important to not post. A generous West Virginian has committed $15,000 to match every donation that Nuru International receives today in honor of #GivingTuesday.
Over the last nine years, our entire team at Nuru has been hard at work developing leaders who have the passion, the drive, and the commitment to making extreme poverty history in their homes and their communities. One of those leaders is the gentleman next to Jake in the photo above, Josephat Marawa. Josephat was one of the first farmers Jake met when we launched Nuru in Kenya in 2008. Josephat was struggling to grow enough food to help his family address hunger and just like any parent, he was longing for his children to have a better future.
I can remember multiple occasions where I had the privilege of being with Josephat in the field and meeting with other farmer households. He is an incredibly soft-spoken and thoughtful individual, and in the years since he first started farming with Nuru, he has grown in both his ability to provide for his family and his ability to serve his community. He is now a field manager for Nuru Kenya’s Agriculture Program, and is helping about 500 farmers to improve their livelihoods and to chart a better future for their families.
Josephat is one of many leaders that Nuru International has poured into. And you might wonder, why invest in developing leaders? Why not just provide something to meet immediate needs? Well, the answer is simple. As a result of investing in leaders like Josephat, Nuru’s Western staff were able to leave Kenya in 2015 and watch from afar as local staff continued to adapt and expand programs to serve their communities. They are helping other leaders grow and expand their reach, and the impact will continue for many years to come!
And it’s not just happening in Kenya. In Ethiopia, there are leaders like Tekalign Teferi and Temesgen Berihun, who are training up Nuru Ethiopia staff on the importance of servant leadership, of putting others first, and of helping to build the capacity of those around you. And in the near future, Western staff will be leaving Ethiopia and watching locals continue to serve new communities. And they will do it even better!
And today, you have an opportunity to invest in these leaders with double the impact. As I mentioned before, a generous West Virginian has committed to match every donation received today, up to $15,000. That means if you give $250, it becomes $500. If you give $50 it becomes $100. If you give $500, it becomes $1,000. None of this work would be possible if it weren’t for the generosity of friends like you. Will you give toward maximizing this match and helping Nuru serve even more communities in the future? Thanks for all you have done and continue to do to help more and more families lift themselves out of extreme poverty for good!
Each time I visited, we would sit in the dining room and share stories about what was happening in our lives. He would, without fail, gesture to the dining room table, which was his grandmother’s and had been kept in the family for generations. He would say, “Billy, there have been some pretty amazing Christians who have sat at this table for generations. Everyone from my grandmother, to my mother, to my brother Raincrow, and guests from all over the world. Including Dr. Alexander Reed, a missionary to Africa. And now, Billy, you are continuing that tradition.” I always considered it a privilege to sit in his dining room and catch up, and talk about life, tradition, and faith.
Flying Duck was also a silversmith. In fact, he and his son Barry, were among the few remaining silversmiths in our tribal community. For generations, Shawnee people have worked with silver. And back in 2010, I visited Flying Duck with my best friend in the whole world Willie to ask for his help in creating an engagement ring for my future wife. I showed him a few photos of us on my phone, and shared stories around how we met. He listened, and told me he felt honored that I would ask him, but that he was not able to do smithing with that level of detail anymore. While I was disappointed that he would not be able to help with the ring, I was grateful for being able to sit and share stories together one more time.
Long before any of these moments, there was a moment when I was much younger that I remember sitting and listening at the doorstep of our tribal council house as Flying Duck and some others discussed their shared faith, our historic traditions, and navigating life in a fast-changing world. Flying Duck saw me sitting on the stoop, and invited me into the conversation. He invited me to share perspectives, but really all I wanted to do was listen—and so listen I did. The moment was pretty magical for me; I was sitting and listening to the wisdom of elders that had been passed along for generations. Flying Duck and a handful of others gave me such incredible gifts during that time, gifts that helped me grow in my faith as well as in my own sharing of stories.
