Leading Change for Global Engagement

On December 4, the community at GRACE got to hear both a status update and the long view story of our churchs' engagement with East Africa, specifically Uganda and Kenya. Patti Hewat did a great job of outlining both the principles and execution of this specific area of the world. There's some wisdom in this process so I post it here in case you are working through some of the same.

+ pre 2006: small groups of people involved in various small projects including a building project in Uganda
+ Fall 2006: Bono speaking at the Leadership Summit, which galvanized a leadership team to engage the HIV/AIDS crisis at a global level
+ vision trip to Uganda with lead pastor and his wife on the team
+ transform from project based engagement to partnership with AOET
+ created gift catalog, mostly focused on catalytic products - buy a fishpond or goat, etc.
+ staff exchange - dir of AOET came to the US, GRACE sent a family to act as country director
+ establish medical clinic and sewing/tailor - specific vocational training
+ children's village started, which focused on adoption and integration of HIV orphans
+ primary and secondary school started
+ computer lab, school bus, teacher training, bathrooms
+ Dec 2010: We are Kenya established, primary context is Soweto, congregation contributed to a well
+ Sept 2011: about 1000 families participated in the East Africa Famine Relief Sunday

This is a case study for moving a community of faith to deeper levels of global engagement and it's amazing to me to how clear some big missions issues have been worked through in this process. My list includes sustainability, dependency, indigenous leadership and systematizing values. If you are leading change for global engagement, hoping this helps.