Mission Statement

This was my submission to the Peace Corps as my personal mission statement.

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My personal mission statement has been for some time now:

I motivate and inspire, activate and equip, everyone I come in contact with.

This mission statement has followed me in ministry, in my service in non-profit work, as well as in the business world. It has chased me in the way I have viewed the people I have interacted with in India, China, Africa, South America and, most recently, in Haiti.

What I want to see is a certain thing that happens on a person's face when they have a sense of purpose, dignity, yea, hope of improvement.

What I love is that single moment where a smile breaks the hardened, cracks in an worn face when they realize that not only is someone here to help; someone cares. Someone loves them.

It has led me to have a passion and a longing for the most poor in completely underdeveloped areas. This sense of satisfaction started when I served in the church with at-risk youth. Then it was compounded when I served my co-students on Semester-at-Sea when we almost wrecked in the Spring 2005 trip. It compounded yet again with every visit; the brick-making family in Viet Nam, the orphanages in Kenya, the favellas in Brazil, and the homes in rural Haiti.

I cannot NOT serve in this function. I can no longer exert energy for any other type of work. No matter what the skill set required (business, accounting, management, negotiations, etc), I can only apply it to the service of those in need.

I could show you my 5-year goals and plans, or review the things I have done and experienced in the last 5 years, and you would see the trend.

Up until now I have made decisions that have often sacrificed strong potential for large financial gains. Some would say that I have “sabotaged my own success.” I would say that I have made decisions for others' success.

Looking at my goals for the future, there are plenty of goals surrounding financial freedom. There are pleny of goals for travel and development. All of them circulate in making myself free to serve; free to serve humanity, free to serve the poor, free to serve the needy, free to serve the hurting.

My whole purpose and being move toward being free enough to unabashedly seek to motivate and inspire, activate and equip, all that I come in contact with, especially the most poor.