Transcript: Why Disillusionment Can Be a Gift and How to Lead Your People Through It // Peter Greer, Chris Horst, HOPE International

The Flourishing Culture Podcast Series

Why Disillusionment Can Be a Gift and How to Lead Your People Through It

June 27, 2022

Peter Greer and Chris Horst

Intro: Do you feel discouraged because the realities of life have caused you to be disillusioned? Well, maybe you feel cynical. We've seen visionaries succumb to cynicism in these times, or at least cause them to coast. Today, our guests provide hope for us by calling this disillusionment a gift. Listen in as they talk about moving past the false hope of idealism to discover true Christian hope.

Al Lopus: Hi, I'm Al Lopus, and you're listening to the Flourishing Culture Podcast, where we help you create a flourishing workplace. The problem employers are facing today is that more of our employees are quitting than ever before. Some people are calling this the great resignation. And now with millions of open jobs, how can churches, Christian non-profits, and Christian-owned businesses face this tidal wave of resignations while attracting new, outstanding talent? And we know that having a flourishing workplace with fully engaged employees is the solution. I'll be your guide today as we talk with a thought leader about key steps that you can take to create a flourishing workplace culture.

So, now let's meet today's special guest.

Those of us in leadership at Christian organizations feel a call from God to serve and also a vision of how our organization can make a difference in the world, and that sense of vision and passion motivates our work. But what do you do when idealism hits unmet expectations and painful experiences, or maybe even a pandemic? How do you lead forward through difficulties? And our guests today will give us insights into this important issue as we look for hope that will endure.

I can't tell you how delighted I am to welcome Chris Horst, the chief advancement officer, and Peter Greer, the CEO, of HOPE International. In their leadership, they've been committed to working with BCWI for a flourishing workplace at HOPE International. Peter and Chris have recently coauthored a book, The Gift of Disillusionment: Enduring Hope for Leaders After Idealism Fades. And as I said to Peter and Chris earlier, “Is disillusionment really a gift? Really?”

Well, welcome to the Flourishing Culture Podcast, Chris and Peter. Thanks for joining us.

Both: Thanks for having us, Al. Good to be with you.

Al: Yeah, great.

Well, you know, before we get into the topic of your recent book, I know that Ukraine continues to be on our hearts and minds. In fact, it's just touched me. And knowing your work there, I pray for the leadership and the church in Ukraine every day. I know the ministry of HOPE International is global now, but your work started there in 1997. Peter, give us some background on your work in Ukraine and how you and your organization have pivoted to support the people during this heartbreaking time.

Peter Greer: Yeah. Well, thanks, Al. And you’re exactly right. We do operate in 17 countries around the world, but our origin story is in Ukraine, and it was after the fall of the Soviet Union, when there was a time of crisis. And a church in Pennsylvania said, “We've got to do something.” So they initially started sending food and supplies, and after doing that for several years, Pastor Petrenko in Zaporozhye said, “Your help isn't really helping us anymore.” And that was really the moment when HOPE International was formed, as a way to go beyond a short-term relief and really to partner with churches and to help individuals, to help entrepreneurs, rebuild their own country. And so that model of micro-enterprise development, microfinance, and savings groups, it was really founded at that moment in Ukraine in the late nineties.

Fast forward now to today, and there has been so much progress in Ukraine. The model, the team, the church network, there's been so much good that has happened. And on February 24, our hearts ached as we watched these towns where we work, these towns where we have partners and friends and colleagues, watched as the invasion began. And the same spirit, though, that was in the founding story of HOPE International, it's that same heart today. It's a question of, “And what do we do to respond?”

So initially partnering with churches to figure out how we were able to partner with them, short-term relief, but then, really, the question for us now is, and how can we help rebuild? How can we help farmers get back to work? How can we help entrepreneurs rebuild? And how can we once again see the church at the center of a story of running toward those that are in need?

Al: Yeah. And I thought about, and as we've all heard about the impending food crisis, and this is the planting season, and I thought, well, you're probably helping to provide loans for small farmers to buy grain to plant and so on. Yeah, crucial time.

Chris, you know, if people are interested in coming alongside HOPE International in support of Ukraine, what can they do?

Chris Horst: Well, I appreciate the question, Al. It is a dire moment for Ukraine. And to your point, we do know that the men and women that we serve, many of them have chosen to stay and continue their businesses, even in spite of the invasion. Just today, I read that based on our analysis of the clients that we serve, 55% of the farmers that we're serving have stayed and replanted because they have no other options. This is their livelihoods, and it's important for their own families, but it's also, they realize, critical for the region and for the world.

So we’re really grateful to stand alongside the courageous colleagues that we have the privilege of working with. These are not people that are distant to us. They are our friends. And we're grateful for the amazing leadership team of HOPE Ukraine and the ways that they're caring for the men and women that they serve.

And so for those that do want to join with us in that response and helping Ukraine both to provide relief in the short term and the rebuilding efforts once and as the violence begins to subside, they can go to hopeinternational.org/ukraine, and at that website, you'll see kind of an update, dynamic update, on what's going on in Ukraine, how we're responding, and what stage of rebuilding we're at.

Al: Fascinating, 55% of the farmers you've worked with have stayed and are replanting. That is encouraging, right there. Yeah, great.

Well, we could talk about that for a long time, but let's move on to our topic and your book, which is fascinating. You both have experience in faith-based organizations that are committed to making the world a better place. I mean, that really is at the core. For leaders, we have this calling. They can, you know, be idealistic.

Peter: You know, just this week we have the interns with HOPE International that have started. And there is so much enthusiasm that they bring with them as they jump in. And you can almost feel—we don't do this with the timing of our BCW, but if we did, I think there is a lift right now at this time because they bring such joy and excitement, and they see all of the positives of the organization and all of the belief that we can and we should and we will make a difference in our world. And we celebrate that. And every single person that steps out in service, even if mid-career, making a transition, or someone who starts volunteering or serving, I believe that that sense of idealism is that initial prompt. It's seeing what's wrong, seeing that we can make a difference, and having the courage to take that first step, with a lot of excitement alongside.

So

Al: Yeah, exactly.

And Chris, how about, from your perspective, give us some thoughts.

Chris: Well, we just think it's important to have a mix of individuals on your team that bring those perspectives. And as Peter mentioned, we just love having new staff, new interns, that are constantly bringing even just a mirror up to us as individuals that have been with HOPE for a long time. Peter and I both served as HOPE for over 16 years, and so we can forget, we can kind of get wrapped up in the latest challenge or crisis or issue that we're facing internally or externally within HOPE. And so having idealists in the journey helps us to renew our own confidence and hope and excitement about the work.

And that said, we also have to have those in our team, who have that critical perspective to say not everything is perfect. And sometimes we share the highlight reel of what's going on at HOPE when we talk about the organization, and maybe new staff and new interns, that's what they see. And then we also know there's really complicated and hard realities that the longer you're in this work, the more evident it becomes this is really hard.

And so sometimes when I describe The Gift of Disillusionment in a few words, I say it's basically a book that illustrates that doing Christian ministry is hard. That's essentially the premise of the book. And that actually, like, recognizing that and naming that, coming to terms with the fact that it's more difficult than we might think it is, that's the beginning of Christian hope, and that's the joy of Christian hope is realizing that we actually can't just make complex problems evaporate. We can't solve poverty. We can't fix foster care. We can't do any of these things in our own strength. It's not going to be something that we can just go in and follow a six-point plan and all of a sudden we've got the thing figured out. It's complicated and hard and difficult. So kind of coming to terms with that as an idealist, I think, is really important. Not that you lose that optimism and that joy about what's possible, but that it becomes more grounded.

Al: Yeah. Well, Chris, let's continue with that idea. I mean, you share honestly about your own personal struggles, running out of optimism and getting to the end of your own energy. You know, share a bit of your story for us.

Chris: Sure. Well, in 2020, I think a lot of us initially had adrenaline that carried us into those early months of the pandemic. And we can all remember the moments of, whether it's the NBA game stopping at halftime or it was borders shutting down or flights being canceled, we had that moment where you kind of kicked into overdrive. Like, this is new. We haven't done this before. And for me, that carried me for a few months, where the kind of newness of the moment was, I was just sort of driving on energy or on that adrenaline.

And at some point mid-year, I began to really feel the weight of the last few months and the loss of what had been given up. And I really sunk into, I would say, an unhealthy place in my own life of just doomscrolling, you know, this idea of trying to pin down how we're going to respond, what we're going to do, at that same time as the world was kind of going through this brand-new crisis. We're getting all sorts of opinions from a lot of different people about how HOPE International should respond. Donors and board members and peers of other organizations, all these leaders are sending their ideas on what we should do, how we should respond.

And for me, it felt paralyzing. It just felt like I wasn't quite sure that there was any clear path forward, but I wanted to find it. So I was just kind of again and again and again going into a cycle of reading and researching and trying to figure out a way out of it.

And what I realized in that moment, in retrospect, is I was looking for certainty. I was looking for predictability. I was looking for an easy kind of solution. And that's something I prided myself on as a leader is being able to identify solutions amidst complex and messy situations. And it just wasn't there. And so I began to kind of, like, sink further and further into myself.

I remember one moment where Alli and I were hanging out at the end of a long day. And so we had four kids, small, kids at home in the midst of that, so work was hard. Family life was very challenging. Virtual school was a train wreck. And so we were sitting around one night, and she’s like, “Chris, I think you might be depressed.” And I said, “Yeah, I think that might be true.” And it wasn't a clinical diagnosis. It was just spouse to a spouse. But there was an element of which I was just in a really unhealthy place.

So, you know, in the midst of that, kind of coming to terms with kind of where I was, the thing that actually was the path out of that place of, I would say, kind of obsessively inward gazing was Allie and I decided to launch a backyard school in the fall of 2020. And so instead of continuing to dwell and kind of live in this place of misery upon misery, we said we have to do something for our own sanity. And so we really believed God led us into this project where we hosted ten kids in our backyard, and we did virtual school, and walked to lunch together, and, you know, just had the chaos of kind of getting outside of ourselves.

Al: Yeah.

Chris: And as we sort of made that step forward, we felt like God met us in that place. So yeah, it was not a fun season. I think a lot of people experienced 2020 as a really difficult year. I know for me, it was particularly in the middle of the year was really hard. But I found God's grace in responding to doing something challenging and doing something that really pushed us outside of our own little world. And  we talk about that in the book, the importance of turning up and not turning in. And truly, I think, as we were working on this book project, I needed it for myself because I wasn’t following the prescriptions we were getting from leaders that we were talking to.

Al: Yeah. And I love the model, and we'll talk more about it. But turning up, not turning in. That's great insight, Chris. And yeah, a lot of us experienced a similar path during the pandemic.

Well, Peter, but how about you? When did you run out of idealism for improving a situation? Do you have a story for us?

Peter: Yeah. You know, just as Chris said, I hope that this book is helpful to other leaders. But focusing on these themes over the last several years has been so helpful to us in knowing how to navigate all of these challenges and spending time with a diverse group of global leaders that have figured out how to serve decade after decade.

I think for me the moment, though, outside of these last couple of years of challenges, whether it's Ukraine or Haiti or the overall impact of the pandemic on the people and places where we serve, on a on a personal level, for me, I hit my wall a couple of years ago. We have been involved in foster care, and it has been transformational for our family. It has been so good in so many ways.

But I'll never forget the initial training and going into that training and hearing stories about the forever families and about families that were reunited and about foster care being used in a way to help restore kids and families, and the beautiful pictures on the wall, lining the place that we had our training, and those are all true. Those moments are true. And if we had our family highlight reel, we could put our own pictures of our temporarily enlarged families on the wall as well.

But that’s not the whole story. And there was one—actually, I guess, two seasons that were just more difficult than I ever, ever could have imagined, feeling like our family was falling apart, feeling like our world was falling apart, timed with authorities, police stations, courts. It was by far the most challenging season. And I would say I'm a fairly upbeat, optimistic person. But that was the closest that I got to that season of giving in to the slow but insidious call of cynicism and this belief that the system's too broken; it's too difficult; what difference are we really able to make? Just give up. And I think it was in those moments that I recognized this is not a healthy place. This is not a healthy place for our family. This is not a healthy place for me.

And it was in those moments that, as God often does, there was someone who was sent—her name as Anne—and someone who had been doing foster care with over 100 children for 40-plus years and spending time with her and saying, “How do you keep going? How do you look at these challenges? How do you have these hurts?” because she had the same hurts, and she had a whole lot more of those stories. “How do you keep going?” And just the opportunity to sit and to listen from those that have experienced the same issues but somehow found a way to hold onto hope even though idealism is long gone.

Al: Yeah. Wow. Well, thanks for those honest reflections. And as listeners, I know we all have those stories. But, you know, as you've processed your own struggles and talked to so many other leaders, there is a common thread of disillusionment.

Peter, you said, you know, you get to that point of cynicism, and you ask yourself, can I really make a difference? That's really striking. And at some point, idealism runs out, and we realize that we can't rise above the circumstances we're in. But you described a pivot point for a leader, where we choose to go from our disillusionment to what's the next step. So, Peter, what is the next step beyond disillusionment?

Peter: Al, at the very beginning, you talked about the gift of disillusionment.

Al: Mm-hmm.

Peter: But disillusionment doesn't feel like a gift. Juxtaposition is intentional in the title and in the message. And I don't know many people that are in a moment of disillusionment and saying, “Wow, what a wonderful gift I’m receiving right now. I'm so thankful for my disillusionment.”

But, you know, it's interesting, Al, that if you look across sectors, across service sectors right now, there is more and more evidence that this is an unprecedented moment of disillusionment, and individuals are saying, “I want out.” So there was a study that was done on school teachers, and it found that 48% were ready to leave either the profession or their school. This is a tough time to be in education. Health care, similar: upper 40% of individuals in the nursing profession that are saying, “I would like a change. I want out.” And same with pastors. The recent Barna research that found that 38% of pastors are in a moment of saying, “I don't know if I can keep doing this.” So it does feel that there is this widespread, right now, disillusionment coming out of a very challenging time for all of us.

But again, the reason why we say that this is a moment that can be a gift is that this is the reframing moment, and it is in this moment that I believe a change can happen that will enable individuals to serve faithfully for the next season, as measured in decades, not in months. And so that's why it's a gift. It's a necessary pivot point where we either go inward—we either say, “You know what? I'm out. It is too difficult,” or we have an opportunity to come to the end of our abilities, to come to the end of our strength and to actually say what we heard from so many individuals that have figured out the gift of long-term service and to say, “What do you do when your own strength is insufficient? What do you do when you realize you don't have what it takes to enact the types of changes that you want?” And we believe that that is an invitation to say, “You know what? God, I have come to the end of my abilities. Unless You show up, this is too difficult. This is too hard. The situation is too complex.” And that's why we believe it's a gift, because that is where we believe God loves to step in. We believe God loves to intervene when we say, “I just don't have it in my own strength to keep going.”

Al: Yeah. It’s like God calls us to be faithful, not successful. You know, we've talked about that before, Peter. Yeah, it gets down to that. Okay. “Step in, God, because I'm beyond my own resources.”

And, you know, Chris, you have some additional thoughts, I know, on this. Give us a little thought on that pivot of when a leader uses the choice that he faces at these times.

Chris: It is the loss of an illusion. And I think that's the important thing that we discuss in the book is that God never promises us that this work will be easy, never promised that we'll grow up and to the right every year or that working with fundraising or with our boards or with our colleagues will be conflict free or easy breezy. Like, that’s just not—that’s an illusion. And so disillusionment is the loss of that.

Al: Mm-hmm.

Chris: And we look at that moment and say, “Okay, it's actually really freeing to step into the reality that that thing that maybe I wouldn't have ever said it, but I believed it in my bones, that if I jump in and respond to God's call to go work at HOPE International, that it's going to be fun every day, and we're going to experience incredibly transformative, life-changing realities in each moment.” And then you get in, and you’re, like, “I'm working on benefits policies, and I'm working on staff that aren't performing, and how do we encourage them? And I’m working on the 17th hiring committee this week.” And it's just, a lot of times, it doesn't feel like maybe the illusion that I thought it might feel like when I started.

And so that's where we just think there's an opportunity. We think there's an opportunity to really step back and examine those things that we actually hold to be true that aren't.

And for me, you know, I shared a bit of my story earlier, but recognizing that certainty, predictability, comfort, confidence in what's ahead, those are luxuries that most of the world's population today don't have and luxuries that most of the church, historically and current, doesn't have. And so we spend a lot of time in this book saying we want to listen to those who are in places where unpredictability and lack of certainty are more common, because they’re leaders that may have something to teach us about how we can respond and navigate to moments where we're finding ourselves feeling unmoored, like there is that disillusionment moment that we're experiencing.

Al: I trust you’re enjoying our podcast today. We’ll be right back after an important word for leaders.

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Al: And now, back to today’s special guest.

It kind of reminds me of a recent podcast I had with Dave Ferguson, who works with networks around the world. And he was saying we just don't really understand. He was on a Zoom call with somebody in a country that was going through a revolution, and the people on the other end of the phone were in a parking garage because there were gunshots close to where their office was. So they all moved to a parking garage, but they didn't want to miss the opportunity to be part of this teaching session on team building. And they're thinking, “We're sitting in a safe spot. We don't even understand what they're going through. And yet, here they are, making time for this.”

I love your point: examine the things that we hold to be true but aren't. I think the Holy Spirit helps us with that on a regular basis. But one thing, beauty of the book, and I encourage everybody to look at it and read it, you interviewed leaders from around the world. And as you researched this topic, these leaders were very helpful to give you insights. You know, what are some of the common themes that emerge consistently in interviews with these hope-filled leaders? Chris, did anything about these leaders surprise you?

Chris: We started working on this project in 2019, and we really started with this idea that this would be a book on the virtue of hope. And that was our sort of operating idea was hope. And so we wanted to really talk to leaders who we felt, from  everything we're hearing in terms of the recommendations that we were getting for who we should interview, that they're people of hope, people that really embody hope. And we wanted to talk to leaders, particularly, who are embodying hope in difficult circumstances.

And so we started to reach out to our friends. We got a bunch of recommendations, we did a ton of phone calls, and then ended up featuring over ten leaders from ten different countries, in the book. And the thing that surprised us as we went about our research was how often they were citing the Old Testament prophets as a source of hope. And for me and someone that spent a lot of time working for Christian ministries, Christian schooling throughout my life, church since I was a young kid, I don't often hear sermons on the Old Testament prophets. And it's rare that you hear about Jeremiah, but all of these leaders we were talking to were describing that was where they were finding their encouragement. And so that was a really curious theme that sort of emerged.

And so we just started doing some research. And specifically, Jeremiah came up again and again and again. And goodness, Jeremiah initially doesn't strike you as someone that's maybe a hope-filled leader, based on the kind of ideas we have of Jeremiah. But when you really dig into his story, he's a pretty remarkable guy. And we really began to dig into Jeremiah, and it became an important theme for the book because it was a theme for the leaders that we featured.

Al: Yeah.

And Peter, how about surprises that you've run into as you were doing the research for this book?

Peter: Yeah. I think similar to what Chris said, it was really this not only commonality in terms of hearing about Jeremiah or the themes that are referenced coming up again and again, but, really, the themes beyond that that we heard in so many different situations and so many more contexts. So in some ways, you look at our kind of research methodology, you look at the individuals, and on paper they're geographically very different. Their sector is very different. The common theme is that they've been able to do this for decades of faithful service. As Eugene Peterson says, it's that “long obedience in the same direction.” And what sustained that service came up again and again and again and again.

So I think that, to me, was something that was so helpful was recognizing these themes of, what is your calling? What does that actually look like? Who are the individuals that you've committed to do life with that are thoroughly unimpressed with what you've accomplished and thoroughly committed to you as an individual? Every single person told stories of groups of people that walked with them. Everyone told the moment when they had that clarity that “This is my life's work. This is what I want to focus on for the long term.” And we could go on about the themes that came in. But that, for me, was one of the surprising things was so much geographic, sector diversity, and yet commonality of what actually has sustained service for these remarkable leaders.

Al: And those are two good questions that every leader can ask: what is my calling, and who is the group of people that I pursue that with over time and together stay on the path?

Well, it's not just leaders who go through this phase of idealism to disillusionment. You know, many of the organizations that we serve at BCWI are just full of people who have idealism and a call from God, and they want to change the world, no question. That's why they're doing what they're doing. And even as we talk about millennials, they want to really have an impact on the world and see something greater than themselves and to have a job with meaning and purpose. I mean, all of those things.

And so how do you lead a team that's going through disillusionment? And you've had some challenges, I know. You're currently, as you see your friends in Ukraine, you've got challenges, and you wonder what's going to happen. What's the future? So how do you lead a team that's going through disillusionment and help them stay on a healthy pivot? Disillusionment, you've described it, it affects people, and it not only affects individuals, but, then, how they show up as a team or even as a community. So, Peter, where do we start with this?

Peter: And, Al, you actually have been incredibly helpful to us as an organization with HOPE International, with the feedback and listening and information from the Best Christian Workplace Survey that has been so helpful. And one of the themes that came up in our debrief was the importance of communication even in the midst of uncertainty.

So as Chris was talking about earlier, the organizations, it sounds like, that went into the closed rooms and had all of the sessions and tried to figure everything out and then come with this clear message to the organization of exactly what was happening and exactly what they were going to do in the midst of rapid change and uncertainty, there is no ability to do that. And so that caused communication to stop. And the converse being true, that if you're in a season of challenge, if you have a staff that is facing disillusionment, and as you rightly said, Al, it wasn't just Ukraine. The challenges we've had in Haiti. We've had some challenges in other places that we serve, on top of COVID. It's felt like we haven't been able to catch our breath very well. But the commitment to communicate in the midst of ambiguity, I think, is the first piece of saying, we don't know. We can't claim certainty around certain things, but this is what we know now. This is where we are, and communicate throughout the process.

And then I think the second piece is to name the pain, to not be afraid to say, “This hurts. This is a pain that we are facing,” and to give time and space for lament and for individuals to share.

But then I think the third piece, and this is where our faith makes a difference to do that, but then also to know that in the midst of that, that's not the complete story. If we only have the pain without hope, we are led to a place of despair and discouragement. And that's not where we want to be left, and I believe that’s not where God leaves us.

And maybe most famously, Jesus promised that in this life we're going to have troubles. There's going to be difficulty. This is what He wanted His disciples to know, with the challenges that were going to come, that they were going to face. But then He said, “But take heart. I have overcome the world.” And it's that acknowledgment of pain, acknowledgment of difficulty, and remembering the end of the story and remembering the presence of Christ in the midst of our most-challenging moments. That, to me, is naming the pain and also holding onto hope and finding a way to do both of those. I do think that's the invitation for us as Christian leaders to not shy away from how hard it is or the challenges that we're facing, but to also hold tenaciously to the hope that we have as well.

Al: Yeah. And we can do that so much better together. And your early point about just communication, being completely open, transparent, and keeping and building that trust between the community so that you can, you know, be in relationship and then work together going forward to name the pain, to know that it's not the complete story, to hold to hope. Yeah, fantastic.

Well, Chris, I know that you also have some thoughts on this. What would you like to add?

Chris: Just the importance of, I think—one of the things that we did this past week at our annual leadership summit, we brought leaders from around the world together to worship and pray together. One of the things that we spent a lot of time on was listening to stories of the men and women that we serve, and I do think stories give you some of the realities of the challenge and the realities of the opportunity. And I think for our team—again, 260 leaders operating across, I think, over 20 countries that were represented at our retreat this past week—that was the thing that I think most people thought was most meaningful was the opportunity to hear of real people whose lives have been changed, and real people whose lives are struggling, and hearing stories of the clients we serve in Ukraine.

I remember one story of a farmer who farms cherries and apricots, and they cannot figure out a way to sell their produce. So the harvest is there, but because of the reality of the invasion, the normal ways that they would deliver their products to market to be sold are impossible. So they can't truck the fruit to where it can be purchased. And your heart just, like, leans into this farmer and thinking through, like, how could we help? How can we help? Like, I would buy the cherries. Is there a way? How can we get them on a boat? You just start thinking through, and you empathize, and you come into their story. And hearing the stories of men and women that we serve who are experiencing incredible joy in their lives and employing people and helping them come out of poverty just, like, this is why we do what we do. So stories really matter. And I think sometimes we can fall into the rut of thinking only about policy and frameworks and systems, and those things matter immensely. But stories are really critical for a team of people at various points in that journey of disillusionment and idealism and cynicism and hope. Wherever people find themselves, I think stories are a thing that can really be an encouragement no matter where we're at in the journey.

Al: Yeah. Let's remember that. And as we're having our leadership teams come together, as you just did, even our own all-staff meetings, to share those stories and how encouraging they are, and people, of course, they're built up just as they share the story. You can see as they're sharing their own story how that encourages them.

Well, you know, that's the great thing about the book: it's just full of these kinds of amazing stories, of amazing people who make it past disillusionment and into a place of enduring hope. And I love the way, again, you've discovered while this might have been a book about hope, but it really kind of focused on this, how disillusionment is a part of it.

So share a couple of snapshots with you of the people who you chose and who chose hope rather than cynicism. You know, Chris, why don't you start with one?

Chris: Sure. I mean, one of the leaders that we got to know through our research in this book was an incredible woman named Tita Everts. And her story is one that starts in heartache. I mean, she grew up in a really difficult environment, in a slum community in her country of Guatemala. And as she experienced her own heartache and pain—she ended up having a really difficult marriage, experienced incredible abuse and trauma in that marriage, reached rock bottom, actually, when she immigrated to the United States and was in the midst of one of the most painful moments of her life, where her husband asked her to get an abortion for their forthcoming baby—and she just went to God. And in a miraculous moment, God met her in that place and gave her a vision to not just leave that abusive marriage and the abuse she was experiencing, but to take from that place of pain and to not try to find safety, but to go back to the community where she was born.

So she went back to the slum community of La Limonada, and in that place, she just began caring for men and women, just like her—families who experienced hardship and pain and heartache and abuse and drug addiction. And so she just began ministering to these families over time. And it started informally, and then it grew into this organization. And she's been there for over 20 years, faithfully serving one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in all of the Western Hemisphere, in this community of La Limonada in Guatemala City.

So it's just been incredible to get to know her and hear about her impact on the families that she's serving today. She has schools serving over 600 kids. And through these schools, they're giving children that for a long time have been overlooked or written off an opportunity to meet Jesus, to be affirmed in their God-given gifts and abilities, and to have a safe and secure place to go to school.

And so she's, again, I think, an example that we love to feature in the book because she's taken this pain that she's experienced and she's gone into that pain as opposed to trying to escape it. Amid all of that, she's experienced so many ups and downs, and so you have to read the book to hear some of those ups and downs. But she's been held at gunpoint. She's experienced betrayal by the church that she was involved with. She's experienced so many reasons to stop and reasons to hang up the spikes and say, “I'm out. I'm going to move to a place where I'm going to remove myself entirely from all this hardship.” And God’s blessed her faithfulness in really incredible ways.

Al: Great story.

Peter, I bet you've got one.

Peter: Yeah. And Al, I think part of what you were saying is so right, that the book intentionally says, you know, right now, what makes headlines?

Al: Mm-hmm.

Peter: Bad news makes headlines. And there has been a lot of bad news coming out. Doesn't matter if it's the church or nonprofit organizations. And it does seem like there is this fascination by, show us what's wrong. Show us the challenges. And unfortunately, that means that there's not a whole lot of time and attention to focus on stories that probably have never been heard, never been really been given the proper hearing. And as we started doing this research, we were just delighted to find story after story of long-term faithful obedience. So we want to replace some of the bad news that make headlines with a set of stories and a group of individuals that are faithfully serving. And most of the readers will probably never have heard of very many of them.

And so the one that comes to mind, and it comes to mind partially because some of his comments really framed the entire story of the book, but it's Reverend Fry of Mutamiri. And he is a pastor in Zimbabwe, and he has faced his fair share of challenges, not just at a national level, but also at a personal level. He was appointed in a position of leadership within the Anglican Church, and he stood up against some corruption that was happening within the church and within the state. And he faced a heavy price for doing so. He lost his home. He lost his church. He had death threats. He had individuals coming to his home. Literally lost so much. And he would say that when he would go to preach on a Sunday, that he would bring two things. He would bring his Bible, and he would bring a damp cloth to cover his face when they got tear gas thrown into their gathering. And that was just his reality. That was just what he was living in.

And he said, “In that moment, I preached through the book of Jeremiah. And what I found was an individual that also was losing so much, also was being mocked and ridiculed, also was having all kinds of challenges.” And yet, he looked at the prophet Jeremiah as an example of faithfulness, and he said, “That's what we're going to do. We are going to be a faithful people. Even if they take our buildings, if they take our homes, if they take our lives, we are going to be faithful,” and just that courageous service that does not diminish the challenges, the very real challenges that they faced, and yet he was an individual that found the same hope that Jeremiah found, that his hope was not in his own strength. His hope was not in his abilities. His hope was not in his circumstances. But his hope was in the God that he served, Who was present even in the midst of pain.

And so that, to me, was just one of those framing moments that pointed us to Jeremiah and pointed us that it is possible to hold onto hope even when it feels like your world is, in many ways, falling apart.

Al: We are going to be faithful. Yep, I love that. Hold onto hope.

Well, this has been a great conversation. Gosh, we've learned so much, and we're encouraged as a result. So thanks so much. Thanks for your book. Thanks for your research. Early on, we described Christian ministry is hard. It's hard work, there's no question. And we come in, oftentimes—I just think about your interns that you described early on. They’re coming in with enthusiasm. They're saying, “We're going to make a difference. HOPE International has just got a great track record. We've got a great culture. We're going to make a big difference.” But then sometimes reality, it does set in. And Chris, as you talked about, in the pandemic, doomscrolling. I think so many of us kind of got to that point. It's like, oh, my gosh, as Peter, as you described, you know, with difficult situations and foster care. But what a gift it is, then, when we have that reframing moment, where we stare right in the face of cynicism and disillusionment and choose not to go there and to reframe that moment and to examine the things that we hold to be true, for sure. So this has been a great discussion. You know, you've referenced Jeremiah, the prophet, several times. So I think it's good for all of us to go and to reflect on that. I know a lot of people have reflected on Job in these last couple of years. But Jeremiah is a great one. Well, gosh, it's really been great.

I bet you've got one more thing that you'd like to talk about, just as we've reflected and to summarize this podcast.

Chris: Hang in there. That's my recommendation is that, you know, when we face challenges, uncertainty, unpredictability, I think it's really easy to throw in the towel. And I think the invitation from God, the invitation from Jeremiah, is to obey and remain faithful to what God's called us to. And actually, in that place of kind of release and surrender, there's so much life that can be found there. I know that’s been true for me. I think when we look at Jeremiah, he is someone, I think, even in a different way than Job, he finished well. He was faithful even when everything that Israel hoped for, everything he had hoped for, fell apart. You still see again and again and again Jeremiah returning to hope. So that's the, I think, the invitation is to hold onto hope.

Al: Great. Peter?

Peter: That is the right word. I have nothing to add other than that. And just as you do that, as you hold onto hope, I think in particular, in this moment when there are so many others that are facing something similar, as you hold onto hope, find other individuals that find their hope running thin and run towards them as well. We need to, as a community, as a church, as a group of individuals, we need to keep moving forward together. So if you find your hope restored, if you find you're able to hold on, then help others on their journey as well.

Al: Well, Peter and Chris, thanks so much for your contributions today. We've all, I know, enjoyed them.

And for those of you that want to know more about HOPE International, go to their website, hopeinternational.org. And their book The Gift of Disillusionment is available wherever you buy books. So take a look at that. Especially in this time, it's really appropriate.

So, gentlemen, thanks for your honesty, your transparency, and your faithfulness, your pursuit of God through the hard places to a point of enduring hope. You know, you've lifted us up, and I know you've lifted so many people through your work and leadership. So thanks for taking time out of your day and speaking to the lives of so many leaders. Thank you.

Both: Thank you, Al. Thanks for the invitation.

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