declare the blessings of god in your life i know that the blessings of god make you rich and added no sorrow you can't make me doubt it i know that god is a real real real real god and that he is manifesting his blessings upon people who obey him and walk up right before him is good and his mercy endures for ever for this is the day that the lord has made and we should rejoice and be glad there and yes i'm going to rejoice and you can't make me stop rejoicing because i know that god is real real real to day to day i have special guests and he's going to share his experiences share is skills and he's coming from a worldwide organization of where all vision but before he comes i want the world to know that i really appreciate the leadership of the methodist i'm sorry method this mission council who was responsible planning mission appreciation month these are just some of the organizations that has made it possible for the world and for the united states to recognize mission and those who are involved in the mission field matter of fact some of the unsung heroes are really involved in the mission field and you never get a chance to meet them because they're in the foreign mission where old you never had a chance to see them because they're busy under the assignment of god and so we thank them for what they do matter of fact we had a environmental conference  two weeks ago and we had some of the on song heroes there who shared their experience and we were able to give them show honor and appreciation for what they are doing now only in america but around the world so we thank god for them and we thank god for mr jeff feels yes world vision are having an impact around the world and they are having a strong influence with mission organizations around the world and we appreciate them for their participation and for them to send jeff feels our way so we thank god for all that he's doing and and today we're going to yes open up our hearts and have a a wonderful conversation about the mission feel and the mission work that god is raising up a new leadership yes there are so many young hearts  in mature hearts people who want to embrace missions but they just don't know how to go about it and they're looking for leaders for advice and they're looking for leadership and we plan to bring it forth today in this conversation so again i'm so happy to have my guests here and i like to welcome question how long have you been looking looking into getting involved in mission work i got involved about twenty five years ago i was running a public warehouse down in ambridge pennsylvania was a steel mill that had closed up which happened a lot in this area and world vision came into the area and they wanted to make a difference with a gift in kind program knowing that there was a lot of product that was a bailable that could be put to great use and be a business solution for corporations so it started on a small scale down at that that warehouse and i was involved then and really caught the passion for it and seeing the difference it was making and seeing how not only was it helping those in need but it was helping engage communities and engage volunteers we have a great volunteer staff in the local pittsburgh area one of the reasons the pittsburgh area was chosen to have our global distribution center was because of the volunteers that are available we would all love to have it in baltimore but because of shipping we do a lot of international shipping but we didn't think we could get the volunteer force so that was one of the reasons this area was chosen and it remains steadfast in that of having volunteers come in and help us work the product twenty five years ago yep now before you call for pan bridge before they start coming to ambridge were you praying about this or were you was this something on your heart that you wanted to be involved in vision missions or was this something that because it was another opportunity or well i always felt up hashan for helping people i have been pretty fortunate to not have to go through a lot of life's struggles as far as what you see in some of the poverty areas so i had that passion that wanting to help and knowing there's a strong need there there's a lot of need for  help and varies from you know what you can do what your heart feels could be as simple as some volunteer in time maybe if you have some money to donate or however you would get involved but i just saw ways from early age had that i was kind of brought up that way of you know you help your neighbor you help your friends you help your families and then i kind of took it even a little further than neighbor friends family so i've always had that and when i had the opportunity to connect with world vision and help them start to get some kind program in the area that this was a real excitement for me so i is right near seattle so we have about fifteen hundred staff there and then we also have a presence in the d c area a fairly large office there and then we work the messy clee throughout the country serving the domestic needs we have a location in new york we have a location in chicago dallas fife washington hartford connecticut also down in the appalachian region down in philippi west virginia that serves kind of the appalachian mountain range now and the gift of kind this operation was birthed in pittsburgh yes that's correct dick johnson was the fellow's name just retired about three years ago but he had the idea of knowing there was a lot of excess product that was being lamb filled in some cases so he approached some people at pittsburgh leadership development and they then approach world vision and started the discussions and then in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine the operation actually started down a very small scale and big johnson was the the person who had that vision and felt the calling and i know that you had spoke with him a little bit but he just amazing man basically when they started they really didn't know kind of what to do how to handle it and they would start the day in prayer and just pray here lord please please show us the way we know there's a need we know there's your will and so they would pray daily and it's the person being answered and blessing started happening i work but a lot of them do to very different things even the ones that kind of do similar to us we have multiple ones even some in the pittsburgh area but we are a little unique in the fact that we are one of the few that really pick the product from start to finish so we can take it from the dorner the donor store and then we process it at our facility in swiftly or denver that's our two global distribution centers and then we put it in to shipping containers ship that overseas to our in country staff in the countries we're serving and those staff and then take it and they handed out on individual needs basis based on financial needs they don't worry about any kind of race religion anything like that that's that's not a qualification all it's just financial need a nd then we can hand that out on individual needs only so if we're serving a family of four that day if we have t shirts and shoes they would each get a size appropriate shirt size appropriate pair shoes and that kind of curves the attempt to serve with a gift of kindness yes what we do with that is we work in what we call a peace area development projects so if we're in a country over let's say zambia that's one of our biggest countries that we support they will have an area development project we will go into that community and we will work with the local leaders sometimes it's a simple it's just a mayor pence on the size of the community so we'll go sit down with them and we'll do it extremely detailed evaluation of the needs what we can do to make that difference make the change and then we will have staff stay in that country a country that community and we will start with clean water make sure there's clean water if not we will get a whale to reorder whatever source we have in that area sometimes it's do an education as well to make sure that these youth are be able to stay educated because a lot of times are third fourth grade and that may be the extreme of them being able to come in and then we will also go in and make sure that the proper food is there as well and then we will do some micro financing as well where we would go in and do a small business loan and we would help people start their own businesses at a zero percent return rate although weeks pool expect that to be returned but no interest and we're really successful in being able to get that money back and keeping that money moving for us to keep it working so we'll do that the most times it's a five to ten year process so we feel that community is good and more substantial and where it should be and then we would move on and duplicate that in another area once we know and we'll still be there for support but we would move on and duplicate that again the other thing we do is we make sure we're not going to affect any of the local markets especially with the gibson kind so there's a textile company close by we won't want to be putting clothing into that area because it takes away jobs so we do a lot of homework with that to be sure that we're really not going to affect the local market last thing we want to do is take jobs away so we have a five pillar kind of phase several that we go through ones and do you are these people employed by you or do you assign assigned people in the community and in the zambia do you do you have like a hospital that we have forty five thousand full time staff worldwide what's forty five thousand full time staff worldwide well positioned now most of the most of those aren't like we won't have a hospital where we're employing all the nurses or we would support that hospital so we may have a nurse or a doctor on staff that would know the proper type of things that would be needed and then we would support that hospital we would support the community so in that community we would have a couple of staff in that community but with the working with the community and their leaders so it's not that we're employing everybody there we're helping and then we implement the gifts in kind where appropriate so we have a clothing shoes like you were saying available school supplies toys sometimes some building supplies and then the medical supplies as well we would help to support those areas we can get sometimes some refurbished hospital beds from the us where a hospital may be getting the new modern with all the bells and whistles but we still have the old model that's still very usable and very much in demand over there that we would use most of the stuff we do those brand new but on occasion we'll do some of the refurbished items as well but then we implement that where we feel is most  so there's really no limitations where you would go in order to make a difference correct we do work just a slight bit differently though when it comes to natural disasters we get involved we were certainly sound involved with katrina  whenever the tsunami hit we were very much involved there when the storms came through haiti we were still involved with product down there and helping down there the unique thing is we usually have staff already we're just not ready to implement that so various reasons but with natural disasters we work a little differently where that's really not our day to day more like the salvation army red cross you know i think they're there they're a little more involved in the natural disasters than we are but we're working more on the day to day problems in the countries where it's not meeting the front page of the news it's you know it's continually ongoing and you're having issues with clean water very very early death rates of children because of lack of clean water or types of things like that where it's not the natural disaster caused by you know a storm or a tsunami or whatever the case would be quake but when those happen we do get involved different than the new fangled item bigger better comes in and they will clean space on their shelves and they will donate that other product so we work with a lot of the building supply companies and we do get a fair amount of building supply so  initial part of getting people to a safe environment making sure they have water and food and then starting on the rebuilding we do continue to stay in those areas and we will do what we can especially with building supplies that have building supplies available when they start to rebuild and again that would very depends on the magnitude of the situation and and sometimes even the poverty level of the situation sometimes that rebuilding doesn't start very quickly it's months sometimes depending on the  disaster and like a train a you know it took months and i think even a couple of years before some of the areas started to rebuild so that again varies a little bit a little again a little unique in those areas compared to a red cross or  but we definitely support that and get involved this much in this where we can let me say let me ask you this do you have a program to train we do not have a program to train per se how we get involved a little bit dabble in that in some areas you know at our federal way office we have some staff that are in that area so they'll go around and kind of train some of our staff and some of those those areas but not particularly just a set area and little vision to to do that do you have a volunteer program for clergy well we have many volunteer program so and it kind of across the board on a card when we're looking for the volunteers we are looking for anybody who's you know wanting to come in and hopefully they feel like they're making a difference because they are but we do work a lot with the churches so a lot of our volunteers come in will be church groups we also work with a lot of the schools and we try to blend the schools sometimes in the area where we will have a school that's from an affluent area mixed in with a school it's not and then we'll have a minute the same time and we force the students to go at the same tables and it's that's really a neat thing to see because the search exchange so numbers of firsts are kind of you know a little shy but then they'll start to exchange phone numbers and so we try to do a lot and what we feel is giving back that way we're making a difference especially when it comes to volunteer we work with all of corporations locally too that come in and volunteer their time they'll come in for a day and volunteer time ok well you have the scylla to here in pittsburgh this particular area of the environmental ministry and the things that you have already said has really given some insight open up some ideas  young beginning and look right in the camera here i just we do have volunteers in daily and saturdays during the school year so there's a lot of opportunity and we would love to have them come out they can go on the website and reach out to us we usually do three hour shifts and we do a variety of sorting sometimes the donor requires that sometimes we're removing tags other times we're doing a cy season on gender sort to make sure that that products properly go into the countries that are going to use it most so like so we have a very strategic plan so those countries know exactly what they're getting they're going to use it to the fullest but we need the volunteers to be able to do that we could never do that with paid staff because it's it's this amazing amount of work but it i worthwhile and we have about eight thousand volunteers a year coming in so we have quite quite an operation there we can house it's small small groups or large groups sometimes we have a hundred people there on a saturday so i would love to have them reach out and come out even come  really want to make a difference in this particular area so they will benefit by observing this show another thing  what type of well i appreciate again you make your time available to come to the show and speak to us about to some it may be just a bo for millions of people in it so much more join us as we take a peek at the impact you have around the world ir message back to you they know what this help means in the bitter cold of winter how to care for her four children all by herself for months her husband was away looking for work they went seven months without any  little money was left for food let alone clothing a box of clothes from world vision arrive just in time wrote a note to world vision that very day the gift of clothing and helped her family survive special thanks to world vision and everyone there going cold winter days can somehow bring warmth and laughter to all the children who are in need like god bless you for the kind of people you are you'll meet samual kids made fun of him for having just one pair of decent pants now he has new clothes evelyn is a world vision volunteer who helps samuel and his friends but they  because many of the kids who are need in these clothes all this help is thanks to you joining us in the fight against poverty donated goods are given out wisely not as handouts but as part of world vision's work that's changing live school supplies and books to educate for life medical supplies for good health and among many other things toys that bring joy every box you pack helps families transforming