I’m retiring this week from World Vision U.S. after 41 years in nonprofit work, including a combined three decades at WV. Last month I had the incredible privilege of taking some major donors on a final Vision Trip, where we saw the fruits of several program models that I’ve actually had a small hand in launching. None was more inspiring than Biblical Empowered Worldview (BEWV). Over and over, we heard from WV Zambia staff and community members that “mindset change” with an empowered worldview was the most critical ingredient of all. Still, this was only a fuzzy concept to us until we visited Prisca.

I had previously “met” Prisca in late 2020 through another innovation I helped with, sparked by the pandemic—the inaugural “Virtual Vision Trip” via live + recording video with the field. Prisca had not yet gone through the BEWV program at that point, and her story was chilling: A widow with 7 children, she’d leave them for two weeks at a time to dig roots found 8 hours away, which she could bundle and sell for fifty cents each—earning perhaps $10 for two weeks’ effort. She could only afford school fees for her eldest child, who (to Prisca’s credit) was a daughter . The family ate one or two meals per day, eating on the ground outside her hovel of mud and sticks. I paused that day in 2020 after we watched her interview and commented to the group: “If we ever forgot what extreme poverty looks like, we’ve just seen it.” It was beyond sobering.

I had no idea what we’d see when we visited her home last month. I knew only that she’d been through the BEWV training and that she had a strong story, but when we arrived we were all totally disoriented as we met the whole family, including mother, grandmother, and daughter. The woman we all thought was Prisca’s daughter was actually Prisca herself, transformed in her appearance, countenance, and confidence! She confidently stood and told us her story—which had gotten even worse before it improved: While she and her mother were off digging roots, the home had burned to the ground, destroying almost everything they owned. She admitted, “At that point, I wished I could just join my dead husband.” No doubt, she kept going out of love for her children.

She explained: “First, World Vision gave us clothes and school uniforms, as we’d lost everything in the fire. Then I took the Empowered Worldview training and I learned I have opportunities right here around us [not just by walking 8 hours away]. I realized that I could do something, so I decided to cut wild grass and sell it for roof thatch. With some of the money I earned from this, I bought second-hand clothes I could sell.  Then World Vision offered Entrepreneurship training. We learned how to assess if we had a profit or a loss in our business efforts; I had to learn to compute my costs and do stock-taking. There is a government program that provides seed and fertilizer, so I joined a Producers Group and took advantage of this. I also bought and sold goats, which then allowed me to acquire additional farm inputs. Now I cultivate much more land around me. In the past, I would harvest only 2 one-gallon buckets of corn. Last season, I harvested 20 bags of corn. This next season, I hope for 40-50 bags!! [One bag is typically 50 kg, or 110 lbs.] Now, all of my children are in school, and I’ve built a new home!”

We were stunned, yet still struggling to understand what had been so impactful about the BEWV training. Prisca explained: “I lacked the action-knowledge to know what I could do to transform myself. Everything seems locked. I thought ‘If I only could dig roots…’; this was all I could imagine as my options. Now I am able to see what is available to me ‘at hand’.”

She gave an example: “Even this shade tree above us, I could make a business out of this tree. Branches can be cut and sold or made into carvings. So now I sell used clothing. I’ve invested in seriously farming my own land. And I want to open a small market to make enough money for my eldest to go to college. I thank God that I have a brain that’s functioning now as it should. I was the laughingstock for my neighbors before. Now everyone is amazed at the change they see in me.”

As you can imagine, we were breathless by this point and completely inspired by this widow with 7 dependent children. She still lives in very humble conditions, but we all recognized that she is well on her way to life in all its fullness!

Later, I began reflecting on this strange idea of recognizing what we have “at hand,” which seems such a foreign concept. And then it struck me—this same principle has been a major key to my own success at World Vision! The World Vision I’m leaving is a better World Vision than the one I joined in 1982, and in some small but important ways, I think I’ve contributed to its improvement.

I was privileged to find a major donor to underwrite our first Savings Group pilot; this project model operates today in over 30 countries with millions of participants. I found a different supporter to make the lead gift for expanding our WASH-Up program with Sesame Workshop to every region where we work. I helped create our Visionaries major donor offer, Virtual Vision Trips and several more fundraising innovations. And the Biblical Empowered Worldview program was first launched by the WVUS Innovation Fund, something I championed and co-led for seven years, a role that went beyond my “assigned” duties. Even my writing meditations for donors to reflect on and two books that World Vision uses regularly have been contributions I’ve been honored to make without being asked to do so. All this came by recognizing the tools I have available “at hand” that I can bring to bear toward meeting a need or advancing an opportunity.

Let’s take inspiration from Prisca. What do you have at hand that you haven’t recognized yet? Each of us can make WV better if we want to. Not only achieve excellent personal KPI scores or performance appraisals. You can actually leave behind a better organization than the one you joined, one that is stronger because you worked here.

We can be Curious. Creative. Fearless. Are you afraid you might “fail”? Did you know that the most risk-averse people on earth are the extremely poor? If they swap out one crop for another and the crop fails, someone could literally starve. If anyone deserves to be risk-averse, it’s them. Yet “Priska” has embraced “risk” practically into the middle of her name in order to improve the future for her family! If Prisca can take risks, we can surely take risks on her behalf in order to help passionate, determined people like her succeed.

Launching Visionaries was a risk. The Innovation Fund was a risk. Virtual Vision Trips was a risk. What are you willing to risk on behalf of the most vulnerable people on the planet? Your ego? A disappointing result from trying something new?

The next time you encounter a challenge or opportunity, consider asking yourself:

1. What resources do I have at hand? … My seniority? My newness (a fresh outside perspective)? My knowledge/credibility on a certain topic? My connections? An article I read? My education? My colleagues? My donor? My manager?
2. How serious am I about doing the best work I can for God and the poor, and how willing am I to risk ‘failing’ to get better faster — even if it means overcoming our fear of being a ‘guinea pig’ or a laughingstock. (This week there was an amazing and beautiful example of this which you might appreciate here.)

Perhaps you don’t like to do things alone, or you’re smart enough to know you need more clout to move a boulder in your path. Great! Create a “Coalition of the Willing,” a work team, a handful of Champions. I almost always create a coalition of the willing or a group of Champions, and through those I’ve had a hand in driving new initiatives far beyond my ability to accomplish on my own. It’s true that “It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we don’t care who gets the credit.”

If we’re going to keep getting better faster, we each need to be willing to change and grow and help each other. Are you open to change in the service to a higher purpose? The Bible says Jesus endured the cross “because of the glory set before him.” He could walk to Calvary because kept his eyes on the goal. What about us? Are you willing to go through the pain of taking risks in your service to the high calling that God has put on your life in order to help make the world a place where God’s will is done “on earth as it is in heaven?” Where the hungry are fed, the captives set free, where “those who gathered much did not have too much and those who gathered little did not have too little?”

I have spent my career volunteering, making the time to contribute beyond my assigned duties. I certainly performed my assigned duties, and with distinction. But I discovered that I had much more available to me “at hand” than only my assigned duties.

There is a great urgency to our work. That urgency can be channeled and used to challenge yourself to take risks in order to help all of us get better faster. To see assets and resources that you didn’t realize you have ‘at hand’. 

This is what an Empowered Worldview does, a Biblical Empowered Worldview.  If Prisca can do it for her family, you and I can do it to help millions of Prisca’s succeed.

It’s been the pinnacle honor of my life to serve with you on this team. As I joyfully pass my baton to others with fresh legs, please know that I’ll be in the front of the stands cheering you on… still a World Vision fan, volunteer, donor and prayer partner with you.

Cory Trenda

June 30, 2023