drew gneiser

I’ve already shared pictures from my trip to the Philippines here, here, and here, but here’s a collection of a few more of my favorites. The Philippines is beautiful.

Today is World Food Day. When you’ve seen extreme hunger and poverty with your own eyes, things change. You have to stand up and say, “This isn’t okay.” That’s what I’m doing today.

I wrote a few blog posts this week about World Food Day: on FMSC’s blog and a Compassion International guest post. I’d appreciate if you check them out and share one if you dig it.

I met this little Filipino girl outside of a community feeding and education program. Her slum is built on garbage, bamboo, and a bit of concrete, hanging out over the ocean. The feeding program was held in a building formerly used for other things: the first floor was a brothel, the second floor a drug house. There is a row of smelly pig stalls within arms reach.

A group of 40ish women and their children had graduated from the program the day before. Through International Care Ministries’ holistic approach, kids are growing stronger and moms are gaining confidence. You could feel the joy.

There have been times I’ve walked through slums or read about poverty, and wondered if anything could really be done to fix things. Our world is very broken. Then I meet amazing parents and kids like this and know it’s worth trying.

On Saturday, I’ll be flying to the Philippines with my organization, Feed My Starving Children.

Our team plans to visit several feeding sties that use FMSC meals, including a very special project on the island of Marinduque. Our partners began a unique and progressive project there aiming to completely eliminate malnutrition, starting with food and then adding education, medical care, and training programs (See the video here.). We’ll be there on the day of the one-year anniversary.

Stay tuned for photos and stories when I come back (on this blog and on fmscBlog.com). I may also have internet access a bit while in the Philippines, so follow me on Twitter and Instagram.

Second-year NFL quarterback Russell Wilson recently told reporters that over the off-season, he watched tape of every single throw Drew Brees ever made in the NFL.

Wilson (5’11”) decided spending hundreds of hours studying Brees (6’0″), one of the most successful quarterbacks ever and a player with a similar throwing style, was a worthwhile endeavor.

Russell Wilson didn’t just dream about becoming like Drew Brees; his admiration prompted hard work.

Becoming the best doesn’t just happen accidentally. You can’t fake your way to it, and you won’t wake up one morning with superpowers.

Read every single book in your area. Watch every documentary, read the articles and case studies, and interview experts in the field. Pour yourself into it if you want to become good.

Don’t expect to become an expert or thought-leader unless you are willing to put in the work.

During summers in college, I went back to Wisconsin to work in my dad’s automotive parts warehouse. Hoods, fenders, and headlights all became every day objects surrounding me.

My work projects included barcoding the entire warehouse space, ordering and assembling new racking, unloading semi-containers with a forklift, and moving inventory, pallets, and boxes.

Even in some of the years afterwards, I wondered what all this had to do with building my resume or career. Shouldn’t I have spent those summers doing a marketing internship? My goal wasn’t to become a warehouse manager, so what did this have to do with my brand? At least I had the paycheck and an agreeable boss.

Years later, I began working a great job at a nonprofit. Some of my regular duties included counting inventory, moving pallets and boxes, and working around forklifts, pallet jacks, and industrial racking.

You can only connect the dots after they’ve happened. And sometimes they’ll never connect.

So instead of wondering when they’ll connect, or spending energy trying to force them to, often the best thing to do is to just let life unfold. None of us know what the future holds.

Choose to pour into whatever situation you’re in currently. You can decide that whatever you’re doing right now – however menial, however tangential, however boring – is worth doing well. That boring could become a building block.

Stamp your name and reputation on everything you do. It’ll never be wasted. At worst (and as I hope you’re seeing, there really isn’t a “worst”), you’ll be proud of your work and learn how to work hard. At best, it could be the beginning of a new thread that will lead into the future.

On Thursday and Friday of last week, I was lucky enough to attend the 2013 Global Leadership Summit. It was an energizing time full of speakers and challenges to be bold and brave.

Mark Burnett (Exec Producer of Survivor, The Voice) told this story about a personal mantra for his work:

While shooting his most recent project (The Bible) in Morroco, Mark and his crew met a nomadic people group. This people group lived high in the mountains and low in the valley, depending on the season, to escape the extreme desert heat.

Traveling between locations is no easy task. The road twists and turns through the mountains, is rough, and is often blocked by snow drifts.

Mark commented to them that it must be tough to make the journey. “Oh, that’s not the hard part,” replied the people. “Picking the wrong people to make the trip with is what can make it unbearable. Choose your companions before your choose your road.”

The advice became a montra for Mark Burnett in creating his art. You’ve got to do the hard things in life with the right people around you. Choose your companions before you choose your road.

To read more about the Global Leadership Summit, check out the hashtag #wcagls or check out their Instagram page at @wcagls.

Relentless was written by Dave Donaldson, co-founder of Convoy of Hope and President of Charity Awards International. In his book, Donaldson encourages every day people to pursue a life that matters, specifically in caring about the least of these in our world. The “Relentless” (aka world-changers) are those who take personal responsibility to fight injustice, hold charities accountable for how they work, and are passionate about serving local leaders and strengthening the church to accomplish this work.

There are several reasons to read Relentless. Donaldson does a great job emphasizing the need for true compassion in the business of changing the world. “To have compassion for people, we must be with people.” Being “with” people is more than just mailing in a check or loving from afar. It’s messy and often calls us to a life of sacrifice. We were made to be with people. Without true compassion, we can’t expect change to happen.

Another strength of Relentless is the use of story. Donaldson tells stories from his time in the Mathare Valley slum of Kenya, his nonprofit’s work out in the communities of the US, and also his personal story of growing up poor. The stories are memorable and strengthen his call to action. I’ve heard Dave’s brother, Hal Donaldson (the other founder of Convoy of Hope), also use the imagery of “the kids on the other side of the fence” when speaking of the poor who are still waiting for help. This effective mental picture isn’t meant to dismay us–it’s a wake-up call showing us the means to help are within our power.

Where the stories in this book were a strength, the chapters full of stats on hunger, water, homelessness, the overlooked elderly, etc put the central message of Relentless in danger of being weakened. The strength of books like Relentless isn’t in its compelling description of poverty facts; it’s in its stories of real people and experiences that compel action.

If you’ve read more than three books on poverty fighting, you’ll see what I mean. Many of these books start with a strong premise and call to action, but get distracted making lists of facts and figures instead of kicking people in the butt to act (which often times is what is needed more). In the words of Jonathan Gottschall, “Humans simply aren’t moved to action by ‘data dumps,’ dense PowerPoint slides, or spreadsheets packed with figures. People are moved by emotion. The best way to emotionally connect other people to our agenda begins with ‘Once upon a time…'” Luckily, even the stats-heavy chapters in Relentless have lots of great stories, and the final chapters get back on course and encourage readers to make a strong commitment to fighting for others.

Relentless is worth the read alone to learn about the thoughtful and excellent work of Convoy of Hope. Check it out if you need a boost of encouragement and a reminder of why we keep fighting for others.

My mother reminded me of this Aesop story:

There was once a man, a boy, and a donkey walking down a road. A group of townspeople observed them and commented, “Why aren’t you riding your donkey? What a waste.”

So the man lifted his boy onto the donkey’s back, and they continued their journey. The next group of people they passed said, “What a disrespectful and lazy boy! Look at him letting his father walk while he rides.”

The man and boy switched places. Yet another group of townspeople saw the travelers and said, “What an uncaring father, making his young son walk on this hot day.”

The man and the boy decide to both ride the donkey. The next crowd they pass began to call, “Aren’t you ashamed to be overloading that poor donkey with all your weight? Poor animal.”

The man and boy then bound the donkey’s feet together and began to carry him suspended on a long pole. When the road came to a bridge over a river, the donkey got spooked, and kicked one of his legs free. The boy lost grip, dropped the pole, and the donkey fell into the river, drowning because his other feet were still tied.

Try to please everyone, and you please no one. It’s costly and dangerous to try.

Photo credit: AFP Photo/Qais Usyan

I love storytelling. It moves people. Here are some quotes on storytelling that reveal it’s power and potentness:

“Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.” -Madeleine L’Engle

“If you wish to influence an individual or a group to embrace a particular value in their daily lives, tell them a compelling story.” -Annette Simmons

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” -Phillip Pullman

“The shortest distance between a human being and the truth is a story.” -Anthony de Mello

“Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.” -Hannah Arendt

“We tell some of the best stories to ourselves. Scientists have discovered that the memories we use to form our own life stories are boldly fictionalized. And social psychologists point out that when we meet a friend, our conversation mostly consists of an exchange of gossipy stories. We ask our friend ‘What’s up?’ or ‘What’s new?’ and we begin to narrate our lives to one another, trading tales back and forth over cups of coffee or bottles of beer, unconsciously shaping and embellishing to make the tales hum. And every night, we reconvene with our loved ones at the dinner table to share the small comedies and tragedies of our day.” -Jonathan Gottschall

“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.” -Rudyard Kipling

“Novels and stories are renderings of life; they can not only keep us company, but admonish us, point us in new directions, or give us courage to stay a given course.” -Robert Coles

“I truly believe that people are looking for stories that really mean something–stories that are redemptive, inspiring, and bigger than an individual.” -Scott Harrison

“If you’re going to have a story, have a big story, or none at all.” -Joseph Campbell

“Somehow we realize that great stories are told in conflict, but we are unwilling to embrace the potential greatness of the story we are actually in. We think God is unjust, rather than a master storyteller.” -Donald Miller

“No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.” -Lewis Carroll

“People don’t want more information. They are up to their eyeballs in information. They want faith–faith in you, your goals, your success, in the story you tell.” -Annette Simmons

“The story–from Rumplestiltskin to War and Peace–is one of the basic tools invented by the human mind for the purpose of understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.” -Ursula K. Le Guin

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.” -Brandon Sanderson

“It has been said that next to hunger and thirst, our most basic human need is for storytelling.” -Khalil Gibran

“When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. -Stephen King

“Today everyone, whether they know it or not, is in the emotional transportation business. More and more, success is won by creating compelling stories that have the power to move people to action. Simply put, if you can’t tell it, you can’t sell it.” -Peter Guber

“It is my opinion that a story worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then.” -C.S. Lewis

“Humans simply aren’t moved to action by ‘data dumps,’ dense PowerPoint slides, or spreadsheets packed with figures. People are moved by emotion. The best way to emotionally connect other people to our agenda begins with “Once upon a time…” -Jonathan Gottschall

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” -Joan Didion

“Modern storytellers are the descendants of an immense and ancient community of holy people, troubadours, bards, griots, cantadoras, cantors, traveling poets, bums, hags and crazy people.” -Clarissa Pinkola Estés

“Traveling–it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” -Ibn Battuta

“Until recently we’ve only been able to speculate about story’s persuasive effects. But over the last several decades psychology has begun a serious study of how story affects the human mind. Results repeatedly show that our attitudes, fears, hopes, and values are strongly influenced by story. In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than writing that is specifically designed to persuade through argument and evidence.” -Jonathan Gottschall

“Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes.” -Plato

“Think of story as a mnemonic device for complex ideas.” -Annette Simmons