Sew Powerful, Zambia, World Vision, Youth With a Mission, Bob Pierce, Tena Hoelkeboee, Jason Miles, Cinnamon Miles, Eastern University, Romania, Ukraine, Mexico City, Honduras

World Vision, https://www.worldvision.org/

Youth With a Mission (YWAM), https://ywam.org/

Eastern University, https://www.eastern.edu/

We are Sew Powerful, How a Global Community of Seamstresses Is Changing Zambia One Girl at A Time, 2^nd edition. By Jason G. Miles and Cinnamon, © 2016 & 2020 Jason G. Miles and Cinnamon, all rights reserved.

The Sew Powerful Podcast shines a light on the people behind the mission to keep girls in school and create purposeful products in Zambia. Join us every week for a new 30-minute episode to meet new people, hear inspiring stories, and learn how you can join us in this global movement. Whether you sew or not, make purses or not, you will find something to enjoy in every episode. Listen today.

Host: Jan Cancila

Guest: Jason Miles

Jan Cancila, Host 00:04

Welcome to the Sew Powerful podcast. This is your host, Jan Cancila. You know the sound of my sewing machine means it's time for another episode. So let's get started. Hello, Sew Powerful podcast listeners. We're kicking off a new series of podcast episodes where Jason and I are going to discuss the work of Sew Powerful and the 3 Esthers’ Farm. Everything that's happening on the ground in Zambia, the backstories, the planning, the thinking that goes into the programs, and even the challenges and difficulties. So, Jason, welcome. How are you today?

Jason Miles, Guest 00:44

Thank you so much. I'm really, really excited about this. It's an honor to be able to jump into the episodes like this with you, and I'm really looking forward to it. Yeah.

Jan 00:54

Yeah, this is gonna be fun. I thought in this episode, we could just talk about the format that we're embarking on so that people will know what to expect. Sure. And so why don't you share with us, what are some of your thoughts on why you want to do this?

Jason 01:09

Yeah, you know, I think that there are a lot of choices and decisions that we're making on the ground in Zambia, with our team. They're about how to build programs and how to do the work effectively. And candidly, people just don't know about it. They don't know what goes into it, and hard choices and the models that we're using for, you know, the programs we are building. And I really hope that in these conversations, we can start to really walk through some of that, and really share with people more about the work of Sew Powerful and the farm in the lives and society and culture of the team there in Zambia. Yeah.

Jan 01:50

Jason, you have a long career and a background in international development. I don't think everybody is totally aware of that. Tell us a little bit about your background and that journey.

Jason 02:03

Yeah, so we basically devoted our whole lives to international relief and development and missions work. We, we got married. And before, but before that Cinnamon was in Youth With a Mission, which is a short term missions program, and she served in Eastern Europe. And then I started at World Vision. And I was there for 16 years, I had the honor of working through graduate degree program there, my undergraduate degrees are in organizational management and biblical studies. And then my graduate degree is technically an MBA, but the emphasis was international nonprofit management. And so we've traveled the world together, we served in a lot of places. And we've devoted our lives to this. We consider ourselves tentmakers, which is sort of a weird thing. They will talk about that in an upcoming episode. But this is central to sort of who we are in our life. And we're passionate about it. And hopefully that comes out and the Ministry of Sew Powerful.

Jan 03:05

Okay, well, so let me ask you a few questions about what you just said. So, you worked for World Vision, probably most people know what that is. But just sort of give us a quick synopsis of what is World Vision?

Jason 03:19

Sure. Yeah. Christian, international relief and development organization. It was founded in 1950, by a Baptist evangelist named Bob Pierce. He was traveling in Asia. His story goes something like this. He was traveling in Asia. He did a evangelical meeting in, I think, an island off of China. And I don't think it was Taiwan, but I think one of the, you know, in that area, and he, he made a call for, you know, commitment to Christ and ask these kids, it was like, you know, elementary and junior high kids to accept Christ, and to go home and tell their parents about it. And the next day, he came back to the school and the lady, the head mistress, the principal, basically had a girl in her arms sobbing. The girl had been beaten and thrown out of her house, because she did what Bob said to do; go home and told her parents about this commitment to Christ. And the missionary, her name is Tena Hoelkeboee, put the girl in Pierce's arms and said, I cannot take care of this girl. You have to take care of her and deal with what you did here. And he was just, you know, he was devastated. And he begged her to take the girl in and it was a no going back situation. The parents were clear; she was out forever. And so, Bob Pierce begged the missionary lady to care for the girl. And he promised to send $5, every month for her support, and he went back to the States. And he really pivoted his ministry to understanding more about the plight of children. And what was happening in the world. And he started literally by just finding orphanages, and missions-minded people who were serving around the world and just fundraising for them. And he was a super effective fundraiser. And he, he built a whole ministry, World Vision, and many, many people came out of that ministry to do international relief and development work, Christian, international work. And so that's the story. And so, I was there for 16 years. I started as a compensation analyst, and in human resources. I did that for eight years. And then I was in fundraising and working with donors.

Jan 05:37

Well, you know, I knew about World Vision what they do now, but I never knew the origin. I mean, that is fascinating. Okay, so you had your graduate degree in?

Jason 05:51

International, nonprofit leadership, I guess you would say.

Jan 05:55

International, I wasn't sure the exact degree. And where did you study?

05:59

Yeah, Eastern University, in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. It was actually a program that World Vision created with Eastern University for, for their executive leaders or senior leaders. And the goal of the program was that there were, they had basically identified a problem in their system, and they have like, over 40,000 employees around the world. So, it's not a small organization, it's like multi-billion dollar organization. But what they had found is that in a lot of countries, they would have senior leaders that were locals to the country, but weren't qualified academically, or just didn't have a broad base of, you know, educational background and experience, you know, with theory of changes and things like that. And that was problem. But the other alternate choice was to bring in an American or, you know, somebody from England to run the in-country staff, and that was less than ideal as well. So they created this program to really be sort of a high higher academic opportunity for these in-country leaders. Well, they allowed some Americans to apply for the program, and I applied for the program, but I was literally with almost all African. You know, people in my cohort were from there were amazing direct program directors from the World Vision Africa countries. And so that was the gist of the program. We studied for four years together every summer for actually, our cohort met in Toronto, and that we would all fly in and learn from each other. And I always like to say that I learned more from my roommate. His name is Chikondi Phiri than I did from the professor's you know. But Chikondi, the first year we got assigned as roommates. And I met him, he was wonderful; he's from Zambia. Side note, he's one of our board members in Sew Powerful Zambia. The second year we went back by random lottery, random chance, he was assigned in my roommate again. We were paired together. The third year it happened again. It was completely random, so I always said like my graduate degree was learning from Chikondi basically, so.

Jan 08:10

Well and so Chikondi was employed by World Vision in Zambia. Is that correct?

Jason 08:14

He was a deputy national director for World Vision Zambia. He's since moved on to another organization. But yeah, that's his role was in World Vision, Zambia at the time, yeah.

Jan 08:24

Wow. That's really cool. Okay, so you mentioned that you traveled the world, as as part of this work? What are some of the places that you visited?

Jason 08:34

Yeah. Well, before our World Vision, experience, Cinnamon and I traveled to Mexico City together and did Vacation Bible schools and sort of the inner city, how you see caught the slums of Mexico City. She served in Ukraine, but that was before we got married. And then together, we've mostly gone to Romania, and had the chance to go repeatedly to Romania, there was a lot of work there that I was doing in my World Vision days and so she got to go as well. She's always had a passion for Romania. And so there's that. And then I did a lot of program work in Honduras, and with a people group called the Lenca people. And so that's a whole different journey in my life, and passion for that, and it was about housing. And so yeah, I guess, probably other places we've been to as well, but obviously, you know, the Southern Africa countries. And I've been in other African countries as well.

Jan 09:39

Well, you have traveled the world. Is there any place you haven't been?

Jason 09:44

I've never been to India. Never been to Southeast Asia, or the Asian countries. Yeah.

Jan 09:51

South America?

Jason 09:53

No, so there's a lot of places I haven't been. So, yeah.

Jan 09:56

Yeah, okay, cool. All right. Well, you know.

Jason 09:59

Future.

Jan 10:00

Oh, yeah. You heard it first here.

Jason 10:03

Yeah. Breaking news.

Jan 10:06

Sew Powerful Antarctica. Okay. All right. So, we've got, we've got some of the background. This is going to be quite the conversation coming up. Jason, are you ready for me to ask you to explain things and clarify ideas as we go forward?

Jason 10:22

I would love that. Let's totally just make this a casual conversation for real. So, this doesn't need to be doesn't mean need to be fancy podcast stuff. Let's just talk about these issues and, and learn together. And I think it'll be a great, you know, format. So yes, feel free to ask me anything; help me explain myself when it seems confusing, or I'm being unclear. I'd love that. Yeah.

Jan 10:45

Well, I'm easily confused. So that that will give me plenty, plenty of opportunity.

Jason 10:50

Yeah, right.

Jan 10:50

To ask for clarification. So what what kind of topics do you want to cover in these upcoming episodes?

Jason 10:56

Yeah, I've kind of made a list of things that I think would be really helpful for us to talk through, that people might be interested in. It's amazing how fast that list and kind of stack up. But I think the first thing is probably the Theory of Change that we're working as a group towards, and what we believe is sort of the foundational aspects of our program work. Our theories related to local hiring, for local impact, we talked about that; our theories related to purposeful products. I've used that phrase a lot. I love to talk through that. Of course, the 3 Esthers' Farm and how that came about; the work that we're doing to feed, you know, the children and, and how that work is, is coming together. Gosh, James 1:27, comes in mind, you know, God's heart for orphans, God's heart, God's heart for widows. Other topics in the space would be things like sustainability; you know, how Christian ministry works, or doesn't work in communities and culture. I think there's a lot of stuff for us to talk about. So yeah, that's probably a short list. But I don't think we'll run out of topics. So.

Jan 12:02

Well, and I know that you're working on the third edition of the We Are Sew Powerful book.

Jason 12:07

Yeah, we are. That's right.

Jan 12:09

Are any of these topics going to be covered there?

12:12

Well, you know, I think, okay, this is breaking news. I think what we're going to do with the third edition of the book, is really create a new interior structure where we lean further into the stories of purse makers, and our community members like the seamstresses, and Zambia. And we just have more of those. And I think what we're going to do is probably compress the front of the book and try to just make it a simple story of what we're doing. And then I'm going to take some of the stuff that was in the second edition, that's about being tentmakers, or, you know, other aspects of the program. And I'm actually going to take those out. And I think I'm gonna just make standalone small booklets or, you know, separate books that talk about the various issues like purposeful products or things like that. So we might end up with actually sort of a collection of books going forward. The third edition of We Are Sew Powerful will really camp on the stories of the participants. And I think that's what I'm really excited about. I know, we've been talking to people who've done podcast episodes with you, and asking them, Hey, do you want to convert your podcast conversation into a book contribution? And I think that's underway. And so I'm really excited about those aspects of it. Yeah.

Jan 13:30

Well, I'm, I'm looking forward to it. You know that I've read the first edition and the second edition. And the second edition book is always a sponsor of the Sew Powerful Podcast. So yeah, we might have to update our little commercial there. So, anything else that we want to cover here in this first episode, as we talk about what's coming up?

Jason 13:56

I would just say, thanks, everybody, for taking the time to listen to this one. And we're really grateful for everybody's hard work in the ministry, and collaboration with us. It's just such an incredible honor to be able to work together. So Jan, thank you for allowing me to bend and morph the format of the podcast a little bit to do these. But yeah, I'm really thankful and looking forward to them.

Jan 14:21

Well, and you know, just if I can just sort of recap when we started the podcast, I went back to the people who had written stories in the first edition of the We Are Sew Powerful book and brought them into the podcast to talk about what Sew Powerful means to them. And, and so many of those stories were so meaningful and then as time went on, after we covered all of those, we started reaching out to people who were more in the community who had a connection to Sew Powerful, and we've interspersed that with episodes with, with you and Dana and others talking about the ministry in more depth and so I'm really looking forward to this, this next few episodes, probably eight or 10 or so, where where we take this new approach. So, thank you so much for for suggesting this and I think this is going to be great.

Jason 15:17

Awesome.

Jan 15:18

All right. Okay, well, listen next week. We'll talk some more with Jason. Have a good week. Bye-bye.

Jan 15:27

If what you've heard today inspires you to want to make a difference, I urge you to explore the Sew Powerful website at www.sewpowerful.org. That's SEW POWERFUL dot ORG. The website has great information about the organization is where you can download the free purse patterns or even make a donation. We hope you will join us again next week when we bring you another Sew Powerful story. Thanks for listening. Now, go out and have a Sew Powerful day.