Saludos de Guatemala! (Greetings from Guatemala!)

This is the daughter and granddaughter of Esther, the recipient of the Habitat for Humanity House that the Wellshire group built in March. I had a chance to go back and visit the family and see their completed house. You can read more below.

I am sitting down relaxing in the lobby of my little hotel in Antigua for the first time since I arrived on Sunday night. I finally have a little free time to sit down and update my blog, so here goes!

I am spending a week in Guatemala and a week in Mexico working with the local staff and offices of Aguas de Unidad/Healing Waters International. I arrived here in Guatemala late Sunday night and will be catching a bus to Mexico this Sunday. For my seven days here in Guatemala, I have a pretty packed itinerary.

After my plane landed at 11pm on Sunday, Daniela Rosales from our Guatemala office picked me up at the airport and we made the 45 minute long drive to Antigua (this drive takes only 45 minutes when there is no traffic, more on that later.) She dropped me off at the hotel and I crashed. I woke up Monday morning at 5:15am to shower, get dressed and be ready to go at 5:45am. I had a meeting planned with a member of the Aguas de Unidad Guatemala board of directors at 7:30am in Guatemala city and because of the rush hour traffic, it takes an hour and a half to get from Antigua to Guatemala City in the mornings.

The meeting was very successful. I had the chance to thank our board member for his service to the organization, update him on what was going on with Healing Waters and he shared some great ideas and thought that he had about how to make Aguas de Unidad better in Guatemala.

After this meeting, I drove to our office (which is on the road between Guatemala City and Antigua.) I held a staff meeting with all of our Guatemala staff, got brought up to speed on the happenings of the Guatemala office, helped establish and set some priorities, and enjoyed some quality time with our amazing Guatemala Aguas de Unidad team.

After a delicious lunch, I headed to one of our water systems that is located with a church in the "La Florida" neighborhood. I sat down with the pastor of the church and talked through some operational changes that we have while getting updated on how the water system was going for his church. The opportunity to be in the field seeing the water systems and meeting with the pastors is always amazing and really recharges my batteries in the work that I do for Healing Waters/Aguas de Unidad.

This pastor has been using the water system to bless his neighborhood and his church, and it was amazing to see the love in his eyes for Jesus and for his community. After the meeting at the water system in La Florida, I headed back to the office and spent an hour working with Ben, our director of maintenance for Guatemala.

We are in the process of hiring an assistant for Ben and he and I had to sit down and write the job description and employment contract. While this may sound dry and boring, it was also an opportunity to get caught up with Ben. I have talked about him before in my blog: http://blogadegregorio.blogspot.com/2009/06/day-in-life-of-healing-waters-field.html He is a great guy and it was a lot of fun to work with him, even on a project that might seem boring.

After we wrapped up at 6:30pm, we headed back to Antigua. These 10-13 hour work days can be long when I am in the field, but they are worth it. Because my plane ticket and hotel are paid for by our generous donors, I really feel like I need to be a good steward of those donations and take full advantage of my time in the field, so I tend to work very long but very fulfilling days.

When I got back to Antigua, I went out for tacos with Dani, Ben and Ben's wife Krista. We shared some great stories over some Gallo beers and tacos. All in all, it was a great day in the field!

On Tuesday morning, I had to get up at 5:15am again for a 5:45am departure to Guatemala city. I went to meet with the national denominational council for the "Verbo" churches, which is a big denomination of evangelical churches that started here in Guatemala. The denomination has over 30 churches here, and many in other countries including Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and they have even planted churches in Spain, Canada and the United States. I love this sort of "reverse missionary" work when Latin America is sending missionaries to do church planting in "developed" countries like Canada, the United States and Europe. It turns the whole missionary perspective on its head and I just love it!

The meeting with the denominational leadership for the Verbo churches went very well, far better than expected. We have 2 water systems currently at Verbo churches, and after this meeting with their national council, I hope we will consider expanding into more Verbo churches in the future.

We headed back to the office and then I took our whole ADU Guatemala staff out to lunch. After a delicious lunch, I headed to the community of Villa Verde in Ciudad Quetzal. This is where we are going to be installing one of our next water systems. I had the chance to meet with some members of the church, tour the community and see the location where the water system will be installed.

It is very exciting that despite the tough economic times, Healing Waters/Aguas de Unidad is still expanding as an organization and we will be installing three new water systems in Guatemala this year. (Along with 3-4 in Mexico and 10 in the Dominican Republic.) I hope to visit one of the other new water system sites later in the week.

I returned to the office late in the afternoon and then called our headquarters in Denver to check in and update everyone there and finally made it back to my hotel at about 6:30pm, racking up another 12+ hour day but excited both for what was accomplished and for what the rest of the week held in store.

Wednesday morning (this morning) I actually got to sleep in until 6:30am, imagine that! My first meeting was an 8am breakfast meeting with a pastor, but it was in a town between Antigua and Guatemala city, so I didn't have to fight the rush-hour traffic going into Guatemala City.

The meeting with the pastor was incredible. He told me stories of some of the amazing things happening at his church, at the water system and in the community. This is one of those pastors that just knocks your socks off with his vision for serving his community and his amazing work ethic.

We departed the breakfast meeting to go to Chimaltenango, which is a town about 30 minutes from Antigua where we have two water systems. This is the town where we went with the group from Wellshire Presbyterian church for a trip in March.

We arrived about 30 minutes early, so we drove to the Habitat for Humanity house that the group from Wellshire helped to build back in March. I had the chance to see the completed house and spend a few minutes talking with the family, it was great to see the project come to completion and see the family moved into their house. I really respect organizations like Habitat for Humanity because they provide such a basic thing (dignified housing) but really work to empower the recipients of the houses and charge no interest or very low interest loans to the new homeowners, truly a "hand up" and not a "hand out."

After visiting with Esther (the new homeowner) we headed to one of the churches in Chimaltenango where we have a water system. We met with the pastor for over two hours, and got an update on the state of the water system and the church. Once again the pastor shared some great stories about what they have been able to do in their community because of the water system. It was invigorating!

After a quick lunch, we met with the other pastor at the other church in Chimaltenango that has a Healing Waters/Aguas de Unidad system. I hadn't met this pastor before and it was great to sit and talk with him and hear his vision for transforming his community.

We returned to the office at about 4:30pm and I checked back in with the Denver office and got caught up on e-mails. After leaving the office at 6pm, I have been sitting in the hotel relaxing.

I am going to go grab some dinner and then drive down to Guatemala City to pick up my parents who come in on a flight tonight.

They are going to hang out here in Guatemala for the next few days while I am working and then join me on the bus trip from Guatemala to Chiapas, Mexico on Sunday. I am blessed to have them come down here to spend some time with me, enjoy all that Antigua has to offer and keep me company in the 12 hour bus ride on Sunday.

I will try to update once or twice more before I leave for Mexico on Sunday. I will also try to get some more photos in here too. Take care and LET THE CLEAN WATERS FLOW!

Great article on leadership and management

JJ Gomez, the National Director for Healing Waters

in the Dominican Republic. He exemplifies good

leadership and good management (two different skills)

JJ Gomez, the National Director for Healing Waters International / Aguas de Unidad sent me the article/study on leadership and management below. I thought it was really good, so I wanted to share it here.






The Law of Empowerment
By Dr. John C. Maxwell

Biographers universally agree that personal insecurity factored heavily in the downfall of former American President Richard Nixon. Rather than empowering others, President Nixon clutched at power so tightly that he lost all sense of morality and ethics. Obsessively fearing his critics, Nixon authorized a domestic espionage group to spy on his political opponents. When members of the group were caught burglarizing the Watergate Hotel, Nixon tried unsuccessfully to cover up the incident. Eventually he resigned in shame, having left a dubious legacy of scandal.

Nixon's behavior in office violated the Law of Empowerment: Only Secure Leaders Give Power to Others.

Today, at a time when managers must do more with less - less people, less budget, less margin for error - leaders have no choice but to empower followers to share the load. Insecurity simply isn't compatible with survival. Even so, human nature resists empowerment. Let's look at three common tendencies that make empowerment a tricky task.

Three Obstacles to Empowerment
1) Desire for Job Security
The number one enemy of empowerment is the desire for job security. Weak leaders worry that they will become expendable if they train up talented subordinates. As a result, they retain a monopoly on select knowledge in the hopes of positioning themselves as irreplaceable. Some misguided leaders even go as far as undercutting those they perceive as potential rivals. Not wanting to be surpassed, they intentionally make others look bad from time to time.

Insecure leaders who prize job security are fiercely territorial. They stake out their turf and refuse to delegate. They want to be the go-to-guys so badly that they may senselessly refuse to train and empower others who could offer them assistance.

The truth is that the only way to make yourself indispensable is to make yourself dispensable. In other words, if you are continually able to empower others and develop them so that they become capable of taking over your job, then you will become so valuable to the organization that you become indispensable.

2) Resistance to Change
Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck asserted, "It is the nature of man as he grows older to protect against change, particularly change for the better." By its very nature, empowerment brings constant change in that it encourages people to grow and innovate. Change is the price of progress.

Insecure leaders view change as a threat rather than an opportunity. They fear change rather than inviting it. As a consequence, insecure leaders have been known to act coldly toward newcomers. They cling to the established order and generally resent anyone who may disrupt it. Instead of empowering incoming personnel, they avoid working with them.

3) Lack of Self-Worth
Many people derive personal value and esteem from their title or position. When either is threatened, they feel as if their self-worth is under assault. Accordingly, they will firmly resist anyone or anything that could reduce their status.

On the other hand, author Buck Rogers says, "To those who have confidence in themselves, change is a stimulus because they believe one person can make a difference and influence what goes on around them. These people are the doers and the motivators." They are also the empowerers.


Summary

Enlarging others makes you larger. The purpose of power is to be distributed, not hoarded, but only secure leaders are able to give their power away. Recognize and resist the natural inclinations to keep a tight grip on power. In the long run, you'll be rewarded for letting go.

I'll close with a quotation on empowerment from decorated war hero and former vice presidential candidate, James B. Stockdale:

"Leadership must be based on goodwill... It means obvious and wholehearted commitment to helping followers... What we need for leaders are men of heart who are so helpful that they, in effect, do away with the need of their jobs. But leaders like that are never out of a job, never out of followers. Strange as it sounds, great leaders gain authority by giving it away."