Yesterday, I arrived early in the morning around 2 or 2:30am in Yangon's main airport due to a flight delay on the second leg of my trip coming out of Hong Kong. My friend Ryan picked me up and took me to his flat for some much needed rest. We awoke a seemingly couple hours later to go to the office and get started on our day.
We had chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, a delightful way to start my stay in Yangon. We then proceeded to head to the office to have several meetings which were very interesting to say the least. It was nothing like my staff meetings I used to have when I taught at school, thankfully. We had devos which I loved thoroughly; I would suggest every Christian-lead business start the day even at least once a week with devos time being cut out for importance of melding their team together spiritually.
Then Ryan and his business partner Matt met with me individually to introduce me to their organization and what all they're doing. It is way too much to relay here, but suffice it to say my mind was blown and my heart was kindled even further for getting involved with Opportunities Now! and business as mission in general. I hope to do something similar myself in the future in Haiti, although I think I would make a much better right-hand man as opposed to the founder or executive director to an entrepreneurship school. That being said, if no one else steps up to the plate after I have spent significant time in prayer regarding this, than I am willing to take the lead and trust God to provide me with the leadership skills and abilities needed to launch something as overwhelming as an entrepreneurship school in Haiti. God doesn't always call the equipped, sometimes He equips the called, right? Or some cheesy Christian cliche to insert there.
His partner Matt took me through an outline detailing all their different projects they were undertaking and took the time to explain each one. I hope to be able to learn everything well enough to explain it to my dad when I get back home as I'm sure he would be excited to learn more about Ryan's ministry as he gave a significant amount to this ministry out of his last bonus which I was thrilled with as was Ryan of course. Such a privilege to be able to report back to what God is doing with the funding that my dad has donated to this cause.
They have a very well thought out business model to help young entrepreneurs start their own businesses rather quickly. They don't accept every student's business plan as some of them don't have a good enough idea or Ryan and Matt don't think they will be successful after having seen them progress through the school and internship. I believe this is very wise on their part as they're not loading someone down with debt who couldn't pay it back in a reasonable time period. As it stands now, the students who do receive a loan have 12 monthly payments to pay back the loan and are mentored along the way as well as have to attend networking meetings once a month with the other students who received loans in order to learn what's working or not from one another and share best practices in their respective fields.
Ryan, Matt, and the locals who are employed by Opportunities Now! are all very inspiring and I feel/know I will learn an unbelievably useful amount of knowledge over the course of the next month. I am super excited to finally start saying yes to God and stepping out in faith in the direction that I feel He is leading me in. It just feels right to go forth in what I feel is my calling to international missions. It may or may not look like what I have in mind, I am obviously willing to bend my will in response to His. However, if He chooses to empower me to do something like this I will be absolutely thrilled and count it a huge privilege to serve Him and do my little part to accompany His Son in expanding the kingdom work in wherever place He has set out for me in advance. You know He does that, right? He has prepared good works in advance for us to do. We simply have to say yes to what He has called us to, whether that be little steps along the way or giant leaps of faith.
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