16 April 2018
A newly arrived senior missionary told us on her first day here in Peru, "I really wanted to serve a humanitarian mission like you and make bricks with the local people."
I told her, "That would be called a 'service project', not a 'humanitarian mission'. Humanitarian missions are run at a much higher level, coordinating aid and managing projects to help the poor while working along side partners in regional and national governments and with other service organizations."
"Ew," she said. "I would hate that."
And so it is with this humanitarian mission. Most people think we are "making bricks with the local people" when, in fact, we manage a host of projects at a regional or national level. Some people would hate that, but it is critical work essential to the success of the major projects we handle.
Most people think we are always out in exotic places throughout Peru. While we do travel a lot, most of our day-to-day work is done in our office here in Lima, Peru.
As you may know from reading our blog, our mission helps poor people throughout Peru through projects that include things like:
All of this requires a tremendous amount of planning, managing, tracking, and reporting that goes on behind the scenes. All of this management activity is a very 'unromantic' but necessary part of what we do.
We sit in our office most days while working busily on our computers to coordinate a host of projects. Last year, we coordinated more than $1.5 million in projects. To do this work, we have a bunch of computer tools that we use to make this happen.
CHaS (Church Humanitarian System)
CHaS is one of our primary management tools and data repository for project management. All projects are approved and tracked through CHaS. There are now 772 projects in CHaS just for Peru dating back to 1987. Every current or former humanitarian project everywhere in the world is contained in CHaS.
CFIS (Church Financial Information System)
Everything we order for our humanitarian projects goes into CFIS - anything that involves a purchase or expenditure of money goes through this program. Sandy has lived with this program since we arrived and is a high-end user (she has uncovered bugs in this program that drive programmers in far-away Utah to fix them).
Works (Financial Accounting System for Credit Card Charges)
We use a church-issued credit card to cover our travel expenses. All our charges show up in the Works program and must be submitted in a report to our Finance Department each month.
These are just a few of the specialized computer programs, not counting all the times each day we use Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat Pro, and all the other PC and Internet tools that are required to keep all of our projects running smoothly.
And this list doesn't count one of the most important tools - the cell phone. We make countless phone calls each day all over Peru coordinating with public health officials, leaders in the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health, regional leaders in charge of social development, and partners in non-government organizations that help the poor and disabled.
Sandy and I agree that serving this mission has been the most intense experience of our lives. We have used every skill we developed in school and in past jobs as we have served this humanitarian mission.
This has been a consuming activity that we hope will have served the needs of the poor and neglected. Our prayer is that our efforts might have made a difference for someone who previously had no hope. We have willingly served this volunteer mission solely in the hope that our efforts might have made a difference.
A newly arrived senior missionary told us on her first day here in Peru, "I really wanted to serve a humanitarian mission like you and make bricks with the local people."
I told her, "That would be called a 'service project', not a 'humanitarian mission'. Humanitarian missions are run at a much higher level, coordinating aid and managing projects to help the poor while working along side partners in regional and national governments and with other service organizations."
"Ew," she said. "I would hate that."
And so it is with this humanitarian mission. Most people think we are "making bricks with the local people" when, in fact, we manage a host of projects at a regional or national level. Some people would hate that, but it is critical work essential to the success of the major projects we handle.
The "Nuts and Bolts"
Most people think we are always out in exotic places throughout Peru. While we do travel a lot, most of our day-to-day work is done in our office here in Lima, Peru.
 |
| 'Home, Sweet Home' in our Humanitarian Office in Lima. |
As you may know from reading our blog, our mission helps poor people throughout Peru through projects that include things like:
- Donating wheelchairs to the poor and crippled.
- Placing critical medical equipment in poor and remote health clinics to save the lives of expectant mothers and babies.
- Providing free vision surgeries to correct cataracts and glaucoma.
- Donating free eye glasses to poor kids that otherwise would never have them.
- Building wells in poor communities where people still get their water out of rivers and lakes.
- Providing emergency aid to victims of floods, earthquakes, and weather-related crises.
- Supplying desks, chairs, and other supplies in poor, public schools where these furnishings were destroyed or wore out and were never going to be replaced.
All of this requires a tremendous amount of planning, managing, tracking, and reporting that goes on behind the scenes. All of this management activity is a very 'unromantic' but necessary part of what we do.
Tools of the Trade
We sit in our office most days while working busily on our computers to coordinate a host of projects. Last year, we coordinated more than $1.5 million in projects. To do this work, we have a bunch of computer tools that we use to make this happen.
CHaS (Church Humanitarian System)
CHaS is one of our primary management tools and data repository for project management. All projects are approved and tracked through CHaS. There are now 772 projects in CHaS just for Peru dating back to 1987. Every current or former humanitarian project everywhere in the world is contained in CHaS.
 |
| CHaS (Church Humanitarian System) - Every church humanitarian project worldwide since 2004 has been managed through this system. |
CFIS (Church Financial Information System)
Everything we order for our humanitarian projects goes into CFIS - anything that involves a purchase or expenditure of money goes through this program. Sandy has lived with this program since we arrived and is a high-end user (she has uncovered bugs in this program that drive programmers in far-away Utah to fix them).
 |
| CFIS - The church-wide financial program required to order everything we need for our projects. |
Works (Financial Accounting System for Credit Card Charges)
We use a church-issued credit card to cover our travel expenses. All our charges show up in the Works program and must be submitted in a report to our Finance Department each month.
 |
| Works - Used to report all the church credit-card expenses from our Humanitarian trips. |
These are just a few of the specialized computer programs, not counting all the times each day we use Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat Pro, and all the other PC and Internet tools that are required to keep all of our projects running smoothly.
And this list doesn't count one of the most important tools - the cell phone. We make countless phone calls each day all over Peru coordinating with public health officials, leaders in the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health, regional leaders in charge of social development, and partners in non-government organizations that help the poor and disabled.
In the Long Run
Sandy and I agree that serving this mission has been the most intense experience of our lives. We have used every skill we developed in school and in past jobs as we have served this humanitarian mission.
This has been a consuming activity that we hope will have served the needs of the poor and neglected. Our prayer is that our efforts might have made a difference for someone who previously had no hope. We have willingly served this volunteer mission solely in the hope that our efforts might have made a difference.
I liked learning about how you get the job done! I didn't know about the speciality computer programs that you used. Are they done in Spanish or English?
ReplyDeleteThese specialty programs are all in English. However, we often fill out the information in Spanish so that our other leaders here in Peru can also read and understand what we have written.
DeleteGood thing you both had advanced technology and budgeting skills before you went out on your mission!
ReplyDelete-Chels