​What are you dreaming about these days?  Does it seem like an impossible task?  Is it a big dream that you could give your life to?  Then maybe that dream is from God!  Two years ago, Navigator Ralph Gatti began to dream about having a L´Abri type of center in Central Europe that could be a think-tank for the Global Enterprise Network (GEN), the Navigators expression of business as mission, where interested entrepreneurs from around the world could come and dream about how to carry out the great commission in the marketplace where they live.  It seemed an impossible dream.  It would require all the Navigators in a city coming together to support such a center, hosting visitors from around the world. It would mean putting together a robust curriculum of the current thought in the business as mission movement while still holding true to the Navigators vision, mission and core.  And of course, it would take financial support to get the center up and running. Could such a dream become a reality?
 
Thankfully, God is into the impossible. The Agathe Center for Entrepreneurship, just an idea in the hearts of our Navigator family in Central and Eastern Europe over the last eighteen months, is now “open for business” in Bratislava, Slovakia.  The Agathe Center is a ministry of the Navigators dedicated to serving committed laborers from around the world who want to advance the kingdom of God through missional enterprise.  The founders of the Agathe Center believe that businesses should not only make a profit, but also change society for good. That is why it is called the Agathe Center for Entrepreneurship - in Greek, "Agathe" means "Good".   The mission is to provide holistic support to existing and aspiring entrepreneurs as they know Christ and make Him known.

​Bratislava, Slovakia was chosen as it has been a focal point for missional enterprise over the past twenty-five years.  There are experienced practitioners to draw upon, as well as good business examples in the city to study in order to understand what a missional enterprise should look like.  God, in His goodness, has also brought together a great international team and provided a space well-equipped to meet the needs of the center.  Those who serve at the Agathe Center are convinced that an enterprise should hold in creative tension the priorities of a triple bottom line: financial sustainability, social impact, and spiritual transformation.  The center services include mentoring and coaching, trainings and seminars, as well as intensive immersion experiences that involve spending extended time with the Agathe team.  You can read more about each of these services at the Agathe Center website.  The goal is to make personalized, individualized training and consulting available at no charge to entrepreneurs intent on advancing the Kingdom of God through business and social enterprise platforms. 
 
If you or someone you know would like to know more about utilizing the Agathe Center’s services, you can engage with Agathe through the website to start the process. The Agathe Center is now ready to receive “clients” and begin the in-depth work of helping young and aspiring missional entrepreneurs build businesses that advance the Kingdom.  Whether the enterprise has already been launched, or is still just a dream, the Agathe Center can help move it forward to the next level.  “Come and See” what God has done and how He will use the Agathe Center to advance His Kingdom around the world.  God has accomplished what Ralph dared to ask or even dream of, and He has done the work infinitely far beyond Ralph´s highest prayers, desires, thoughts or hopes.

What dream is God laying on your heart today?

Behind every Primary Mobile Med International, PMMI, supporter there is a unique story that exemplifies dedication to global health.  In our last newsletter, we covered how two of our supporters, Drs. Edward Fynn and Lewis Roberts, helped Tom and Kevin present PMMI’s work at this year’s Safari Five Conference.  Because both Drs. Fynn and Roberts have firsthand experience providing health care to underprivileged populations and have been advising PMMI for the past few years, we are very thankful they helped us tell our story to conference attendants.  We are excited to present Dr. Fynn:

Dr. Edward Fynn, currently living in Namibia, is a radiologist and senior lecturer at the Namibia School of Medicine.  In addition to running a private radiology practice primarily dedicated to women's health, he also works with The Navigators to oversee humanitarian projects in Namibia and southern Angola.  Dr. Fynn studied at the Ghana Medical School and completed postgraduate radiology training in South Africa.  He has three children with his wife, Kate.

Dr. Fynn took part in the following Q&A with PMMI:
Q: Describe your reaction to seeing PMMI’s mobile medical clinic (MMC) in-person for the first time.
A: When the container idea was pitched to me, I was very excited. But I was extremely excited when I got to walk into the container.  I saw something that has been inspired and created by compassion, love, and need.  It is amazing that the container and its equipment can meet 80% of the primary health care needs of any third-world country.  The container is very relevant and will be very useful.

Q:  How can the container help you in your practice?
A: Even though, in my practice, a lot of the radiology I do is with bigger machines, there are still many people I could help by providing outreach treatment with equipment that could fit in a shipping container, such as ultrasound and x-ray equipment.  Providing access to an ultrasound would be especially helpful.  Ultrasound diagnostics are critical for infant and maternal health.

Q: Why are PMMI’s clinics an ideal solution for remote locations?
A: The clinics will especially help practitioners who are in remote locations.  The clinics help these practitioners get connected to central hubs and other medical professionals.  This helps provide a more extensive diagnostic service to remote areas.

Q: To what extent is Africa in need of primary health care?
A: It is difficult to even estimate a level of need. It is even beyond the [African] government's ability to estimate.  The government's lack the resources and funds needed to keep an accurate estimate.  People are in great need.  People have to walk miles to health care facilities.  And sometimes when they get there, they might find there are no doctors, nurses, or medical supplies.  Then they have to walk home untreated.

For details about clinic sponsorship and employment opportunities for medical professionals please contact Eva Bammes, Director of Media and Marketing at [email protected].

For more information about PMMI, visit: www.primarymobilemed.com or join the mailing list for monthly updates: www.primarymobilemed.com/newsletter.

There’s an interesting sensation that an individual feels when exposed to a possibility that is exhilarating, feasible, and personal. This sensation was shared between each of us touring the YWAM Aquaponics facility in Colorado Springs on a warm Friday afternoon in the middle of June.

Youth With A Mission, commonly known as YWAM, is an international, non-denominational Christian Organization with 18,000 kingdom workers strategically placed in 1,100 locations in over 180 nations.[1] 

The Aquaponics Farm in Colorado Springs is an YWAM initiative that seeks to mobilize and empower citizens to produce naturally grown plants and vegetables. The idea for the plant originated after Loren Cunningham, founder of YWAM, encouraged YWAMers to innovatively discover sustainable ways to operate bases, with an emphasis on utilizing food production to create lasting stability. (Genesis 2:15) The individuals in charge of the Colorado “Emerge” Operations designed their Aquaponics plant to meet the nutritional needs of the state and to develop a model that may be utilized across nations. The business mission of the Colorado Springs Aquaponics Farm is to produce a local commercial product and to generate profit that assists the community and decreases worker dependency on external aid. The leaders at the plant are driven to formulate a standard process of planting and operating Aquaponics Farms to provide profitable and self-sustaining aid among the nations.

Watch the video: AQUAPONICS TOUR VIDEO

Would you like to peel back the skin of one of the best examples of a missional enterprise in the world?  Well, maybe it is not currently on your bucket-list, yet.  But if you are considering missional enterprise as a possible pathway to serve internationally, I would highly suggest this developmental vision trip!  

The trip is planned for the beginning of August 2015 and will take an inside look at the Triple Bottom Line (TBL).  How do you successfully run a business in light of a new culture, potential corruption, and unstable economy?  What does it look like to bring holistic change and social justice?  Is it possible to share your faith and begin a gospel movement through a business?  How do you begin to engage an unreached people group?    

Participants will examine key elements of a successful missional enterprise by living it out throughout the week long trip.  Participants will also engage with the founders about their vision and calling, start-up process, developmental phases, metrics, challenges, and life.  

The ideal participant would be future missional entrepreneurs, current missional entrepreneurs, business coaches, investors, or missions minded people, churches and leaders.  The outcomes for each participant will vary drastically.  But no matter whether exploring a missional enterprise helps develop yourself for future opportunities or someone you will eventually come alongside, we want to invest in you.

Serving missionally among the unreached is not for everyone.  Missional enterprise is also not for everyone.  The Missional Enterprise Expedition is designed to host anyone who wants to seriously consider their best fit and next steps.       

For more information about the trip, visit the trip page or contact us at [email protected].

- GEN Desk Director

Gabe put himself through seminary by working construction. But when he realized his degree wouldn’t land him a visa to make disciples overseas, another idea sparked. What if his experience in construction wasn’t just a placeholder until he could do “real” ministry? What if it was the real ministry?

Not content to stay sidelined from Jesus’ disciple-making mandate, Gabe took his construction skills where traditional missionaries can’t go. Today Gabe pours cement with local men he’s hired in Asia. They hear what comes out of his mouth when the hammer hits his thumb instead of the nail. They talk about faith while they measure 2x4s, and they share life while they eat a bowl of rice at lunch. By combining real work with real ministry, Gabe is watching his employees become disciples and then make disciples of Jesus in that least-reached country.

What would happen in the fulfillment of the Great Commission if, like Gabe, all believers saw their workplace as their primary and sacred field of ministry?

Let us say up front: This is not about everybody moving to unreached areas, though we hope more will consider doing so, especially considering two-thirds of the world is closed to the way we used to do missions. This is about every Jesus-follower participating in His disciple-making mandate.

Consider Joseph, Esther, Nehemiah, David, Solomon, Daniel, and many others who impacted their world not by leaving their professions to do “full-time ministry,” but by serving God full time using the skills and positions He had entrusted to them. Rather than asking you to “give it all up for Jesus,” we’re inviting you to “use it all up for Jesus” — to use your 9-to-5 profession (or, your 925 Window) to make disciples.

The world desperately needs godly engineers and baristas and web designers and entrepreneurs and accountants and athletes to flood the marketplaces of the world — including the one where you live right now — with their unique skills and passions, so that disciples of Jesus can be made wherever life happens. That was the early church’s approach, and it’s what can take the gospel into the unreached areas of our world today.

* Italicized name changed to protect identity.

GEN Desk Commentary –

What does it look like to make disciples in your "925 window?"

  

Read more from Crossworld:

• A Better Way book 
• Gabe's testimony
• Your 925 Window article and video

Coaching can move good leaders to great leaders. Coaches facilitate, challenge, endorse, and empower others to do their best and accomplish their goals. Coaching is powerful because the process provides structure, feedback, and accountability. 

A good coach is able to facilitate a shift in a leader’s knowledge and behavior. How? - by specifically tailoring the coaching around a person’s work experiences, current challenges, while always keeping a focus on the leader’s future desired outcome. 

Introduction to Coaching Course – The Global Enterprise Network is offering a short course in Business Coaching at the ERW on October 10-12. This is an amazing opportunity to learn the basics of coaching from a couple experienced professional executive coaches.  

Learn what coaching is and is not. Learn the basics of coaching and practice with your peers. Learn when coaching is the best method to use.

What will I get? – Knowledge, practice, increased skill, and confidence!

The “Introduction to Coaching” course will cover 5 foundational aspects of coaching:

• Biblical Foundations for Coaching 
  
• Paradigm Shifts necessary for coaching
  
• Spectrum of Competencies and when to use them
  
• Learn a Coaching Model that works
  
• Practice with your peers
  

We are excited that many people have been asking about future ERWs.  The next Entrepreneurial Readiness Workshop (ERW) is October 10-12, 2014 in Colorado Springs, CO.  We will introduce newly refined content and a coaching track this October.  For more information, visit the ERW page for details, testimonials, and video.  

Registration begins August 1, 2014.  

If you would like to be added to the ERW invite list, please contact us or send an email to [email protected].     

Thirty aspiring entrepreneurs recently participated in the Global Enterprise Network’s (GEN) Entrepreneur Readiness Workshop at the end of February 2014.  Participants consisted of college juniors and seniors, recent graduates, 20-30s, and several experienced practitioners who came from many different disciplines including nursing, engineering, art, history, and business backgrounds.  The intense weekend consisted of Biblical foundations, case studies, team building activities, personal coaching sessions, and a cross-cultural business simulation.  

Participants jumped in Friday evening with sessions that would help them become a better team member by learning about themselves and others.  Bill, a recent college graduate, said, “The way I process and function is different from others, but not bad.  In fact, I can add something to the business planning and team.”

Throughout Saturday, participants weighed in on missional enterprise best practices, reviewed current cross-cultural businesses and the Triple Bottom Line (economic profitability, social impact, and spiritual transformation) before getting their hands dirty with the team simulation.  “The workshop gave me a clear vision for being a blessing to the nations through a business… focusing on how to use my life as a living example of the Gospel.”   

As the weekend wrapped up on Sunday, Bill had a sense that “I could actually see this happen.”  It is clear that missional enterprise is not for everyone.  But missional enterprise is for those who would like to use their passions and gifting to bring the gospel to the lost and hurting of the world in a holistic way. 

The GEN movement has Christ as the center and the core values of excellence, continual learning, and intentional team collaboration to meet field needs.

“There are other people with a heart for this out there that God is blessing with success.  I am not alone in this [calling]!”  

The Global Enterprise Network (GEN) exists to unleash the transforming power of the gospel into the nations through an ever expanding global network of Navigator missional enterprises.  The ERW is the first step in developing long-term Missional Entrepreneurs who impact the hardest places of the world for Christ through missional enterprise.

It is exciting to see the passion and enthusiasm for reaching the nations through business and help launch this next generation of Missional Entrepreneurs!  If you would like to explore if you “could actually see this happen,” join us October 10-12, 2014 in Colorado Springs for the next ERW.  We would like to come alongside as you explore the next steps in impacting the world for Christ with your work.  Contact us to join the invite list! 

~ GEN Desk