LWR Board Sees the Hands that Help

Oversight and governance constitute key duties for the members of the Lutheran World Relief board. These 13 women and men, 8 from the ELCA and 5 from the LCMS, take seriously their stewarding of the mission, vision and fiscal operations. Three times a year these dedicated generative thinkers come together to meet from California, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Oregon, Virginia and Wyoming. Once every three years, however, these volunteer leaders travel to the faraway places LWR works to see for themselves how the things they read and hear in staff reports correspond to the work we do at the last mile.

By co-creating “vibrant, functioning rural economies,”—to employ a favorite phrase of Executive Vice-President Jeff Whisenant— we move, albeit incrementally, toward a world of justice, dignity and peace. I say co-creating because without the Holy Spirit’s help, without the expertise of partners who accompany local communities, without the heroic labors of campesinos (peasant farmers), without the prophetic, loving and wise counsel of the LWR board, making progress would be entirely impossible.

Reading the numbers and narratives on paper at the Baltimore boardroom can’t quite equate with hearing firsthand the impact like what board members heard in Matagalpa, Nicaragua: “We are not poor anymore,” testified one community leader. “Instead of extending our hand to receive help, we extend our hand to help others.”