As many of you know, in the fall of 2017 I graduated university with a Bachelors in Business Administration & a minor in Marketing. When I graduated, I envisioned many ways I would use my degree in the upcoming years, but never did I envision getting to use it on The World Race!
In Rwanda, I got to help a pastor understand finances and fundraising from a Western perspective so that he could raise money to upgrade his church to reopen it after the government had shut it down. The pastor traveled to the United States, and ended up raising almost $15,000 for his church! It was so awesome to see how God used my knowledge and his story to bring money into the Kingdom for such a great cause.
Again, in Cambodia, I got to work with a family running a ministry who needed business guidance.
Vuthy and his wife Connie run Village of Hope Ministries out of Toch Village, Cambodia. It has many parts: a Youth Development Center (school), English classes, Light of Hope (soccer teams), Community Light Church, Mercy Ministries (feeding the elderly), and Oil of Joy (a coconut oil producing business).
Oil of Joy has a lot of potential to expand its customer base, and has people looking to invest in its expansion and growth. When we got there, Vuthy needed assistance filling out a Westernized loan application from an organization that would allow his vision to continue to be fulfilled. Thus, Shelby and I got to learn the ins-and-outs of this business to be able to accurately represent it on the application.
What we learned was Vuthy’s vision with Oil of Joy was to eventually employ 5% of the small village‘s population and to provide jobs for those who are no longer able to do things such as factory work (with a special focus on the elderly). He wants to disciple his employees and guide them to a life with Jesus while literally lifting up the economy of his entire village! It is SUCH an incredible vision, and they are already on the way to accomplishing it.
We got to spend the first part of our time there creating a business plan from start to finish, complete with vision and mission statements, a market and competitor assessment, a SWOT analysis, financial information (asset evaluation, current borrowing level, etc.), future projections, etc. This process took a lot of interviewing, pulling past business informational documents out and reading through the details of each, and advising Vuthy and Connie on what reasonable next steps would be. We got to type it up, make it look professional, add graphics to help explanations become more simple, and so much more. This was something I had done in my university and I was so excited to apply this to a real business! After many days of hard work, Shelby and I got the business plan and loan application submitted just before the final deadline!
After that, Shelby and I didn’t feel like our work helping with the business side was complete. We asked if we could continue the work we were doing, and help organize the rest of the ministry beyond Oil of Joy. Vuthy happily accepted the help!
We recruited Morgan to begin work on an official website for Village of Hope Ministries as we began to compile a document that contained all the information of everything Vuthy and Connie were doing. It was a big project, but definitely one we were more than willing to take on! In the end, after countless hours of interviews, research, etc. we completed a document that encompassed the wide array of activities going on under Vuthy’s leadership in Toch Village! We even got to help him apply for a visa (in a VERY confusing and difficult online process) so he could visit beloved family in another country. It was a month filled to the brim in paperwork, but a month that I am SO incredibly thankful I got to participate in! Using my business degree to help Vuthy and Connie organize and expand their business and ministry in Cambodia was so, so sweet.
