Last week, at the WillowCreek Leadership Summit, Metro Community Church and Zimele was awarded the Courageous Leadership Award. It was a humbling experience, but one that was well deserved for all of the great work Zimele is doing. The Leadership Summit has a huge audience of over 100,000 people. The exposure has been great for Zimele. Needless to say, there have been a number of churches that have contacted us with a desire to partner with Zimele.
A special thanks to Rosetta Heunis who is the founder and Executive Director of Zimele. Rosetta, without your vision and passion for the least, the last, and the lost, Zimele would be nothing. Ron Kwak, who helped launch Zimele on the US side, A special thanks for devoting thousands of hours to fund raising and handling the day to day operations as Director of Zimele USA. Sean Lee, thank you for stepping up as the acting Director of Zimele USA and creating opportunities for Zimele that I only dreamed about.
One of my great joys in life is when you get the right people together so that a vision can come alive. Zimele started out as a vision – a dream that needed to come alive becuase millions of lives are at stake, and in two and a half years, we are making an impact in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa. We are helping people in South Africa to realize that they can get out of poverty on their own.
We had lunch with Bill Hybels who is the Senior Pastor of WillowCreek Church. Bill was impressed and shocked to learn that Zimele can help the poor in South Africa get out of poverty without any finanical support. His exact words were: “How can you do that when they have no money? Don’t we have to give them a micro loan?” I shared with him that as an individual it will be impossible for the poor to get out of poverty in Africa, but if you get 20 women together, and give them the right structure and accountability to come together every week and submit their few pennies into a community savings account – that each person in the group has the responsibility to oversee, then it is possible. We have seen savings groups generate enough income where people are starting businesses. Not only are they able to pay for their own food, school fees and uniforms for their kids or grandchildren, they are able to take out a loan from that savings group and start a business. Bill, was very impressed.
Zimele is on the move. I’m grateful that God would allow Metro to partner with an organization like Zimele. Rosetta, will be in the US in October to meet up with church leaders and business leaders. If you would like to learn more about Zimele and possibily partner with us, please visit us at our website Zimele, or you can simply email Sean Lee at sean.s.lee@gmail.com.
Here is the video of the Courageous Leadership Award: .
0 Responses to “Courageous Leadership Award”