Wednesday, April 6, 2011

What's up with Gbagbo?

This afternoon we held the fifth class of the current NEI training course which was delayed one day due to yesterday's staff meeting. We opened with a brief discussion on the Biblical basis for mentoring, which is intended to deliver two messages: 1) God calls us to the act of mentoring, and 2) there are many examples from scripture of mentoring that can inform us of lessons that still apply to modern day mentoring relationships.

We had 25 minutes of discussion where we talked about how these examples teach lessons like the importance of the mentee driving the relationship (Elijah and Elisha), the importance of mentors instilling trust and confidence in mentees (Moses and Joshua, Paul and Timothy), how not all mentoring relationships always go smoothly, or end well (Barnabas and Paul), and the importance of developing a culture of mentoring so that mentees go on to mentor others (Jesus and the disciples, as well as many of the others).

You can tell its lively discussion because Aaron is standing up. (Okay, fine. It was posed).


Matthew stands in from the of diagram of how many businesses get drained financially. The proper diagram has the business paying "ME", and friends, family and relatives money coming from the entrepreneur, not the business.

Week 5 of the NEI class is always the most lively, and probably the most valuable: Boundaries. This class teaches entrepreneurs to separate their personal finances from their business finances. Participants should put themselves on a salary (instead of just taking off the top of the profits). In order to figure out what their salary needs to be, they need to figure out their monthly budget and INCLUDED in that monthly budget is money set aside for the very common requests for money.

These requests come from family, friends, relatives or even strangers and they come as a result of a wedding or other celebration, there's a funeral to pay for, maybe medical expenses; the list goes on. However, the class teaches that the money for those expenses should come from the limited personal budget funds. Then, when that money is gone, the entrepreneur can honestly say "That money is finished-o", allowing them to not dig into their business' money.

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In other news, it seems incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo is or has already surrendered to the forces of the internationally recognized winner Alassane Ouattara. But then it also seems like he's not so much incline to surrender, but also has made it clear he does not want to be a martyr. So really, I'm not exactly sure what's going on, but you can read some of the latest details at:


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Finally, not to go overboard with mentioning it, but yes, I'm still in need of fundraising support. According to my calculations, I need to fundraise just shy of $2,000 in order to reach my intern budget ending at the beginning of June.

Got some extra tax return funds coming in? Not sure how to spend all that dough? Consider brightening my day by donating a (tax deductible!) portion of that by going online to PartnersWorldwide.org. To get directly to the donor page go to:

Just be sure to click on the 'choose a type- box and select "people" and then click on the -choose a program- box and select "Derek Hoogland (Liberia)". Thanks!

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