Charlie: 0:00

We're on. Welcome to the Charlie Papa Show. Today's topic is seeing and fixing a well-intentioned, but broken system, an entrepreneur story. To be sure not to miss an episode, please subscribe@papa.com. Simply submit your email address. You'll receive my weekly interview as, a bonus, and my Tuesday morning Bog for Entrepreneurs. This show's focused on helping entrepreneurs build valuable businesses to this, and I interview entrepreneurs who stand apart both in the for-profit world and the non-profit world. Today's guest is Kurt Kaler. Kurt is the founder and executive director of Four 10 Bridge for the last 16 years he's been there. Kurt started four 10 Bridge shortly after taking him and his family on a mission trip to Uganda. I believe it was as far back as 2006. He learned something on this trip with his family to Uganda's Bush country. There are huge economic problems in these countries, and the do-gooders and other non-government organizations as we'll refer to them as NGOs are mostly not helping like they should. There has to be a solution here. Upon returning from this trip to Uganda, Kurt could not stop thinking of a better way for these people to leave poverty. Kurt is married to Erica for 33 years. They have four. They, are members of North Point Community Church. They are which is a church in Alpharetta, Georgia. They have four grown children and they have two grandchildren. Welcome, Kurt. I'm glad that you're joining me and you're here to help other entrepreneurs around the world. Thanks for being here.

Kurt: 1:53

Thanks, Charlie. It's it's my pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting.

Charlie: 1:58

One, why don't we start here Is people don't know four 10 Bridge, so maybe you can just do a short overview of four 10

Kurt: 2:03

Bridge. Yeah, sure. I appreciate that intro too. It's interesting to hear that from you. Why was I off a little bit? Oh, you were dead on. It was, I was I was, you was, it was perfect. Hey, so four 10 Bridge gets its name from one Peter four 10. That's the four 10 part. First Peter four 10 says that we should all use the gifts that we've received to serve others faithfully, administering God's grace in its various forms. We love that. That's our namesake scripture. And of course the bridge is this bridge between us and, communities in need around the world. And essentially we are a community development ministry. We adopt entire communities in the developing world currently in four countries, Kenya Uganda, Haiti, and Guatemala, and we walk with those communities over a very long period of time. We'd like to say that we're a mile deep and an inch wide. We walk with those communities for a long time with the indigenous leaders that live in that community. They lead the effort. And we're working these communities to a point where they ultimately graduate. They graduate from the four 10 Bridge partnership. And what that means is, that they've come to a place where they can continue their journey of development without us, and they're actually doing more in their C communities. Have you done, how many of those

Charlie: 3:29

do you have?

Kurt: 3:30

We'll graduate our 13th community this year. Wow,

Charlie: 3:34

okay. I didn't know that. So I thought you were like the other NGOs. You're in it and you're there forever. Okay. This is good to hear that you're actually doing graduation. So when did, and I think this is gonna come out in, our discussion and I'm looking forward to it. So when did you start four 10 Bridge? Bring back to the, beginnings there.

Kurt: 3:56

Yeah. September, 2006, we had my family and I the story there it's, in the book, but the story there is, that a friend of ours, a family that wa their children, went to the same school, small little Christian school here in Atlanta that we, actually started one of the first 12 families to start that did a little shoebox thing for a community a ministry in Uganda. They went and delivered these boxes of school supplies and toys and things from the kids in our school. They came back, found them in our living room, having a dessert and coffee, looking at photos of their trip to, in the middle, middle of nowhere, Uganda. And this was a time in my life that what I kinda refer to as our dark time, this was a very difficult time in our lives. We'll probably talk about that. But anyway he my buddy Dave showed a photo of this school. that was made outta mud and sticks and cow dung, and every time it rained, the walls would crumble. They'd have to repack the walls, dirt floor, no desk, kids sitting on rocks, no teachers, no supplies, all of that. And I was just puzzled by that last thing on my mind was that at that time. But I was really, why were you puzzled by it? Why not just build a brick building? I'm pretty easy. I can build things. Why don't you, why aren't, why not just go get some bricks and build a brick building? That's the classic kind of American perspective, right? I saw that as a problem to be solved. Just go solve that problem. And wait a second.

Charlie: 5:21

Were you the only one that actually saw this? Or were there other parents that actually were exposed

Kurt: 5:26

to this? There were some other some of their guests in our home that were celebrating their trip and they were just sharing their trip with us. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. So

Charlie: 5:35

why, were you like this is stupid, we should fix this. Why wasn't there? Why wasn't the other six dads that were there, or the six moms, they're going like, oh man, I'm all in. This is what we need to do. We get

Kurt: 5:48

a fix. Yeah. I think they were telling, talking about their whole trip, their whole experience, yeah. Cross. And I was what captured my heart was that school building. It just seemed, it seemed silly to me. Again, I can build things. I'm handy. It's just why don't we just go fix that problem? And so anyway I, left that little dessert and coffee and next morning I'm in my office and in my quiet time, and again, this was a very difficult time in our lives. It's what we call our dark times and our family. And that's the time when you're leaning heavily into God.

Charlie: 6:23

What was that, when you say, you said it was dark times. What made'em dark

Kurt: 6:26

times? Oh, my business had failed. I was out of work. I was working outta my basement trying to figure out how to make ends meet. Nothing was going well. It was my wilderness walk.

Charlie: 6:36

How did your bi what, happened with your let's, roll back just a little bit. Okay. And what business were you

Kurt: 6:41

in? So I had a direct marketing agency in Atlanta, Uhhuh here. At our peak, we had probably 45 or so employees. Did you start

Charlie: 6:51

that too? I did. How long ago was that? What year was that? That you started that? I'm sorry, what year did you start that right outta college or?

Kurt: 6:59

My kid my youngest son was 18 months old. So my, I like 93. And so we were 10 years into that, nine years into that. And nine 11 happened. Lot of our Was that right outta college that you started that? Oh gosh, thank you. Oh my. If I could give you a hug, I would. No I was in my early thirties at that point. But yeah, I just look younger than I guess, than I am. But no I was, are you from. Originally born and raised in Wisconsin, but Atlanta's been home for 40 plus years, since early Oh, so

Charlie: 7:31

as you were an adult? Yeah. Yeah. So you began your adulthood here, but your, all your childhood was back then? Yeah. Was your dad and was your dad a

Kurt: 7:39

professional or he was in the insurance business for a while. He was a sales rep for a while. We lived in Wisconsin in my younger days, and then we moved to Florida and then they, landed in here in Atlanta when I was in college. I went to U S F university of South Florida for a couple years. And then my entire family was here in Atlanta, so I moved back to Atlanta and finished school here. And just was there

Charlie: 8:05

a reason that you didn't finish in us F I'm just

Kurt: 8:08

curious. I just wanted to move back to family. So I just moved from USF to Georgia State, finished to Georgia State, got a business degree and I've been a aware You were Christian

Charlie: 8:16

back then too. Was that something that was indigenous to your family?

Kurt: 8:20

That I think so. I think, but I would say that we were nominally Christian. Oh, okay. School, my younger days, my, as a kid, I went to a small little Christian school in Wisconsin through grade school. And then so I knew all the Bible stories. I was in chapel every week, that type of thing. But I don't think that and while I believe I was a, believer really that walk was with Erica in our early years of our marriage. It's not until that those dark times hit

Charlie: 8:49

Sounds like with your parents, given the activities that you were involved in to, to say it was nominal, I think a lot of people would say you were devoted. As a family. So there was a pretty strong foundation that was put in place for you?

Kurt: 9:01

There was, yeah. There was, but it wasn't strong enough for me not to leave my faith until my late twenties, early thirties. And the way that I say it is during those dark times I realized that my way was not working. And I literally got outta bed at two o'clock in the morning, one, one night having this anxiety attack outta work. No money going into debt like crazy. It, I know how old was, how old were you then? Times than we had. But this was a really difficult time. And I realized that there was a difference between declaring Jesus Lord and allowing him to Lord over my life. And I think when I crossed that chasm of allowing him to Lord over my life, that's when I really said, my testimony is I'm gonna do the next right thing in times of confusion, chaos, whatever. I'm gonna do the next right thing and trust him with the results. And when I turned, when did that happen? How old were you then? 40, I dunno. Huh what was 42? Maybe? I don't know. Something like that. 42? Yeah. Yeah. I think it was

Charlie: 10:05

And that would've been, what year was that? 42. So

Kurt: 10:08

this was this was 2000? No, so it was probably my ear. Yeah. Early forties. 43, 44, something like that. So it's 2005, 2004. Oh, okay. Three, I'm trying to,

Charlie: 10:19

years ago. But by then you, do have the, you are married, you do have kids. And you have a business that you say is failing and you just got to the. In effect end of your rope. I know, I'm, that's exact. Your story and my story sound a lot alike. Alright. It's like things seem to be going okay and then they weren't going okay and they didn't look like they were gonna go. Okay. So you finally suddenly say, I don't, I'm losing hope here. What's the deal? But I do have my, I come, I'm, I look around and I got a house, kids, cars, wife what's going on? What's

Kurt: 10:53

going on? And what, was going on was my way was not working. And again, allowing him to de the difference between declaring him Lord and allowing him the Lord over your life is a big, leap. And but when, I did that, it

Charlie: 11:08

changed. Did somebody make you aware of that? Back then? Yeah. I had a,

Kurt: 11:14

I have a buddy. This,

Charlie: 11:15

there's this

Kurt: 11:15

delineation. Yeah. He said it was, I was at church one Sunday. It's tough times. Parking cars. I'm, volunteering in the church, I'm going, I'm doing my, just doing life. And my buddy Kent said that to me and I'm not even sure in what context. Okay. It, threw me back and thought, huh, am I doing that? And I clearly was not. I'm trying to control it. What did he say to

Charlie: 11:42

you? Just to re repeat it one more time? There's

Kurt: 11:44

a difference between declaring Jesus Lord and allowing him to Lord over your life, huh? Yeah. So, it just threw me back in my chair of, so tell me that moment

Charlie: 11:57

when you were, where you, when you were there now, that 2004, 2005, that moment when it was like, okay, I'm stepping over the line.

Kurt: 12:07

Yeah. I was I was laying in bed and having this anxiety attack around, I have no idea what to do next. I have no idea. After everything I've tried and I'm a doer, I'm a type A, I'm a driver. I I've been always, been very entrepreneurial. There's a problem. I'm gonna go fix the problem, heads down, I work hard. All of that. And nothing was working. It was a wilderness walk. It's, and when

Charlie: 12:33

you say you had an anxiety attack, and I appreciate you sharing that. I think that's something that we skip over. That's, that shows the

Kurt: 12:40

depth of it. Yeah. And so I got outta bed and I literally got on my knees and I said you promised the peace. That transcends all understanding. I need some of that. And I need a lot of that. And so you can have it you can have all of it cuz clearly my way is not working. And just, give me the next right thing to go do and I'll go do that and I'll trust you with the results. Just be clear. Please, just be clear. Don't to me. Just make it clear that this is the next right thing that you want me to go do, and I'll go do that. And so be careful what you pray for.

Charlie: 13:19

I love that. Just be clear because what, struck me then is it's like, God I believe that clarity of communication is important to me and it was something that I always stand by. I want you, since you made me clear, you be clear.

Kurt: 13:35

I need to not make sure it's not a Kurt idea,

Charlie: 13:37

right? A cur idea. Oh, a Kurt idea.

Kurt: 13:42

Oh, a Kurt idea. Okay. Yeah. I want it to be his idea. And I'll, go do that. And that serves me, that serves my family, my wife and my marriage. My career. Four 10 Bridge. It served us really well. There are times

Charlie: 13:55

Did you get to a point though, Kurt, where you said when you were in this D desert walk, like right after that, did some answer come peace

Kurt: 14:03

came almost

Charlie: 14:05

immediately. I was the next morning. Peace came

Kurt: 14:08

upon you. Yeah. I woke up the next morning and I'm like, huh, this is weird. I don't,

Charlie: 14:13

but you still don't have a business or the business is still troubled. You still have a wife and kids. You still have all these responsibilities.

Kurt: 14:19

I still have a dumpster fire of debt and okay. How to make a living and all, of that still swirling around. But there was a confidence, a peace. It's, and again, I, it when, he says it transcends all understanding, it transcends my understanding. I'm just a guy trying to do, so

Charlie: 14:35

where did it go with it? This new peaceful, Kurt, where does this new

Kurt: 14:40

peaceful Kurt go? I got up went, back to work. Did not, much changed on your day-to-day basis, but then okay. Shortly after that my buddy Dave and his family came over to tell us about their trip to Uganda. That's what it's on. Okay? So that next morning in my quiet house kinda push. That's

Charlie: 14:58

helpful because what we've talked about puts the rest of this in perspective.

Kurt: 15:03

Yeah, I understand. So in our, my next, that next morning after that dessert and coffee and seeing that, those photos of that school building I was praying and God loves it when Charlie, when we negotiate with him.

Charlie: 15:17

never did that before. Never did that before. So tell me how you did it. Okay. I said,

Kurt: 15:21

listen, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do for you, I'm gonna as soon as I get my, career back on track, start making some money again, get my kids back in private school, get this debt paid off. As soon as I write this dumpster fire of a ship that is currently my life, I'm gonna go over there and I'm gonna build those kids a brick building. And I, immediately the heavens didn't open in voices and trumpets and note, it was just, it was a clear. Undeniable conviction that I had it backward, that I should go serve him and his kingdom first, and the rest of this stuff, he'll walk with me through that. Much of it is to my own making, but he'll walk with me through that. But I should serve him and his kingdom first, and and the rest will not necessarily take care of itself, but the rest is, secondary. And so that was an immediate conviction. One of those defining moments that I talk about in my book where, so

Charlie: 16:14

what was this? Is this where God actually said after you did the negotiation and tried to cut the deal, you heard that, oh, come on. Do you know who

Kurt: 16:23

God is? I heard you got it Backward,

Charlie: 16:26

pal. That's what Oh, he ended it with pal?

Kurt: 16:30

I think so. I don't know if that's true, but that's, maybe that's a poetic license. But no, you got it backward. You got it backward. And I knew I had it backward and I was convicted that I had it backward. There was no denying that I had it attack. Yeah. But then it almost lays

Charlie: 16:44

it all back on you. It seems like aren't you gonna drag me out of this thing?

Kurt: 16:49

But see, that's the beauty for me, that's the beauty again, just for me of, my walk. Where, in, again, in times of confusion, times of chaos, times of conflict, whatever it might be. Just do the next right thing. I had no idea how to go do the next right thing, but what's the next right thing to go if he's laying on my heart that I should go build a brick building in the middle of nowhere, Uganda for these kids, which sounds really weird even when I, say it out loud. Just take the next right step, which was I gotta go have a conversation with Erica about this. Yeah. which is a fascinating conversation. She's gonna listen to this and she goes, yeah, I'm gonna remember that conversation. Hey honey, I was in my prayer time this morning. Tell us about it. Yeah. It was very difficult time for her. What'd you say? What?

Charlie: 17:41

Yeah. So you're in this difficult time economically, right? Like you say, it's a dumpster fire for the family, in effect you and the family. What, tell me how you approached her on this. Tell me what that convers we've,

Kurt: 17:55

the details of it a bit. If you could, we've been talking for a few minutes, and so you can already know that I'm a very direct guy. I don't have a lot of words to share. I've guys say God's gifted me with a limited vocabulary. And I told her what happened and that I feel like I'm supposed to go do that. I think I'm supposed to go help those kids. Build a brick building for their school. And she processed that over a I don't know, hours, days, whatever. Cuz it just, it wouldn't go away. This isn't a you have this defining moment in your office. You run upstairs, grab a cup of coffee and tell your wife, Hey, this is what we're gonna go do. No, it wasn't that. It was a process. And I gotta tell you when you first told her, what was her reaction? I'm I'm, married to a woman who at that time was in her own faith, walk her own challenging time, and she has her own testimony and her own story through all of that.

Charlie: 18:56

It's very interesting. One of the things that we always talk about let me intro interrupt you, because I see this now with my kids who are now turning 40 and haven't been through this. We, we often think of this midlife crisis as only for men. Yeah. And it's not I think she it's like you said, you're talking about Erica, she was going through the same, a lot of the

Kurt: 19:19

same thing here. Yeah. I don't know if it was midlife crisis, but it was a crisis of faith. It was a not crisis of faith. It was a what are you, she's amazing. She's what are you teaching me here? And she would, in prayer in the word, she listens to a, she just listened to a lot of tapes at the time, videos at the time. A lot of things were influencing her. And she was on her walk trying to figure out, what are you trying to teach me? Because we made a commitment very ear early on when we I would say, made this conscious decision to put God first in our marriage. It's the old triangle, right? The old pyramid God's on top. We're over here and we're gonna put hymns in the center. And I, would think her testimony was her walk of understanding that I wasn't, Responsible for her happiness. She would look to me for those kind of things. And we looked to God for that fulfillment. We looked for that God to be front and center in our marriage, in our family. That's,

Charlie: 20:18

how long ago was that? How old, how many years were you married at that time? Say

Kurt: 20:23

first three or four years. Oh, early. Okay. Early, on. Okay. So she so she said when it came to the school I said I don't know, I don't know what I'm supposed to go do, but I'm supposed to go do that. I don't know how to go do that. She says, start raising a little bit of money. How much does it cost to build a big really? I, don't know. And we started just, again, it gets, it's just doing the next right thing.

Charlie: 20:50

Have you had to raise the money also for the airfare and hotels or whatever the heck else? You, in other words, your personal expenses to get

Kurt: 20:57

over there? We did and we had a bunch, we had a front bunch of frequent flyer miles at the time cuz I was coming outta my business. So I had a lot of those and, but we had to raise that and we had to raise money for the school and a water well and. Books and for the school we and so God was very faithful through that, but it took a long time to raise it. It cl took close to 18 months for us to raise$10,000 just for the school. No kidding. Yeah. I should have prayed for more wealthy friends.

Charlie: 21:22

What was your pitch? Because you're this direct marketing guy, right?

Kurt: 21:27

Yeah. Just the truth, just the reality of it. I think I'm need to go do this. Here's, the need. And it was very needs focused. Here's the need, here's the, what we're trying to accomplish. I feel like I'm supposed to go do that. Can you help?

Charlie: 21:45

And did you ask people for a certain amount of money when you did the ask or did you just say anything would work and you wound up with$50 donations? I was completely

Kurt: 21:54

out of my depth there. I had never done this before. I had never asked people for money. We had little events. We, some people had money trickled in when they saw my heart. But it took a long time. And one of the stories that you'll find interesting here is I put it in the book, but it we had a little dinner at our house at the ti so I had to go get a job. And let's not forget that I don't feel like I make a very good employee. That's why I've always wanted to be entrepreneurial in my life. So I had to go get a job at this point. And one of the ladies that worked for me at the time, her husband was a chef, and she says, Kurt, I'll and she was a believer and she says, Kurt I'll, talk to my husband. He'll come and cook your cook a really nice meal. You buy this stuff, he'll cook a really nice meal and you can invite people and you can do a little fundraiser in your home. And I thought that's a great idea. So we did that. Ah, and he came in and did a great meal. A bunch of friends came over, 20 or 30 friends came over in our home and we had this meal and gosh, people stayed really late. These are our friends of ours. And so I remember it was a Saturday night and one of the families didn't leave until two in the morning, one in the morning, something like that. Wow. And got up the next morning and I woke up and we were late for church and everybody sound asleep. The kids are asleep. Erica's exhausted. So I just let them sleep and I went downstairs and I was just curious how much, how wonder how much we raised? And I'm a, I'm an accountant by education finance guy, and so I'm a spreadsheet guy. And so I had two spreadsheets. One was of every person that had donated anything to this adventure that we were in because I wanted to thank them personally after we had completed. And so I went and looked at all the checks that we had gotten the night before and I added them, the spreadsheet and I added'em all up and it came out to like$27,183 or something like that from that one dinner. Over the course of time, over the last months, okay. Which was way more than we had originally targeted. So now we could do a water project, now we can do some textbooks, we can do all these things, but at another spree spreadsheet of all the costs that we were gonna need for a variety of things to go do this project. And it was all in Ugandan shillings So I had to go look for an exchange rate for an exa Ugandan shillings. So I was adding it up and there was an exchange rate at the time it's a eight decimals, right? And so I popped that in there and it came out to$27,183 and 35. it was thir literally 35 cents difference than what I needed versus what we had received. And so I did what any good Christian will do as I went and I reran the numbers, And when I realized that it was exactly the same, I went upstairs and woke up Eric, up as Eric up, and I said, honey you gotta see this cuz this is just affirmation that we are doing the next right thing. We're, on this path and we're just gonna continue on this path and trust him with the results. And so we that's a, one of those God's stories along the way that is hard for some people to believe, but it's it's not coincidence. It just isn't.

Charlie: 25:03

And it's it's funny, we've all heard stories like that. It was just the right amount. That's just incredible when you invited these people and this is just a learning, when you invited those 30 some odd friends to this dinner. did they did that include non-Christians as well as Christians? Oh, yeah. Or were they were, it did.

Kurt: 25:20

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And every,

Charlie: 25:21

did everybody participate?

Kurt: 25:23

Pretty much? Yeah, everybody did. So it wasn't a

Charlie: 25:26

Christian meeting? No, this really was, this is, we're focused on helping build this school and this com and help develop this community.

Kurt: 25:35

In my younger day, I was a pretty good tennis player, so I was in a tennis league and doubles leagues and all that. And so these are just our neighborhood friends, our tennis friends. Oh, that's great. School. Just, we just gathered as many people as wanted to, come and hear what we were trying to go do. And yeah. So now

Charlie: 25:51

you got this$27,000 or what would be close to a billion Uganda shillings. Okay. So whatever the number is, what is what was the next

Kurt: 26:01

step? I decided that I was done raising money and I'm just gonna go do it. We needed to build this building. I set I, promised that I would go build the building and so we set out to do that. And so that was in the sep we had that dinner in September and we put dates on the books to go between Christmas, the Christmas break, Christmas, new Year break and started making the plans to go do all that. And we got the airfares and we had to figure out what the ministry on the gown ground that we were helping. They could help us with hotels and all of that. And we just put all the things in place to go. And the day after Christmas in 2000, and I guess that was five through my three kids at the time, and Eric and I on a plane, my buddy Dave, who went on that first trip, he went with us and we traveled to Uganda. And our family thinks we're crazy. Our generation, Charlie what do you think about when you think about Uganda? You think about EDM e. Absolutely. Yeah. And people listening, young people, yeah.

Charlie: 27:06

You think about these Israelis surrounding the plane right. At Atten Bay, at

Kurt: 27:11

TE Airport, and back then, that's what we thought about. That's still what our generation thinks about. Anyway, so we went and got on the ground and after a few days of building this building, making really every mistake,

Charlie: 27:27

and this is where your, is this where your book actually starts? Yeah, pretty much. This is where you enter and you're, I love it where you stay there's all these bucks flying around. We're in, TE airport. This guys with AK 47 s around us, and I'm here with my wife and kids, and I'm like, what did I just do? Okay. I just love that. What have I done? I've had that exact same feeling when I flew into that exact same airport. Okay. Yeah.

Kurt: 27:53

And my kids were 10. Whatever they were. Yeah. So what have I done and was what I was thinking. And but the people were were wonderful. And we arrived in the community and they had already laid the foundation for the building. We'd seen that. We're just trying to get our, get acclimated. But really the point is, that after just a few days I was sitting with Erica at night. The kids had gone to sleep and I said what we're doing here is of no moment. This, doesn't even matter. This is a small drop in a really big bucket. My first experience with extreme poverty environments, and I was really frustrated, I was disappointed. I thought we were going over there to make a difference for generations with a permanent school building and a water project. and the, problems were massive. And I had all these questions and again, when you have that, you just do the next right thing, which is to finish the,

Charlie: 28:53

but here's something that, that's different. You did something like what you call the next right thing. And what most of us, including me in many cases is, was the next Right thing is. And when I see that this is the effort that I'm putting out and the time I'm putting in and the money that I'm putting towards this, cause isn't la literally, you call it a, drop in a bucket it's it's almost to me it became a drop in the ocean. Yeah. It's what? This is so big and such a big issue this poverty is so pervasive. There's we have cultural issues. You got the poverty, economic issues, you got education issues, you got because we're smart enough, we're business people, we think about all that stuff. And I'm like, and I'm laying a brick. Or I'm, teaching these people how to become entrepreneurs and of the 500'em standing in front of one of them's paying attention. What am I doing? Why don't I just go home and do what I do? My market, the people I serve, they're Americans. I don't know how to do this. But you didn't do that?

Kurt: 30:06

No, I didn't. Why? I, think the, way I'd answer that, Charlie, is I'm not fooling anybody by just going home and continuing to do what I was, doing, because I was convinced that what I was supposed to do was that. That I was supposed to I, was where I was supposed to be when I was supposed to be there. I had no answers to this problem, but I did have I, was compelled to ask the questions and and there there was no, turning back from it. What are you gonna do right when you have a how did

Charlie: 30:54

you know you were supposed to do this? When you have a

Kurt: 30:56

defining moment, you're only, you're not, tell

Charlie: 30:59

me about that defining moment. That's, you're

Kurt: 31:01

not fooling God in a defining moment and you're only fooling yourself. It's between him and and he knows the truth here, and that is that got this problem, I don't understand it, but I am, I cannot get out from inside of me. The what's the word? The, con I was con compelled the conviction con, conviction to con continue to try to figure it out. And so when I came

Charlie: 31:30

back, didn't you have those thoughts though that said if I really start digging on this and trying to figure out this problem, that's like sitting in front of me. That's just, it's almost like it has, its it's, nails into you. It's gripped you. Okay. It's not a problem you can shake off. It's a tar baby, if you will. Didn't you? The rationale starts at that point, which is, yeah, but I got a wife and kids and I live in Atlanta, and this would mean that I'm gonna have to come over here a lot. Because the problem, I can't solve it long distance. I gotta actually get closer to it to understand it so that I can in fact solve it. Okay? And I can't do it alone. That means I'm gonna need money and I'm gonna need people, I'm gonna need cooperation from the people. You start, your mind starts going, and that's where, again, it's a second shot to say. I can unv now. yes. See because I rolled it up. I, can look ahead. I always say there's no such thing as a 40 year old entrepreneur because he knows too much. He knows how hard this is. Yeah. But here you are. So what

Kurt: 32:37

happened? I don't know. I think it's like anything else. I, see. Not like anything else even when I've started some businesses in the past, I'm trying to solve a problem. Yeah. I see a problem that's the beginning of entrepreneurship. I wanna create a business around that problem. If I see a need for that, I can solve. I want to go, I wanna go solve that. And then it was similar here, except there is this divine issue and I can't run from that. Look, you said that you were gonna do the next right thing, and trust me with the results if

Charlie: 33:16

you don't comma, pal, pal. Right?

Kurt: 33:20

Love that. If you don't, it's on you. And I think it's not like I sat here and was, laboring over it a lot because it was clear to me that this was something that had captured my heart and I got a job and I got a, family and I got this dumpster fire that's still raging and I gotta go handle all of that. But this is the thing that is really driving me to stay engaged. And when I came back became a little bit of a student on this problem because I had too many, I had way more questions but I'll, I would also say that I don't ask you this

Charlie: 33:58

though. What was one of the things that struck me in read reading your book is, and I've been dying to ask you this question, when did you. You see what's happened is people have defined the problem, these NGOs or these missionary organizations that bring churches in with all their people and everything, just like you got eventually saw that, you saw that schoolhouse that was falling apart, right? Those people, they, they've defined the problem and their solution to it is to just go and help. And so build the schoolhouse or to do these things, they, that's the solution. You looked when you were over there and you said, I don't know that's the problem, and I don't think this is the solution, even if it was the problem,

Kurt: 34:49

I think what I said was we're after, so when

Charlie: 34:51

did you def my question in all that introduction is when did you actually, or how did you get to defining the real problem?

Kurt: 35:01

I, think the questions I was asking over there I thought were the right questions and the world was asking the wrong questions. And the questions I was asking

Charlie: 35:16

is why gimme the comparison between the world's questions and then we'll get to your questions. The world's, I need to know where we're coming from so that I see what you saw.

Kurt: 35:25

Okay. The, world's questions is, are what can I do to go solve that need? Okay. What can I, go do to. Solve that problem. That's my question. I ans I ask, what can I go, do to solve that school building problem? Or that water problem or education problem or whatever the problem is when

Charlie: 35:45

you fell into that, that says the house, the school building's fallen down. I know how to build a building. I'll go over there and build a building.

Kurt: 35:52

There's a problem that I can go fix. Okay, good. And I'm gonna feel really good about myself to fix it. Don't get wrong, We feel good about ourselves. Nothing wrong with that, but

Charlie: 36:03

that's right. You come back, you have a party, you show everybody what happened, the before and after. I think the

Kurt: 36:07

question, the right question is, what problem are we solving? I should have asked what problem am I really looking to go solve and I'm not looking today as four 10 bridges evolved and we continued to probably get more wrong than we get, but we're we're evolving and learning and changing and is we are not looking to solve. A water problem, an education problem, an economic development problem, a health problem. We're trying to solve a poverty problem. And if you're like any business guy, if you're gonna go solve a problem, you better define it because if you don't define it you may be implementing a solution that's solving a completely different problem. So it came to me trying to understand what is the real definition of poverty? How do you define poverty? And if you ask anybody, average person out there, what is poverty? How would you define poverty? They would give a definition that's rooted in materiality, in finances, in money. And I just don't believe that's true. There's lots of different kinds of, not lots. There's a, there's different kinds of poverty. There's spiritual poverty, and there's physi there is material poverty, there's health, poverty, there's relative poverty, all of that. But at the end

Charlie: 37:24

of the day, so what you're saying here though is I didn't start with how do I see a need, so how can I help? You're saying here you went, you brought it up 10,000 feet, 30,000 feet, saying this is a poverty issue. How do what is poverty first? And then how do I then address that if I wanna solve it? Exactly. Exactly. So, tell me, bring me along that path on how, you proceeded with that. I think it's, this is the

Kurt: 37:56

heart of four 10 Bridge. It is. It's ab absolutely is. I think that it's important for everyone to understand that this has been a thought process has evolved over 16 years. And I'm just a I'm a child in this space compared to people that have been studying it for years and years. But I'm a blue collar, get it done kind of guy. I'm not, yeah. And I don't wanna, I don't wanna read or write a bunch of white papers on it. I'm wanna go, I'm gonna go, you're

Charlie: 38:23

a pragmatist.

2023-02-24 Kurt Kandler Interview: 38:23

There's

Kurt: 38:23

no doubt about it. When I was over there the first time, I was, the way I would say it, I think I, I said it in my head and I was asking Erica these questions like, why do, why are, why do these people have the perspectives that they have? Why are the men sitting around doing nothing? Why are the women doing everything? Where are the, where's the community here and helping us build this building? I don't understand why I don't understand which is a statement, but this is a big

Charlie: 38:56

one for you because one of them was, and you show it in the early in the book, is you say, why am I working on putting these, laying all these bricks, and I have all these guys, these community guys, their community is sitting there

Kurt: 39:11

watching me, right? So again, it comes back to asking the wrong questions and start asking the right questions. And I think that's the right question, but that's a question that I asked, which means that if I'm gonna go make a difference, I've gotta go solve that problem. How do I make the community to go solve their own problems as opposed to looking to outsiders to come in and solve them for them? So

Charlie: 39:31

the need then, in that case, I would say the need's, not the in the problem. The need isn't the, school building needs to be built. Nope. The need is Why, are the men sitting on the wall and they're not doing anything right? Okay. So had the need being, they need to be engaged. They need to care about their community more than

Kurt: 39:52

I do. And why don't they? Yeah, And why don't they, and they're living in poverty.

Charlie: 39:58

What's the thing? Isn't it obvious? Shouldn't they just do

Kurt: 40:01

something? That's where it gets really messy because culture matters. People matter. Communities are all different. They're,

Charlie: 40:10

now you're starting to get to me about how big this is and how many threads it has when you start pulling

2023-02-24 Kurt Kandler Interview: 40:15

on

Kurt: 40:15

it. But it really only has one thread. Ah, okay. This is an oversimplification and there's gonna be some mythologist experts that may listen to me one day and go, that guy's all full of hot air. But in Kurt's humble opinion, there is one thread, and that one thread is worldview. Worldview is the conversation we're having in our head, the story we're telling ourselves to be true. The, our perspectives and our, we all have a worldview. You have, when I have one and every one of our worldviews drive the choices that we make. And those choices are gonna drive the actions we take or don't take. And what I've seen and learned over the last, almost now 17 years, is that worldview shift, the choices that people make, have more to do with whether or not a group of people will thrive or live in deprivation than anything else. And so when, you, so that's, the thread, that's the thing that we are trying to impact and how you do that. Super complicated But at the end of the day, anything to change somebody's

Charlie: 41:23

worldview, I'm sorry to change someone's worldview in the midst of a community. or even a nation that shares that worldview. That kind of puts it in perspective. You mean I was there in Uganda and I was in the minority on my worldview, and they were in the super majority. So how do you, how, what how do you

Kurt: 41:53

approach this?

Charlie: 41:57

First of all why did you, get convicted that was it? That was the thread that was the problem. This worldview, when I went all the way down to the very, very foundation of it all, that's what we

Kurt: 42:11

gotta change. So it's the, progression of that Charlie was, is that over there I was saying at the time, feels like a lifetime ago. You know what, why do they have this perspective that they have? Why do they think this is okay? Why aren't they doing more to solve their own problems? And it's a, in a classic kind of arrogant, American way and American tone, which I'm not proud of, but it is our culture too, right? See a problem, solve a problem. And that evolved over time to reading and learning and listening to people who had, who were able to describe that more accurately. And the thing, the book that really changed my view on it was a book by Daryl Miller called discipling Nations. And I read Discipling Nations and the, words just jumped off the page to me and I quote a lot of it. And my book, Dar Darrell endorsed my book. He's anyway, so

Charlie: 43:12

it was just, what's the author's name again, just to have it? Little Darrow. D a

Kurt: 43:16

r o w. Darrow.

Charlie: 43:18

Darrow Miller.

Kurt: 43:20

Miller. Okay. And that book just was the Bidens, how did you get that book? I don't I don't even know who told me about it. I can't even

Charlie: 43:31

remember. But I read, it's probably one of these, you were probably talking about what you're seeing and the difficulty, what you were wrestling with, and they said, oh, you should read what

Kurt: 43:39

Miller's book. And it's, 30 years old at this point. It's not a new book. Okay. I think the difference is, I think the distinctive here for me, for Four 10 Bridge for all the, a lot of other organizations trying to work in this space is, that I, want I, I feel like the complexity in what we do after you define the problem properly, is in executing solutions and staying on track with discipline inside some strategic guardrails that keep you focused. Because in our space, it's highly emotional, especially when it comes to children. And there is this sense, there is this myth I, call it a myth, is that anything that we do for the poor must be a good thing. And I disagree with that. And so we are trying to put things in place that are highly disciplined, moving toward outcomes, not process. We're trying to achieve specific measurable outcomes in the communities where we work. Not measuring activity, but those outcomes. And those outcomes all have to be driving people toward a Christian biblical worldview that helps them understand that one, God loves them. They were created in his image. They have, they were created for a purpose. They're forgiven, and therefore they should be forgivers. And they have responsibilities. They have responsibilities. God calls us to have responsibilities, to be godly parents and godly spouses, and godly school teachers, godly business owners, godly leaders, all of that. And when all of that happens in one place they will do more to solve their extreme poverty problem without us, than they will with us. And we can graduate them and move on knowing that they are and have put things in place where their mindset has changed, their worldview has shifted where they say before four 10 Bridge came in we had a, poverty of the mind. This is what they say to me. They have poverty. We have poverty of the mind. You taught us that God has given us everything that we need to change the quality of our lives. And we have to start with what we have. We have to stop looking to outsiders to solve our problems. We can solve our own problems here. And do they have the capacity to solve their own problems? They may and they may not. And so our job is to help lift their capacity, to help them go further, faster, and shift, help them shift their worldview from whatever it is today to a Christian biblical worldview. And when that happens, man, that's a beautiful thing, and that's what's happened in. 13 communities so far, and on, its way and many others now. It doesn't work everywhere, but it, does work and it's a beautiful thing when it does. So

Charlie: 46:21

The, worldview it, came, it became clear to you. I'm trying to tell you back what I heard is this worldview that you saw that they had was this, worldview of scarcity. I got put in a, I got, I'm born into a very awful situation. This, poverty, if you will. And it's just where I am. If anybody comes in and they give me money or they help me out, great. But there's nothing I can do about it. Yeah. I would say on your side, you're saying if you only. Jesus Christ. Okay? The gospel of Jesus Christ. If he, which would give you this, direct line to understand God better and all the resources that are available, we have a God of tremendous capacity and resources. you would, your view of life, of your life would completely change. And if it did, everything

Kurt: 47:21

would change. I might say it a little bit different. Say it different for me. Our, in our communities where we work, in the world, we're working in, reached areas of the world. They have heard the gospel, they know Jesus. But like me, I think they have declared Jesus Lord, but they haven't allowed him to Lord over their life. They're not looking to move to be more Christ-like in their, everyday life and how they interact with their neighbors and how they interact with their spouses and. Where does tradition and culture collide with God's word? We have the same issue over here. It's everywhere in the world, right? But tradition culture, what we know to we or think to be true, what the world is telling us. Collides with God's word. And we always point to Romans 12 too. It's don't conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That that's a critically important scripture. And so what is the world telling you about marriage? What is your culture telling you about marriage? What is tradition telling you about marriage? Now, what is God's word say about that? And that is very different for a Kenyan marriage, for example.

Charlie: 48:40

Now this is a great philosophical. Okay. And I agree with you a hundred percent this whole concept of it's not just lead. Not just seeing Jesus as Lord, but seeing him as truly Lord over your life. Okay? So if this is the great aha, and I love the name of Dar Miller's book, discipling Nations, okay? Not helping the poor, more Effectively, not doing Right, discipling nations, which speaks directly to what you're saying here. Exactly. How do I go from this? And this has been an issue that I have trouble with, is how do I go from what I think is a philosophical or biblical truth? In this particular sit situation putting together a methodology that sort of accomplishes that. So how do you, so help me out

Kurt: 49:35

there. Okay, so that's what I was saying. What did

Charlie: 49:37

you do? Tell me your story on that. It's really hard to

Kurt: 49:39

execute on that Exactly what we do though.

Charlie: 49:44

What, it ends up being is, oh, you just need to know Jesus. And if you do know Jesus, you need to come on, start following Jesus. Renew your mind so you have the mind of Christ. Oh, that helped. Yeah.

Kurt: 49:55

I'm all over it. I think that's a classic way of helping the poor. You just need to know Jesus, Kurt. They just need Jesus. No, they do. They absolutely do. But they're not bodies without souls and they're not souls without bodies. They're both. So we can help them physically while we That's beautiful spiritually. And how do we, how do you actually go do that? And I'll give you examples of how we do that. There, there are two. Programs that we run in our economic development kind of area of our cuz we're holistic development, right? So a big part of that is economic empowerment. We run two programs. One of those is called business Startup Training. It's entrepreneurship training. I love it. And what they do is they learn how to start or better their existing business. They're all entrepreneurs over there because I I'd say

Charlie: 50:44

they're all the poor, by and large are entrepreneurs. They have to be,

Kurt: 50:48

they're self-employed. I'll put it there. Yeah. Yeah. Some have an entrepreneurial spirit more than others, but that's another topic for another time. But we have a, curriculum that we we train community members on and it basically does the basic business training that we would almost think to be common sense. Hey the, money in your pocket is not yours. The money in your pocket is your businesses. You, can't steal from your business by spending that money. It's your business. You gotta reinvest it in your business. You can't stop drinking or eating your profits if you're selling coke or food or whatever. You know all these, you know what it means to write a basic business plan. Finding out what the community needs, what do they value, what would they be willing to pay for that you could provide a service for. All of these things are in the basic, how to start a microenterprise, a small enterprise. All of that's really, helpful. But if we were only to do that, we would fail because within that, we need to teach. Teach these entrepreneurs what God says about money. What God says about their relationships with their spouses are their spouses partners in this business. What's their relationship with their neighbors? If you want to have a successful business, you need customers, and your customers are your neighbors. And if everybody in your community hates you because you have broken relationships, you're not gonna have a successful business. And God wants you in his word to repair broken relationships and be a godly citizen of your community. And we talk about generosity and all these biblical worldview kind of teachings that are relevant to business and what happens, the beautiful thing that happens here that I think a lot of western organizations miss is that while the church, the local church in that community, or churches in that community are the hero of this development effort, a lot of the people that are learning this business training aren't going to church. So they're never able to hear God's truth. But when we bring God's truth into a program that's relevant to them, they're gonna listen. And we have more people come to the Lord in our business startup training, our foundations for farming training, which is basically training farming God's way than we do in any other program. And then the church, the local church becomes attractive. It's no longer the house of no, that people see how God's word helps them in their daily life and how he has created them for a purpose. And there is a right and a wrong way to do life. And tradition and culture is telling them lies. The world is telling them lies of what to believe. Like we have to wait for outsiders to come in and solve this problem for us. No, we can solve this problem on our own. We're capable, we're smart. We can persevere, we can

Charlie: 53:31

be honest. No, that is so true. This gets back to just talking about the gospel to people is if God makes sense when you apply his word. To your life situation right now, And if it's, I don't have money, or I don't have a job, or I don't or my marriage is off base or whatever, that application, learning what his word says about that, applic that's, where it all the rubber meets the road, if

Kurt: 54:01

you will. Sure. And when we do that in our communities, we're doing it for business startup training. We're doing it for farmers. God made the soil to work this way. You need to do things on time at a standard without waste, with joy. Where is your family in this effort? Are you being honest with your community when you're reselling things? Are you being generous? Are you giving back to the church? All of these biblical teachings as it relates to. Draw people to God's truth they'll, listen to it because it's helpful to them.

Charlie: 54:32

Help me with this though. Help me with this. We skipped over something. You went right to an example, which was this business startup training that you were talking about is one of the issues that entrepreneurs have is they're very quick to do what in your case, okay. Would be these NGOs or other people that want to do good, do they, they identify what appears to be the problem, only to find out later. That's not really the problem. Okay. So how did you talk about how, once you've discovered, which is this is the worldview is really the problem. Can you take me a little bit more slowly through how did you develop how did you come to the solution or how did you come to a, clearer definition so that you can come to a better solution? See, take a little bit of patience. You gotta roll back to way, when you started here.

Kurt: 55:29

Yeah. It really wasn't all that difficult because once you determined that, or once we determined that worldview was the thread that we needed to pull, right? Yeah. We needed to go down that path. It became really clear that in everything that we did, there needed to be a biblical worldview. Teaching in what we do. We're helping people physically, we're helping them build capacity physically, both with infrastructure, human capacity training, all of that. But we don't need to, we didn't need to boil the ocean of God's word in everything. We needed to make God's word relevant to what they were learning so that they were drawn to it, and it became attractive to them. To me, how do we help the local church become at. The local churches in Kenya, for example. There's probably five to 10 churches in each one of our communities. One, how do we bring them together? How do we bring pastors who are competitive together? How do we talk to them about their culture, the realities of their community, and disseminate God's word relevant to whatever we're working on, even if it's water or education or business or health, everything that we do. If we're not helping people eternally and only helping them temporarily we're not accomplish what God's mission is for us. Yeah. But when you

Charlie: 56:55

say helping them eternally that gets back up. That jumps me back to 30,000 feet. Okay. Whereas you say, I like what you said, which is whatever we teach, Whatever need we're addressing, if you will, major need, like you said, water, shelter, security, all those things is, it's, it starts by infusing God's word into that particular topic.

Kurt: 57:23

That's, true. But, not, and I wanna be clear about this, but not using their need as a platform for the gospel. Cause the gospel is long enough to stand on its own. So we're not in a lot of

Charlie: 57:33

organizations. And what you're saying is this is what God says about this activity that we're in.

Kurt: 57:38

Yeah. This is God's truth about and how it relates to business or farming or whatever. We're not saying, Hey, here, we're gonna go put water in, but we need to have you come here about Jesus before we give you one. That's the gospel doesn't need their needs to be a platform. It can stand on its own. What we're doing is in everyday life, having relevant teaching of God's truth in the variety of programs that we run in schools, for example. We do a thing called Discovery Kids. And Discovery Kids is essentially biblical virtues taught to the kids in school in a very interactive, fun way. And we're teaching about perseverance and cooperation and trust and honesty and all these biblical virtues that what we find is as you do that, you know what the, their parents are hearing the same virtues as it relates to business, right? You need to be trustworthy. You need to persevere through difficult times. You need to cooperate with your neighbors. You need, right? So when all of these biblical virtues, this biblical teaching, the worldview shift is communicated and through the local churches, through programs that we run in the same place, the community and the entire community has, a higher likelihood of having an aha moment that said, you know what? We thought the wrong way before they really, truly say this to me. We, thought, how long?

Charlie: 59:04

How long? And we don't we how long does, that take? That aha moment? Years. Years. Okay. Let me go back to something. I wanna switch us off we're giving, you're giving me examples. Okay. Okay. You have a, I, I learned from your book, you have a very well defined methodology Okay. On how a community, how you find a community. How do you qualify a community how you help them do in a, how you find their leaders, how you help them do an assessment. Okay. Of, so can you bring us through the, it was like when I was talking to my son David, who was with you in Central America. He goes his six seeds. That he applied, he said it was brilliant. And take us through some of this. I think this it's just, it's not oh yeah, here's what we do at schools and here's what we do with the pastors, and here's No you've really, you've tied this thing down, man. So why don't you bring us through this methodology.

Kurt: 1:00:15

I think where we, immediately went to the one thing that we're trying to change, which is worldview and fast forwarded through a bunch of methodology to get there. Yeah. There are lots of books about how to how to engage the poor better. Where I feel like organizations are failing or have fallen short is they're not executing on those that those principles. And we want to execute well in those principles. So one of the, one of the principles, for example, it starts with being invited. We can't just show up in a community. Of course we just showed up in a community in the early days cuz what we, had to find people who knew leaders in a community who would invite us in to have a conversation. Today we get in, we are invited in many, places that we don't have the capacity to help yet. But we get invited. And when you get invited, it changes the dynamic. It changes from a dynamic from, hey, this organization is here to do projects. To, they are one of us. We're inviting them into our community. And so it takes a long time for us to one, be invited. Once we're invited, that first meeting happens and no Americans should be in that meeting. This needs to be our Kenyan, Guatemala staff having these meetings with leaders. So

Charlie: 1:01:36

these are locals

Kurt: 1:01:37

having these meetings. A hundred percent local staff. That's what's I'm firm believer of, that we don't need any expat Americans in our cultures where we work. Because that would just upset, that would upset the dynamic. We want Kenyans helping Kenyans, Guatemalans helping Guatemala's and so forth. So we come in, we explain what it means to be a four 10 bridge community. We're not here to do anything for you, but we're here to do with you. And we have a pretty involved methodology around examples, object lessons of how we illustrate that. I illustrate it with a rope. One of

Charlie: 1:02:11

the things that's one of your principles that I thought was very, clear is the definition of development. Yeah. Yeah. Just hit that, hit on that principle, be and then we're gonna go back to,

Kurt: 1:02:24

yeah. So we rise and fall in a definitions. And so how do you define development? If we're a development industry? What is development? We define development by that, which people do for themselves. Ah. And so we don't measure our success by what we do. We measure our success by what they do on their own. They need to pull

Charlie: 1:02:39

us. That's a 180 different view than the way that mission trips are thought of.

Kurt: 1:02:45

I think everybody says that. I think they say the right things, but they don't, they really would rather come in and do what they wanna do when they wanna do it, cuz it's their money, their time. They should do it their way and, we know best. Yeah, they do. Yeah.

Charlie: 1:02:59

Okay, so that's development. So you get invited in this. You got Guatemala's helping Guatemala, you got Kenyans Helping Kenyans. Okay.

2023-02-24 Kurt Kandler Interview: 1:03:06

An

Kurt: 1:03:06

initial meeting. And then we say, look, if this is of interest to you, we want you to formally invite us back and this is what it means to have a covenant kind of relationship partnership with four 10 Bridge. Again, we lay out all these kind of guardrails of we're not gonna do for you, we're gonna do with you. Which means as leaders in your community, you need to mobilize and unify your community around this development effort. The development being defined as what you do, not by what we do. For you. And if you're interested in that, invite us back formally in writing, and some do and not, all do. What are

Charlie: 1:03:41

you expecting from that? When if you told me that I wouldn't know what that meant. Do I just write you notes, says please come back.

Kurt: 1:03:47

Write us a letter that says, Hey, we understand what you've laid out for us. We're excited to enter into a relationship with four 10 Bridge. We wanna formally invite you to begin that, process with us, this development. Help

Charlie: 1:03:59

me with this. Then when you go get invited, who's doing the inviting the first time? Who's inviting you into that community?

Kurt: 1:04:08

The model works, the original vision was we wanted to go so deep in a place. That we would move the needle in that place. And we would no fool and move the needle to such a degree that places around the place that we worked took notice and invited us into their communities because of what they saw in their neighboring communities. And that's what

Charlie: 1:04:27

happened. Who did the inviting if I got a community, let's say I have a village. How many people in a village, let's say there's 1500 people or 2000 people in a village, who invites the leaders there? Every

Kurt: 1:04:39

village has a leader. Every leader, every village has multiple leaders. They have multiple leaders. I don't mean an a, an elected not a politician. Yeah. Who are the people that the people are following? I see. Okay. People always ask me how do you find leaders in the community? It's not all that difficult. You just look at how they're organized. They have associations, they have co-ops, they have schools, they have churches. Who's leading those, organizations,

Charlie: 1:05:07

those associations. It might not be working well, but it's, it is doing something and working somewhat.

Kurt: 1:05:11

And who's following who? Yeah. Are you a leader if no one's following you? Yeah. So people are following people in the communities and we gather. And

Charlie: 1:05:22

that's who invites you? Yep. That's who you come and talk to. Yep. You don't talk to the whole 1500 people. You talk to that, those three to five people or whatever. It's Yeah, usually. Yeah. Then they come and they say, I get it. Development is up to us. They seem to have helped other people, other communities they've, seemed to been trans, trans. transformed and Right. That's what what we, would like that. So I write you a letter and say, I get it. We like you back. Come on let's, get started

Kurt: 1:05:55

here. But help me there's a nuanced difference to that too, is that there is a group of leaders historically and there's a subset of communities where we've, worked where they're like, they'll say anything that they need to say to get us to come back and do projects. And that's why I can't show up. That's why our Kenyan staff, our Guatemala, Ken staff, they can see through that veil of culture and understand most of the time whether or not leaders are sincere or not. But the other thing that, the nuance here, that's really, fascinating. That's

2023-02-24 Kurt Kandler Interview: 1:06:24

right.

Charlie: 1:06:24

That is in and of itself a nuance. Okay. That's really good. The other thing is, and that took you a while to figure that out cause you didn't have locals at first Okay. That were in those

Kurt: 1:06:34

things. Just a lot of frogs to find a few s for sure. But the other thing is, that they they are so grateful. In many cases to being asked. So when we walk into a community, Charlie, we're not saying, Hey, we could we can look around and in 10 minutes figure out what the needs are. They're not all that different from community to community. But the conversation doesn't start there. The conversation starts with, Hey, what do you love about your community? Why do you love living here? If I was gonna move to your community, tell me why I should wanna live here. And now they start talking about all the positive things and we ask them, Hey, what are the skills that your people do in your community really well? What do you do so well that you could teach others to go do it? What are the, assets, the giftings, the things inside your community that other communities don't have, that you have that are really beneficial to you? And then what are some assets that exist outside your community that you can access? They're not inside your community, they're outside your community that you can access that help your community. And when you do all of that I'm, taking hours of discussion and distilling it down to 30 seconds. Yeah. When you do that, you have an asset map. You understand what they love about their community, what they do really well, what giftings and skills and assets exist inside their community and just outside their community. And so when they come back to you with what their needs are, you can point back to all these positive things in the community. That's

Charlie: 1:08:01

the next step. Yeah. It's interesting. You don't start with what does your community need? Never. You say first, why is your community great? And then what, assets are in this community? What can you do, what skills, whatever. And then you finally get to the next step, which is what are your

Kurt: 1:08:17

needs? And then you say if, those what do they think their needs are, right? If you have these needs, but you have all of these great positive things going on in your community, how can both of these be true Because, so we then when, we do this assessment

Charlie: 1:08:35

process, you kind looks, when you lay that out, you showed them, it's a lot of their assets and what they have these, all these assets and resources and then these needs. How do you say why is this, happening? What do they, do

Kurt: 1:08:55

It, depends on the community. Of course, I'm painting with a kind of a broad brush here, but one of the things they do is they are thrown back in their chair and they sign and say, that's a good question, What do we need to tell this organization so that they'll come and work with us? So it's and another thing is, that they'll say where it really is great is where they come and go. We're, not sitting around doing nothing. We just don't have the capacity to do a lot quickly, but we've already done these things to go solve these problems. And oh, okay, our way, we're walking on our way. Those are the communities that we wanna come alongside. But what we do is when we have this assessment process, if it's, 10, but there are some

Charlie: 1:09:39

communities that you go to and you lay that out and they go the reason, yeah, we do have all this. Okay. These assets, as you call them, resources, but we do have these needs and we're just overwhelmed by the needs we really can't do nothing. We need somebody to come in and help us.

Kurt: 1:09:55

Yeah. And so

Charlie: 1:09:55

then, and that's one of those that you go, we're not gonna help you.

Kurt: 1:09:59

No, We're gonna say, so that, that's what's called an empowerment analysis. That's the, okay. That's kinda the last step in our assessment process. When you think about empowerment, that's an overused, poorly defined word in as it relates to helping the poor. Everybody wants to empower the poor, but what does that

Charlie: 1:10:15

mean? Lemme tell you. It's a marketing word and you marketing guys love words like that.

Kurt: 1:10:19

Yeah. I don't wanna be characterized as a marketing guy anymore,

Charlie: 1:10:25

you can't run from your resume, Kurt. That's

Kurt: 1:10:28

true. That's true. Nor should I? But you can't empower somebody against their will. People need to claim, need to accept, need to embrace their empowerment. You can put'em in an empowering environment, but they need to claim it. And so what we go through is on our assessment process takes hours if not days to go through at the end of it, it ultimately comes down to they have things they want to go solve. And so we ask the leaders, look, we don't want you to answer this as a group, we want you to answer this question individually. And that is, if you could change one thing in your community today, what's the one thing that you would want to change? What is one thing that you don't want your children or your grandchildren to struggle with that you currently struggle with, but you only can choose one? Wow. We ask them to keep that quiet. And then when everyone's completed that we have them share it. And they may have five or six different one things they want to go do, but then it's incumbent upon them. We say, okay, when you guys, as the leaders of your community, you only can choose one. So you guys need to talk to each other for a bit and just choose one. And they choose one. And let's say it's water. And we'll say, okay what's the solution to your water problem? And they may say we have this river that runs through our community, but it's seasonal so it dries up. And when that dries up there is no water. So we need to go drill a borehole. With a pump and a tank to pull water out from underground and have water for our community. And so let's just say that's their solution. That's their view of their problem, their solution to their problem. We say, okay, and we draw three concentric circles on a big piece of paper. And in the center circle, center of this circle is the amount of the solution, the percentage of this solution that the community can do on its own. How much of this water problem can you solve on your own? The middle circle is how much of that problem do you need help from outsiders? And the outer band of this, these three concentric circles, is the percentage of the solution that's beyond anyone's control. If it doesn't rain, there's no water, the aquifers dry up, whatever it might be, and then we give them 10 seeds, 10 coffee beans, 10 stones, whatever it's called, a 10. And I didn't come up with that, by the way, a guy named Robbie Jaren. Did we? We used it for years. But then we say, Hey, these 10 seeds represent a hundred percent of this water solution. We need you to distribute these 10 seeds across these three bands to tell us what percentage of this problem can the community solve on its own? How much help do you need from outsiders and how much do you see as outside of anyone's control? And then the community has, the leaders have a problem, Charlie, because if they put too many, if they put too many seeds in the center circle, we may not help them because they can do too much on their own, right? If we put too many, if they put too many seeds in the middle band, they're gonna think that, oh, this organization might think that we're helpless and they're not gonna help us. And if we put too many on the outer band, they're gonna think we're hopeless and they're not gonna help us. So they're moving these seeds. It's a fascinating thing. It takes'em 20, 30 minutes to work through this until they are trying to find the right way, the right answer. and I get it. They need water. It's heartbreaking. They need water. They're walking hours every day for dirty water. They're getting sick. It's a heartbreaking thing. So finally, they land on Anw answer. And so the, for the cases of this, for the purposes of this kind of conversation, I'll say they put 30% say in the center circle, they put 60% on the, in the middle and, 10% in the one seed in the outer band. And then they step back and, they say okay, we think this is the right answer. But the answer, the next question isn't when do we start? The next question is, if you can do 30% of this solution on your own, what are you waiting for And are you looking for someone to come in with 60% from outside before you go do your 30%? And there's this old story that's been tried and true for years. If there are, if there're if I'm in a Kenyan community and I said if two people in your community are trying to make their way to Nairobi and they know that I'm going to Nairobi and one of'em is walking on the road to Nairobi and another one is sitting in their home waiting for me to pick them up, who am I gonna give a ride to? Why are you gonna give a ride to the guy walking? Exactly. So what are you doing to go solve this 30% on your own? And then they say, sometimes they say, oh, this is what we're doing. We're doing this. We did a hydrogeological survey, we're raising money, we're doing things great. That's what we want to hear. But then we ask them who are these outsiders

Charlie: 1:15:17

that you, what a second, what else do you hear about that? Give me another answer that you hear.

Kurt: 1:15:23

Another, answer is we don't this is a bad answer, but we don't have the resources to do the 30%. We need somebody to come in first with the 60 before. Ah, there you go. Okay. Yeah. People, they'll say, we can do soft contribution, unskilled labor, nothing material, but we need people to give us the materials to go solve this problem if it's a clinic or a school building or whatever. So there's, different answers, but the it's, not about solving the problem yet. It's about their perspectives on solving the problem, because who are the outsiders? Are we the outsider that you're waiting for us to come in and do this 60% before you do your 30? We know there are a bunch of older organizations in Kenya that are solving the water problem. What's your governance governor, your government's role in helping you solve this problem? And at the end of the day, as leaders in your community, what are you doing to find these outsiders that can come in and help you solve the resource problem that you currently have? And they ultimately realize that all the seeds are in the center. It's their responsibility. They can't be looking to outsiders to solve their problem. And when they get that, when they have that realization, we're happy to come along and help them go further faster. But when they come to us with a list of projects that we want, they want us to go do we just say, thank you. But that's just not, that's just not gonna solve it. How do they

Charlie: 1:16:49

How, long does it take for them to realize, oh my God, all the seeds are in the center. There is 10% that's outside of our control. Okay. But the 90. All those seeds, those nine seeds are in the center. Yeah. How long does it take for

Kurt: 1:17:07

them to some, communities never get that. Some leaders right. With your communities you won't work with. But communities that they get it at that point and when Right then

Charlie: 1:17:16

in that discussion. Yeah.

Kurt: 1:17:17

They get it. So here's a real life example that I have in the book. It, would happen in Honduras. We were invited into Honduras by another organization to try to help them understand how we did what we did so they could go and implement it on their own. And we were in this community at the top of a mountain and it was a 20 to 30 minute drive up these switchback mountains longer than it actually, but to back roads, really bad roads to the top of this mountain where they're growing coffee or they're growing, they're doing dairy, they're farmers, they're doing a lot of things up there. They got

Charlie: 1:17:52

stuff to sell. Huh? They got stuff to

Kurt: 1:17:54

sell. They do. And they can't get to market. And so when we went through this whole process with them, It came down to the empowerment analysis of how much they can do on their own and so forth. The problem that they identified were their roads. We need, our number one priority is to fix our roads. And we don't do roads, I just, we can't do, we don't have heavy equipment, whatever. But no you're

Charlie: 1:18:17

a school specialist. The,

Kurt: 1:18:19

point is that how much of this can you do on your own? How much do you need help from outsiders? And they came back with, I think 40% in the center, 60% in the middle, and nothing was beyond their control. And we gave'em the question of what are you waiting for? And who are these outsiders that you're looking for? Are you looking to us to do that? There are plenty of outsiders that can go help you to do that. And I revisited that community two months later and they had their roads fixed. Wow. And when I ask them guys, this road's amazing. How did this happen? They said it happened because you changed how we thought. We never thought. That we were in control of finding outsiders to come in and help, us with this road. And we realized that the outsider that needed to help us was the government, the mayor. So we went down the mountain, 200 of us, and we descended on the mayor's office and we said, we want our road fixed. If you hadn't, if you give us 60% heavy equipment, some fuel, we'll hire the drivers, we'll provide the skilled labor and we'll fix the road on our own if you can give us a bit of help. And in two months they had the road fixed, just cuz they started thinking different. So how were they thinking before we're waiting for the government to, our government is worthless. Our government does nothing for us. Our government we can't do this on, we don't have heavy equipment. We need somebody to come in and do this for us,

Charlie: 1:19:41

it seems. So they were having the conversation and the conversation with the government in their head and, the government were saying no. So that was the end of it. They

Kurt: 1:19:50

didn't do anything they're helpless. They were just, yeah. They didn't do it. But. It, makes it sound, when I say it this way, it sounds like it's it's just common sense and it's so easy. It takes time and it, you gotta build trust with the community so they listen and you gotta challenge them a bit, but they gotta understand that they can, that they're that, it's not hopeless. And that there are ways of you as leaders to be effective leaders for your community. Not being self-interested in your own wellbeing, but really having a vision for your community. Getting together as a group and figuring out, Hey, how are we gonna go solve this problem on our own Because this

Charlie: 1:20:25

you make it sound, lemme hear what I'm hearing. Not you make it us, you make it sound like. Four 10 Bridge is a high level management consulting organization. Okay. Yeah. I'm not that smart. There's, four 10 Bridge. And who is in the second circle that you're talking about there? Okay. In other words, resources, who could help? How does beyond this methodology and beyond the most important thing, which is changing the way that they think, okay. That development is really something they do. Not everybody else does right? What do you, is there anything that you guys do besides what you just described? Yeah. You literally ever help, Are you one of those resources come with, come beside them and work with them in their development?

Kurt: 1:21:15

Absolutely. Absolutely. We are, when we partner with the community, we're walking with that leadership council for eight to 13 years is the longest the long time. So you putting money into it or you into it when they come. Again, that empowerment analysis that I explained, This doesn't happen tactically, but basically it's the methodology for every project that we would do. Look, we have this dilapidated school building, and if I had gone to Bali with that first school building in Uganda and had this methodology, I would've asked how much I would've asked the community, how much of this school building could you do on your own? I never asked that I was coming in to save the day, I was coming in to build it on my own, right? So in everything we asked them what are you gonna do to contribute to this problem or this solution? And over time they should be contributing more and more to their solutions than we are to the point where ultimately they're doing more to solve their own problems than we are. We're just helping them go further, faster. But at the end of the day when we undermine their def their definition of development, which needs to be what they do, not what outsiders do, if we undermine that by coming in and doing for them, not with them. We'll erode the development model and will ultimately fail. So we're always, we're saying no way more than we say. Yes. We want to be encouraging to them and and we want to challenge them to mobilize their community to come out and, solve their own problems. And it's not just,

Charlie: 1:22:51

you told me about, you told me about a success they need a what you told me about a success. Yeah. Which was these people at the top of the mountain. Where was that? In Guatemala. Honduras. Honduras, okay. And have you ever had what was a success or appeared to be on the road to success? Okay. Yet

Kurt: 1:23:13

they didn't succeed. Oh yeah. More than I would like. How could,

Charlie: 1:23:16

because in order to be on the road to success, I would think that You've changed my thinking. Okay. And you've come alongside me and all that. How does something like that not succeed?

Kurt: 1:23:32

A couple reasons, few reasons. This falls in the category of it's good to graduate a community and it's bad to exit a community. So we call these exits and an exit happens when leaders become corrupt or there's a change in leadership and they, want, they're more interested in their personal benefit than the benefit to the community. That's one way, but really the biggest way that it fails and we have to exit is because of the west, where become a because of whom? Because of the west, because of us. So our greatest risk to our develop, our self-development model is is the west American churches, American other, organizations coming in and working in our community where they undermine the self-development effort. They come in and do four people. As opposed to with people.

Charlie: 1:24:28

So they come in with the original model that you say doesn't

Kurt: 1:24:31

work, and it undermines the community's desire to go solve their own problem because it's other organization's now, solving it for us. And so that's, or we've had some cases where church partners, how do they, how

Charlie: 1:24:44

does a church, how does a church find one of your communities? Or how does the west find one of your communities or another ngo and then start applying their model? How do they find it? If you're so en, tightly embedded in in entwined in that solution, you follow me and have those relationships. You speak very much. You have a whole chapter on relationships in your book. Okay. So you have those relationships. And then yet you're saying someone can come in from the. And start eating away at again how

Kurt: 1:25:19

I think, yeah. So there's no silver bullet here, but it's, a bunch of different ways that happens. One is, we work best in, we work in rural communities, and if we see other organizations already working in this community that we've been invited into, we're gonna go vet those organizations to see if we can be successful in this community with them already there. If they're already in an unhealthy development model we're, swimming upstream and they're,

Charlie: 1:25:51

so that's evaluating the competition in effect, I'm using the word com using secular terms here, or I shouldn't say that I'm, using business terms. But if the competition, if the way. That things are being done in that area are by the old model.

Kurt: 1:26:07

And there's some really, and you're,

Charlie: 1:26:08

swimming upstream trying to put in a new way of thinking.

Kurt: 1:26:11

And there's really large organizations that are working in communities that we haven't been able to be successful in. Yeah. Cause they, they talk a good game. They've all read the books, but they're not actually executing with discipline on not doing four people. Or they are doing four people not with people. So that's, one way. The other way is, that organizations just show up. I don't know how they find out about these communities. Somebody knows somebody in a church or something, I don't know. And all of a sudden they show up and they start they, want to have leaders come together, like we do, but they start paying the leaders together. So we'll pay leaders to come to a meeting. As soon as that happens, four 10 Bridge isn't paying anybody anything to come to a meeting. We're you're the leaders of your community. You should be leading your community. But when another organization comes in and all starts un and un, oftentimes unwittingly, but still they're not thinking very deeply about it, in my view, when they, start doing things that are unhealthy, it very quickly undermines what we're trying to do. And then the last one is, that we're sending we partner with organizations corporations, but mostly churches, and we're sending people on short-term trips to engage with people and maybe doing some training or there's just a short-term mission trip experience that is a very positive thing if done, right. But what happens is a church potentially, and we've had this happen in the past, it's had a longer relationship with a community or had a com relationship with a community sending their people for a number of years, and they start thinking they have a better idea of what's going on than we do. And they come in and have hired one of the leaders as their international missionary to represent their church in this community. And then there's jealousy that's created, and there's this division that's created and it very quickly becomes unraveled. So there's a, there's an assortment of reasons why it happens but it happens. And it's oftentimes because of the west, not necessarily because of what's happening in the community,

Charlie: 1:28:11

but there is also the deal with some of these leaders, as these communities begin to develop and do well, they start to prosper. They become corrupt.

Kurt: 1:28:23

They can, if there's a, if there's a change in leadership a leader passes away and other leaders come in there's, this is a long multi-year. Yeah, they get it. Leadership changes.

Charlie: 1:28:38

Yeah and we see the corruption in the United States government, right? It's everywhere. Everywhere. I, it's everywhere. How do you do gimme an an, underground example is knowing what you know now. When you went to Uganda that first time and you're laying those bricks, watching those guys all sitting around and the community guys all sitting around not helping at all what would you do if you found yourself in that situation again? I'd leave just

Kurt: 1:29:10

like that.

Charlie: 1:29:11

I'd leave. You wouldn't say anything to them. You would just leave.

Kurt: 1:29:15

First place I wouldn't just show up in a community anymore. Hey, I'm here to build a building. I know that's true. That's that being invited is a, big first step, right? So there's again, there's not just one thing. So there's this process, this methodology, you call it, that we go through. But if we have a team of people from a church partner call it on the ground, and they, and this has happened where they're coming in the community to go help the community with a project. Our teams four 10 bridge teams are engaging in what's already going on in the community. We're not creating things for them necessarily to go do. So there's a project underway, let's say, and the team shows up to go start building a school building and nobody from the community is there to build the commu, the school building with this team. We'll put'em on the bus and we'll go find them something else to go do. That's great because we can't do four people. How have you

Charlie: 1:30:07

done, how have how, effective have you been with those leaders that you have chosen to represent you in those different countries? That must have been a whole different thing. A, a new learning there

Kurt: 1:30:22

too. Yeah. I think the best

Charlie: 1:30:24

thing because you're paying those people to do that work. Oh, you're talking about our staff? I'm talking about. Yeah. So I'm the representative for four 10 Bridge in Guatemala or in Honduras or Rwanda or wherever. It's right.

Kurt: 1:30:39

Yeah. The way I say that is we hire Kenyans to help Kenyans and their, Kenyon worldview of way of the way an NGO works isn't the four 10 bridge way that we work, right? So we have to retrain and re orient them on what we will do, what we won't do. And so there's a lot of training and orientation and. And education that needs to happen and said, look but you, but again I think

Charlie: 1:31:15

what's, and a lot of continuing court com communication and involvement,

Kurt: 1:31:20

Yes. It's constant. It's constant.

Charlie: 1:31:23

Of course I'm in the middle of that. In other words, if I'm if I'm hanging around in that culture, eventually I'll be converted

Kurt: 1:31:29

to the culture. Yeah. But I think what's interesting to understand is, that, again, I'm painting with a broad brush here, but they don't like the old model either. Okay. Cause they don't like the west. So

Charlie: 1:31:42

you're looking for, you're looking for people who are basically sold out.

Kurt: 1:31:46

And so at the, I know this is right, I'm in, at the end of the book I, did a little thing which I thought was, I don't know, just an idea. But I said to all of our in-country staff, I didn't ask our US staff any of this, just all our in-country staff. I said, look if you were able to come over here and sit in a room full of. High capacity donors, people who had the capacity to help, they had the desire to help, and they really wanted to help. They really wanted to help. That's the title. If you really want to help and you could say anything to them that you wanted, how would you finish these two sentences? If you really want to help start doing this, and if you really want to help, stop doing this. And that's how I ended the book. I've listed them by name and I've a and I've actually put in what they sent me. Oh, how cool. They say things like, if you really want to help leave If you really want to help quit coming in and thinking that you have the answers to our problems. It's a highly convicting, I think, a beautiful, transparent, very honest, vulnerable. To the question to the West that says we are not, the poor are not a set of problems to be solved by you. We are the solution to our, so our poverty problem. Let us lead, you follow, let us solve our own problems. Help us with the capacity and the teaching and maybe the resources to go do that. But don't come in here and tell us what you need, what you think we need because you're not right And don't convey your Western broken really jacked up values on us But how many organizations do that, Charlie? We have the money and the idea and we think it should be our way. And I think that's why I get in trouble a lot with my directness and all that. But I feel like Four 10 Bridge, this methodology isn't news. Lots of things that, lots of writings on this, but we are a disruption to this. No, you are, I remember. And we have to separate, the west has to separate what we give and how we give it from our need to feel good about ourselves. We

Charlie: 1:34:00

have. And how many people and how many communities have you started to, started with not started like from the beginning, but how many have you at least had to start with? And how many communities have, are you, have you, are you still with and how many have graduated? You follow

Kurt: 1:34:17

me? Yeah. So we've graduated 13, we're gonna graduate our 13th, I think that's right. 13th this year. We are currently working in probably I would say, call it 20 communities A now we're in Haiti.

Charlie: 1:34:33

And so 13 graduated, 20 are active. And then you had some bigger

Kurt: 1:34:37

number. We had some, we have, we've probably, I would say we've had, six to eight that we've had to exit. Oh, you did? Okay. And and then there's Haiti. which we had 20. What happened there? It's just a mess, man. It's just, it's a failed state and we're not, we're really unable to do our development work right now there, because of the trial, the because of the civil unrest and kidnappings and gangs. And it's just a, it's not conducive to development. Really. What it is a, relief environment. So basically

Charlie: 1:35:06

you're saying it's an unstable society?

Kurt: 1:35:09

It's an, it's a, I call it a failed state. Yeah. It's a failed state. Send people our, staff can't travel, so we're not able to work there. We were up. This doesn't

Charlie: 1:35:17

go back to the two things. In other words, it's not that the leaders aren't cor, you said that you fail, had failures because the leaders are become corrupt. Yeah. Or the west comes in. This is just a, an unstable environment. You can't work in that. Correct. That's correct. I got

Kurt: 1:35:32

it. Okay. Correct.

Charlie: 1:35:34

Alright, so then, you've been doing this 16 years?

Kurt: 1:35:38

Almost 17. Yeah. It's great. Almost

Charlie: 1:35:40

17 years. Okay. You've you, so you had people come alongside with, when they look at the communities, the impact that you've had and everything, the people that you've graduated they said, man, Kurt, you need to write a book. Okay. So how long ago, I'm sure that they were asking you to write a book Long ago. Yeah. For many, years. Yeah, that's

Kurt: 1:36:04

true. So why did you at

Charlie: 1:36:07

this point say I bet I should write that book. Yeah. Tell me how

Kurt: 1:36:13

That, happened. Started writing it about five or six years ago. I don't know how long it's been, and had some chapter summaries and what got you finally started.

Charlie: 1:36:21

I'm sorry, the hard part is getting started. Like you said, God told me I should just do the next right thing. When did you finally get to that first right thing on the book?

Kurt: 1:36:34

Again, five or six years ago, circulated kind of proposals, chapter summaries to publishers, and basically they were saying it was too close to when Helping Hurts, which is a pretty big book in our space of how to help the poor.

Charlie: 1:36:47

Yeah, I think you told me once that was the Bible for the

Kurt: 1:36:49

space. The Bible. Now I hope if you really wanna help becomes the next version of that Bible because theirs is, we really love it. It's I'm a big fan of it, but it's fairly academic and I feel like if you really want to help is when Helping Hurts meets boots on the ground. That's how I see it. How do we actually go and implement? So did

Charlie: 1:37:09

When helping Hurts, did they have the same look? Oh, did they have the same philosophy that you had? Yes. Were they solving the same problem to identify it the way

Kurt: 1:37:18

you do? I think they did, but not in the same words. They see poverty. An issue of broken relationships between us and God, us and our environment, us and our neighbors. And so they have just different ways of saying it. And and they did it really well. I came out in 2009. We've been doing it for a few years. We loved it. And it gives, and it's a biblical foundation to it, which we really love too. So I'm a big fan. I just feel like my book today, I, and so I started at actually in earnest, started in, so what did

Charlie: 1:37:50

you tell, what did you tell these publishers when you floated this idea with them and they said, eh, it just seems like this one. Why, would I

Kurt: 1:37:56

do yours? Yeah. There wasn't a whole lot of conversation. There was you what? There wasn't a whole lot of conversation. It was just like, no, thanks.

Charlie: 1:38:06

So, what do you do then? You say, you're telling me to write. Everybody's telling me to write a book. I wrote I, wrote a few chapters. I floated it. There's no interest.

Kurt: 1:38:13

I did the next, Right thing, which was, what's that? Just put it up on the shelf. And when God wanted to open the door to go write the book, he'd open that door and I'd walk through. Okay. And that's what happened at the beginning of 2021, really. And that's when I, in, in earnest, felt like we had now several more years under our belt, more graduated communities, more learning. And I felt like there was a different story that I wanted to tell from the first one that kind of coalesced in my head and. Yeah. And, I was able, I just my problem was getting from a blank piece of paper to something that I could expand on. So I, worked with a woman named Bethany Bratcher, who helped me take out of my head put into book format. And she gave, got me started on what I wanted to say and how I wanted to organize my thoughts and the points we were trying to make, and the stories that needed to be told. And then I took it from there and and, wrote it. To

Charlie: 1:39:16

the end, that question, I did have a question. It says there, there aren't there a lot of books on developing these developing communi how to do this development? Okay. And you're saying, yeah. In fact, it was one when helping her to the is, the the Bible of it all. But you're, I see what you're saying is the, reason for your book is that was a very fairly academic sort of view of things. Which wasn't incorrect, but Correct. But yours is really boot. This is how you apply this.

Kurt: 1:39:46

This is one of the ways to apply it. This is how we

Charlie: 1:39:48

Yeah. And it's really worked for us. And I've got proof. I'm not academic anymore. I'm, telling you what we did and I think what worked and what didn't work that's a

Kurt: 1:39:57

different view. The other significant difference is, or additional additive to it is, that there's this worldview focus. So it's like when helping hurts discipling nations, how do you actually go get people to start thinking about thinking differently so they can solve their own problems, they can continue their journey of development long after you leave. How do you redefine this war on poverty? What it means to win it, what it means for the people living in poverty and how do we redefine how we fight the battle together? That's what my book is.

Charlie: 1:40:30

I love that. So you got Discipling Nations, the oldest book, then you get to when Helping Hurts. Which takes the discipling nation which, takes a view of, it doesn't embrace discipling nations. Okay. It has, its, it's a standalone sort of philosophy, if you will. And then you come over with, if you really want to help, you really wanna help. And you bring all of those together and make it work. Try to, yeah. Who's your audience for

Kurt: 1:40:57

this? I think it's, who should read this book? I think it's the, quick answer is there's a kind of an insider group of any global missions pastor, anybody running a nonprofit, working in the, in, in poverty environments who are willing to step back from what they do and say, am I thinking about. Properly, am I incorporating this worldview shift idea? That is the only way, in my view, to sustain solutions for the poor over the long haul. Am I doing that? So that group of people, I think also we want, I want trip participants, people that are going and working with the poor to read it before they go so they have a better understanding of what they're facing. And that just because they have the money in their pocket that they think they can solve this problem. They really need to rethink how they define poverty, how they think about poverty, what those solutions are. Cuz I say more o I say so often that the greatest risk to our development model are short-term teams going into our communities because they get emotional, they see someone in need, they wanna solve that problem, and they don't think about, you can help, but if you really want to help, here's a way to help. The how we do it is critically important. So just pause. Don't get emotional and let's figure out how to make the local church the hero. How do we, do this in a proper way where you can still help, but you can do it in a healthy way? And then I think there's a, there's another audience that's a broader audience who I would love to just read my book and apply this idea of worldview driving choices. Choices, driving actions. Because on our side of the bridge, we have a worldview problem too. And it's not just as it relates to the poor, but we are being told lies every day. By the worldview you

Charlie: 1:42:49

mean our side of the bridge being America? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That was something I was gonna get into. This is interesting. You're bringing this up.

Kurt: 1:42:56

Yeah. I think we're being told you look

Charlie: 1:42:58

at the poor communities, the uneducated communities the, indigent that we have here in America, the homelessness issues that we're dealing with. It's, very broad. It is. Because I came back from Uganda and I was sudden like, what can I do to help in Atlanta? Yeah. And I didn't even know where to start, and one of my sons was very engaged in one of those communities and he finally broke his pick. He said, I don't know what to do. There's a guy in our church who every Sunday goes through this, community, a very bad community here in Atlanta. And he rounds up 10, 12 kids, puts'em on a bus, brings'em to church. And I said, what are you doing? He says I came out of a real com bad community in la Hispanic community. I almost got killed. The guy that got killed was somebody looked like me. They thought they were going after me. So I always felt like I needed to do something. So I don't know what to do. So I just pick'em up and bring them to the church. And the reason is I want them to see what life might be To get a view. So, speak to this. So how does, how might this, your book help in. On this side of the bridge in our communities. So who

Kurt: 1:44:16

should read it? Anybody running a, Anybody running a nonprofit? Working with the disadvantaged? Yeah. But even I can say disadvantaged, the poor, the homeless. I mean there's, a lot of systemic issues that we have on this side of the bridge that, that complicate that. Oh, baby.

Charlie: 1:44:36

Politically. Yeah. You don't have the government over there in Uganda giving people money. Exactly.

Kurt: 1:44:42

sorts of other issues. I, think I just want, I just, I hope that the book wides a platform for someone to sit back in their chair and think more critically about what they're doing. So in and of itself, this guy that's bringing these 10 or 12 kids out of that poor community and bringing the church in and of itself, that's not a bad thing. But where's the local church? With those kids. Why is D taking those kids to their church in their community, who can come alongside them inside their community and not take them outside where the, solution to their problem is this church outside their community? Again, it's really hard to be critical of that because it's not in and of itself a bad thing. But are we thinking critically about solutions that are really gonna help? That may be really

Charlie: 1:45:30

difficult. I think you gotta ask yourself the question, if you are him, is to say, am I doing this because it really makes me feel good? Or am I doing this because it's really having an impact on their lives?

Kurt: 1:45:42

And I would say it's probably having an impact on their lives, but is there a way to is there a better way? Is there a

Charlie: 1:45:47

better way? Yeah. Maybe a little bit more. I get it.

Kurt: 1:45:50

Okay. That's good. Again, I don't wanna be critical because there's a lot of people doing really great things, but stop and just, and think through, are you really helping or are you just doing the same things that you've been doing for decades? Without any outcome, without any proof that the outcomes are actually working. This is why I talk about our outcomes are what's important, not how many programs we run. No, that makes sense. Activities we undertake? Are we achieving the measurable outcomes that we want? I wish organization, one of the

Charlie: 1:46:17

things that I would recommend and you brought up this. Who should read the book? You you brought up one group and you said that so many of the so many churches and particularly large churches are sending people sending kids out in a lot of cases on these mission trips. I just got somebody who's got a son who's gone on the mission trip and he said, my son needs to raise whatever the number was,$2,200 or whatever to go on this trip. The total trip is gonna cost$54,000 or something and I look at that and I go, wow that's a lot of money. But the guy said, who sent it to me, a friend, he said, when I want an admission trip it really changed my perspective on the world and on life. So it had that impact on him, and he's really excited that his son is going. I would recommend that your book be given to each one of those kids as they're getting back on the plane to come back to America. Not before. After. Maybe, in other words, I lived it, I'm sitting in it, look, you get this free book now you're saying, and it says, and it asks you, do you really wanna help? Because now I have something to compare it against. Yeah. And I think that it would have amazing impact and, develop some really great world

Kurt: 1:47:42

leaders. Yeah. We're putting, I'm putting the, I'm writing a, small group curriculum attached to the book at this currently where it's on poverty and it's this group experiential small group curriculum. So that'll be coming out in the next few months. Study plans, you version reading plans discussion plans, all to get the dialogue for people who are going to stop. And again and just reflect on Yeah. But if you can get these people called Charlie to help the poor, We're, but we're not called to to support the poor. We're, here to help the poor. And as much time in my view, it's much of that has to do with how that impacts us as it does the poor. And so that's why when we send teams and we send lots of teams from lots of churches, partners to going into our communities, it's a very relational thing. It's not about what we're going off to do. It's about who we're doing it with and can we have this, can we create this experience, cross-cultural experience where both sides of the bridge see God at work in new and exciting ways. We develop our worldview. We, love on each other. We do things, but it's not about what we do, it's about who we do it with. Yeah. Instead of being a doer of going over there and wanting to be a doer, we want people to go over there and. And that's an amazing discipleship opportunity. A lot of people say to me all the time, where you were going, he said we're gonna spend$55,000 on this trip. Wouldn't it be better if we just sent the money over there? And I'm like, no it wouldn't be. Now, in some cases it would be because some organizations are doing it so poorly and perpetuating the problem and actually disempowering people that they're going to serve, that it probably would be better not to send their people. But if you do it right, the kingdom is an, is a much better place because of it. But you gotta do it right. And it, and then, and again it's, more difficult. It's requires more training. It requires more discussion and more preparation for the community. And I'm a big fan because if I didn't go for that first trip to Bali four 10 Bridge wouldn't have happened. And we've, impacted hundreds of thousands of people over the last 17 years. That's that's been really helpful. But if I hadn't gone and seen and experienced and made all those mistakes

Charlie: 1:50:05

Yeah. But I love it that God got a hold of your heart and convicted you that you need to solve this problem. It's, a business, an entrepreneur's view is they see problems and we see problems. There's problems everywhere in our lives. They surround us, but every once in a while an entrepreneur goes, that's important that we should, I know how to solve that. And that's how it gets started. I'll get started one step at a time. So you're a heck of an entrepreneur. So what's the next decade look for four 10. What's the next decade look like for four 10 Bridge?

Kurt: 1:50:35

That's a good question. I would say we

Charlie: 1:50:39

this will bring you to your 25th

Kurt: 1:50:40

anniversary. Yeah, Wow. It's not the years, it's the miles. But yeah, I would say that we'll, expand into some, we're already looking at expanding into some more, countries, but in, we've been invited into new, countries, so I'm excited about that. I think we'll continue to refine and grow our current methodology to get better at it. But at the end of the day, I think this isn't as much about us going and helping one or 10 or 12 more communities. To me, it really is about being a disruption to this poverty space and changing the paradigm of how the West engages the poor so that other organizations stop doing what's not helpful, start doing what really helps, and then we can have a bigger, broader kingdom impact. Because we, learned very early on that we can't be successful over there without support from the West. We, need money and resources to do what we do, but we also can't be successful in what we do until we change the paradigm of how the West engages the poor because how we define it, how we, the solutions that we put in place if we continue to define poverty as a financial problem, our solutions are gonna be all financial. And that is not gonna solve, in my view, the poverty problem. So I spent a lot of my time doing this. That's why I wrote this.

Charlie: 1:52:02

I think this is, I think this is it's a good view. I'll give you a view that I give sometimes to entrepreneurs, and these are entrepreneurs that might build a 200 million company, okay? And they think wow, we're a really big company. And from a corporate viewpoint, they're basically a successful pilot. okay? That's how corporate looks at, I am a 260, about 200 billion company or something. And you tell me I got this 200 billion organization. And they go yeah, it's nice. and those are the companies they buy because they see now that product and that idea solving that problem works, now we can incorporate it into our bigger organization. And that's what you are trying to, you have a successful pilot on how to do development in how to serve the porn, developing comp countries. That's a now can, will they adopt it?

Kurt: 1:53:05

It's amazing that you just said that because I met with a mutual friend this morning. Okay. That's the exact words that he used, was the word pilot. You have Oh, it was, oh my gosh. Okay. You've got these pilots and and he's, helping me work through again this, is about a movement and, it's about really, changing how the west approaches the poor with proof of these pilots that they work. Now go and scale it. I, can't, I'm not gonna scale four 10 to 200 million ministry. I just, that's not what I feel like I'm called to do. But I, do feel like we can do a much better job globally of engaging the poor if we just on this side, rethink how we do it, define it better, rethink our methodology, and again, separate what we give and how we give it from our need to feel good about ourselves. I

Charlie: 1:53:59

got two more questions and we'll end this and I'll let you go. one is, so how I, wanna make sure that people understand or listen to this, how they might, what your need is financially for 10 Bridge and how they might

Kurt: 1:54:13

help. Yeah we got needs, financial needs for sure. Everything that we have to do our work is sacrificially given by, people who are generous. And because

Charlie: 1:54:26

you're not an organization that generates

Kurt: 1:54:27

revenue. We do not. We, know we, have not, significant. We try to do some sustainability things. Mike, what's your budget? We're at about five and a half million,

Charlie: 1:54:37

so you need to raise five and a half million dollars. Virtually. We need to, that's how much you need

Kurt: 1:54:43

to get in Seven and a half, but,

Charlie: 1:54:44

okay. Seven and a half. Okay.

Kurt: 1:54:46

We're growing. Okay. We wanna go do more and we want to, there's so many more things we can go do, but so we we would love people to, one, to pray for our ministry would be is, just a great place to start. We need, we covered people's prayers for the people that we serve, for our staff, especially our staff on the ground. They're on the front lines, so prayer would be great to help us financially. We'd be really grateful for that. They can go to four 10 bridge.org and and, help us financially. Sponsoring a child is a great way to stay engaged with our ministry because we've redefined. That child sponsorship program and where you may have a one-to-one relationship with a child that you're walking with on their journey of development as they're going through school, but the resources go to lift the holistic development of that child and all of the children in that community. It's not an unhealthy one-to-one help to that child. So that's another thing they can go do. And I'd really, I think there's nothing better that somebody can do than to walk along the side, the life of a child as they're, yeah, growing up. And tell their friends about the book. Read the book see how you can engage. If your church is partnering with four 10, I think you need to go see it. You need to go serve people who can never serve you back. And that's another way to go do that or, to help.

Charlie: 1:56:10

I love that. So as I, I had, my last question was is what about you what does your next decade look like? But sounds a bit like one of the answers that you gave me was, I need to be the evangelist for this pilot that we've created, the successful pilot.

Kurt: 1:56:26

That's what I see. I, think we, do a really good job. We do, we, I think we do a really good job in on multiple fronts. We're not certainly far from perfect, but I think one of the things that we do well is our methodology for the poor. But the other one is on this side of the bridge, partnering with the North American Church. And I'm spending more and more of my time these days coaching, teaching, rebuking, encouraging the, North American, the global missions within the North American church to get better at mission. And and so I think that's probably over the next 10 years, I'll probably do less and less of the four 10 bridge. Operator. And more and more of being the op ambassador for if you really want to help. Cuz if you really want to help we gotta change some things.

Charlie: 1:57:17

I think that's, that is where you are. I do think that this that you need to be that ambassador because you're onto something that has certainly proven to be successful. And I appreciate, I wish you the, best with the book. I love the advice that you finally give us which is serve people who can't serve themselves.

Kurt: 1:57:37

no yet can't serve.

Charlie: 1:57:39

Can't serve you back, rather. They can serve themselves because your philosophy or your principle is development starts with you. Exactly. Exactly. Not with somebody on the outside, boy, I learned so much. I learned a lot reading your book and, but this has been a, real joy, spending time with you and I know

Kurt: 1:57:58

my pleasure, Charlie. I appreciate you. I appreciate you letting me on. Yeah.

Charlie: 1:58:01

I'll tell you, I know the entrepreneurs that listen to this and I'll end with this, Kurt, if you just hang on for a second before we cut off. But to the entrepreneurs that listen to this this is there's so many lessons that can be learned for what Kurt has accomplished here. You're on to something as an entrepreneur when a problem, you see it and you just can't let go of it and you just have to chase it and people will start coming around you. It will start working, it will start growing, and all you have to do is what he said God wants him to do, which is the next. Right thing. So thanks for joining us and I hope to see you in a future interview.

Kurt: 1:58:41

Thanks, Charles.