Cornerstone Haiti Beginnings – First Two Years

After dating for two days and being engaged for five months, Jesse and I got married May 11, 2013. We spent the summer being married, taking odd jobs, serving our church community, preparing for Haiti and planning our fundraising trip. Oh! And did I mention we were pregnant a month and a half into marriage? Yes… yes we were.

After we got rid of most of our belongings, we set off on a month-long road trip asking family, friends and church connections if they would invest into the life we wanted to establish in Haiti. There were many brave souls who generously committed to give monthly or gave a one-time gift to make it possible.

We landed in Haiti on October 23, 2013, five months married, four months pregnant and having only a slight idea of where we were living and what we were doing. We wouldn’t necessarily suggest this way of going on mission, but also we 100% would if that is what God is asking of you. For us we knew that we knew that we knew that God told us to go. He didn’t necessarily give us all the details, but He set up the clear path. The only thing you can do in that scenario is try it out. We see in part and we know in part (1 Corinthians 13:9) and God is more than delighted in the process of us learning His voice. His goal is always to draw us near, so we lean in to hear His voice and step out in faith by obeying.

We headed up to Gwo Cheval, our new mountain home and spent the first two years unlearning. Yup… we had a WHOLE lot to unlearn when it came to our own cultural bias, church family, the Kingdom of God and what it actually means to love a community. Again, Jesus is delighted in our growth journey and loves breaking down a whole lot of things we think we know in order to give us His perspective (which is ALWAYS way better than ours). We went in thinking that we were going to be heroes and “do so much for these poor people,” but quickly realized that God was asking us to shut our mouths, get to know the community and build relationships.

This community had been praying for years for God to send them help.

This community had been established for decades before Jesse and I were even born.

This community had God-given dreams on their hearts to see happen, but didn’t have the resources.

We needed to come in low and slow… in humility and with a heart to learn. We’re still learning how to do this, but God is so wildly patient and kind with us.

The first two years were filled with learning the language and culture, building and establishing our home, having two babies, building community and hosting some small teams for building projects, church conferences and medical clinics. We had no clear vision other than that we wanted to help take care of the needs around us. It was overwhelming to say the least, but we did our best to hear God’s voice and say “yes” where He was saying “yes.” We didn’t always get it right and made plenty of mistakes, but we learned. Again, God delights in our process.

We came to a head of frustration though… we felt the lack of vision deeply and felt that we were spinning our wheels so to speak and not really establishing anything solid. A saying from the book “Circle Maker” by Mark Batterson stuck out to us.

Pray Hard.

Dream Big.

Think Long.

In our prayers, were we dreaming big with God? Were we thinking about the long-term effect that we were having on our beloved community of Gwo Cheval? Our answers to those questions were ‘not really.’ So we asked God to change that. We didn’t just want to put band aids on the issues we were seeing around us, but we wanted to engage in the hard work of long-term solutions to the poverty on our doorstep. So what was the big dream on God’s heart? What was our part to play?

We felt His answer so deeply – “Focus on the next generation.”

Cornerstone Haiti Beginnings – The Lancours

Now this next part of the story is about how Jesse and I became “The Lancours” – our “love story” if you will. You might be wondering - what does this really have to do with the beginning of Cornerstone Haiti? - but God bringing us together in the way that He did, speaks so much to the pattern of how God has established Cornerstone Haiti and continues to lead us.

Now a little context…

Jesse and I both experienced very intense seasons of healing and refinement in our early 20’s before we even met. We both had our eyes and hearts locked on Jesus as much as we knew how and spent several years of deepening our connection with God. We surrendered all the areas of life that we knew to surrender! That journey still continues of course, but there was a lot of significant repentance and healing in the area of relationships and how we each viewed marriage during that time.

I needed to stop idolizing marriage and have a shift in my beliefs. Marriage would not ultimately bring identity, purpose or fulfill my deepest desires… only Jesus can do that. That would be way too much pressure to put on a husband!  Jesse needed to view marriage differently. The worldly view of women, sex and marriage that had taken hold of his mind needed to be restructured into a Kingdom view. A wife is not there to only please or serve… she is there to partner. Marriage is to be an example of Christ and the Church. Praise God for how He exposed harmful mindsets and belief systems in both of us before He brought us together! There is so much more I could say on this topic, but this is not the time nor place for all that.

Another important thing to note is that both Jesse and I were praying that God would simply show us who our spouse was. We were both believing for a miracle. We wanted to intentionally pursue marriage and be on mission as soon as we could. But the mission would happen for both of us whether that be married or single… we were individually leaving that up to God.

Back to the story. Jesse and I had been in the same church family for a little over a year and a half at this point. We didn’t interact much, but we observed each other. We had been on a couple trips together into Haiti and knew that the other person was going to move there with the hope of it being long-term. I was developing feelings for him, but he was showing no interest, so I just kept moving toward Haiti single. But one night after a birthday party I hosted, God spoke clearly to Jesse that I was to be his wife. Wild, huh? He waited a month on God allowing his heart to open toward me, seeking wise counsel before moving forward. He wanted to confirm this was not “just emotions” while weighing the decision of marriage and committing to me in covenant. Hallelujah - the grace of God was flowing and Jesse chose to dive in! One November evening in 2012 during a “Team Haiti” meeting… which was just me and him by the way… Jesse asked to pursue me for marriage. I said “yes” and two days later he proposed.

Now this is a very condensed version of the story BUT what I want to highlight here is the process that we have seen play out over and over again in our lives. We have experienced it in the smallest and biggest of ways, but it seems to hold a very similar pattern.

Conviction – God puts his finger on an area of our heart or life that needs changing.

Repentance – we choose to turn from that thing to God.

Surrender – we give it to Him and ask Him to help us change.

Direction – He shows us the way forward.

Obedience – we step out in faith, doing what we believe He is asking us to do.

Joy – we see change, restoration, provision, healing, reconciliation… and in this specific case a beautifully adventurous start to marriage.

Our wedding was set for May and our move to Haiti for October.

2013 was going to be a great year!

Cornerstone Haiti Beginnings: The Two “Blan”

Pastor Markes had a dream he believed was from God that a group of twenty “blan” (whites) would visit their village and that two from that group would stay to live with them and bless their community. When Cornerstone Church Milwaukee showed up with a group of all “blan” he just knew that two from that group would come to live with them.

Those two were Jesse and me (Kirsten)… though we didn’t know it at the time. And we definitely didn’t know that we would be joining the Gwo Cheval community together only 19 months later being five months married and four months pregnant! God works in some wild ways! But I’m getting ahead of myself… let me back up a little bit.

In January of 2010 an absolutely devastating 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit the densely populated and poorly constructed capital city of Port-au-Prince (the epicenter was 16 miles southwest in Leogane). Upon seeing this on the news Jesse’s heart cried out in intercessory prayer for the people of Haiti. He had never before felt such a heartache or deep connection with a people group before. Being a newly devoted follower of Jesus, he knew he had to do something. His church family, Cornerstone Church Milwaukee (now MIX), was planning a trip to the southern part of Haiti in March and although he couldn’t go due to another trip commitment, Jesse put a check with “Haiti Trip” in the memo into the church offering. He couldn’t go, but he wanted to be part of the sending.

A month or so later the pastor reached out giving Jesse details about the trip including his non-refundable, non-transferable plane ticket to Haiti. Talk about miscommunication! Or was it God’s divine hand, leading Jesse to the land He was calling him to? Through a string of miracles, Jesse was able to find a replacement for the other trip commitment and got the rest of the funds to go on his first trip to Haiti. During that trip God spoke clearly to his heart that he was to stop pursuing his engineering degree and begin taking Bible and ministry classes in preparation to go into full-time missions in Haiti. From 2010-2013 Jesse made 10 short-term trips to Haiti through Cornerstone Church, making connections, learning more of the culture and preparing to launch full-time.

While God was doing this deep work in Jesse, He was also encountering me (Kirsten) in powerful ways during my junior and senior years of college. I knew I wanted to do foreign missions since I was a little girl, but God was taking time to purify this desire. I had two different mission experiences during college, one to Haiti in 2008 and one to Argentina in 2010, where God continued cultivating my heart’s “yes” to Him.

Upon graduating from college in 2011 with my nursing degree, I moved with my oldest brother and his family near Milwaukee, WI. After leaving a tight-knit Christian community in college, I knew it was important to find a local church family to join. With help from my mom and sister-in-law’s google searches, I found myself at Cornerstone Church Milwaukee, a small church near UW-Milwaukee that met in a night club on Sunday afternoons. This mostly twenty-something group was passionate about Jesus and seeing the world be impacted and brought closer to Him. I immediately felt that these were “my people.”

My first trip to Haiti with Cornerstone Church Milwaukee was the March 2012 trip that confirmed Pastor Makes’ dream. Jesse had already been moving toward ministry and life in Haiti, but it was on this trip that God spoke clearly to me that Haiti was the country I was called to.

So we have the dream and now the two “blan.” What needed to come next? There was a “yes” on both of our hearts to abandoning everything to Jesus. There was a “yes” toward the people of Haiti. There was a “yes” about committing to full-time ministry. But before the “yes” of moving countries and settling in roots, God wanted to cultivate a “yes” in our hearts toward each other.

Part three coming soon…

Cornerstone Haiti Beginnings: Prayers and a Dream

For decades Pastor Makes Ulysse has been pastoring a small congregation in the mountains of Gwo Cheval, Haiti. One prayer this church family had was that God would send help to their community. Being a farming community with limited transportation (think mostly donkeys and mules) and far from any big city, access to healthcare and good education seemed a dream. But this small community (and other church communities in the area) kept praying that God would see them, hear their cry and send help. They believed God had more for them than simply survival.

The first way God answered that prayer was when a medical clinic run by the Mennonite church was established in the neighboring village of Oriani in 2010. Hallelujah! Though limited in medication and medical procedures, this clinic brought much needed knowledge and care. They were even able to provide ambulance services down the mountain to the closest hospitals (3-5 hours away… depending on road conditions on the mountains and traffic in the city). And the community was thankful and cried out for more.

In 2011 Pastor Makes had a dream that a group of twenty “blan” (whites) would come and visit their remote mountain village and that two from that group would end up living with their community and bring much needed resources and help. In March of 2012 a team of twenty(ish) mostly twenty-somethings from a small church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin came for a visit (how this connection even happened is another story for anther time). This vibrant, on fire for Jesus crew were driven up the breathtaking mountains of southeast Haiti in the back of pick-up trucks on three hours of winding, cliff-hugging, rocky roads to find themselves arriving at the tiny church of Makes Ulysse. To say that Makes and congregation were beside themselves excited for this group to be there is quite the understatement. God told them in a dream and so they knew it would happen… now the question is, which two of this group would be joining their community?

Jesse and I (Kirsten) were on that trip. And although we weren’t anywhere close to being married or dreaming of a life together establishing a ministry in Gwo Cheval  – God was planting seeds of a deep, deep love in our hearts for the enthusiastic Pastor Makes and their small, but mighty church community. God was just about ready to fulfill the dream He gave to Makes so that Jesus would be glorified and that His children in Gwo Cheval would know that He see, hears, cares and acts.

This was the beginning of Cornerstone Haiti.

(Stay on the lookout for more of the story!)

Educating Generational Leaders

Cornerstone School of Truth is not something we even planned to start, but praise God it was on His heart for our community of Gwo Cheval!

When we (the Lancours) moved to Gwo Cheval in 2013 we had a “working vision” of why God wanted us there… ok it was unclear, messy and unfocused, but praise God He uses the weak things to confound the wise! After about two years living with and learning from our community we were a bit confused as to what our next steps were to be. We felt like we weren’t really helping our community in the long-term ways we were hoping to. And then God dropped the idea onto our hearts, into our minds and confirmed it through our local community. We were to love, educate and raise up the next generation in our community to teach them that they are loved, their ideas change culture and their education brings freedom.

God set the plan in motion and we began raising funds, ordering supplies and connecting with some mentor missionaries in Port-au-Prince who had been running a preschool for several years. Their pre-school (Maranatha) was the inspiration and example that became the foundation for Cornerstone School of Truth. We are so deeply thankful for their leadership and help in those beginning years!

As we started building our staff, we hired the four most loving mamas we knew from our church: three as teachers and one as the cook. These women were crucial in the well-being of our family as we first started settling into Haiti – they had been the ones to house us, cook for us, do our laundry and patiently help us learn Creole. These women had come to trust and respect us and we had come to trust and respect them. We also saw that they shared the love of Jesus with not just adults, but also the children around them.

We took on 25 students in our 3 levels of Preschool that first September of 2016 when Cornerstone School of Truth (Pyè Angilè nan Verite). Maranatha had hosted our small team for training the school year before and sent up three of their best during our first week of school to make sure we started off well. What a beautiful partnership! They were such a strong support to our new team.

We learned so much that first year! And we learned so much the year after that, and the year after that, and as you may guess with every year comes new territory and new learning.

After that first year with 25 students we grew our team as the classes moved up and we welcomed 10 more two-year-olds into the primary level of Preschool. With every year we move forward we welcome more students and more team members into the CST family.

From 25 students, 3 classes and 4 staff members at the beginning, to now 146 students, 10 classes and 31 staff members. That’s 8 years of discipleship with our staff, building hope for students and their families and establishing a true cornerstone in our community where people experience the love of God and His faithfulness like never before! We are in awe of how God has moved, shifted, grown and provided for Cornerstone School of Truth. We are in our 9th year of school with so many more dreams to pursue. We continue to unwrap and discover what God is doing as we trust Him and partner with Him as He does more than we could ever ask, think or imagine!

Hallelujah for the growing testimony of Cornerstone School of Truth in Gwo Cheval, Haiti!

Cornerstone School of Truth

The 2023/2024 school year officially wrapped up with the graduation of our 6th graders and the celebration of all that God has done this year. It has been a tough year for many reasons, but we continue to praise God for His faithfulness through it all!

The graduation of our 6th graders is a milestone for Cornerstone School of Truth. This event signifies the passing on of continued CST expansion into the hands of our national administrative team. Though we (Jesse & Kirsten Lancour) will continue to oversee CST Preschool and Elementary programs, we are excited to encourage and support our team as they continue with the vision God has placed on their hearts for a high school in the Gwo Cheval community.

The impact that Cornerstone School of Truth is having on our community of Gwo Cheval is more than we realize. Even with the current state of Haiti, our students continue to find nourishment mentally, spiritually and physically throughout the week. Our staff continues to grow, earn a monthly salary and step more into who God has created them to be. Student families are met with the love and truth of Jesus as they engage with our school community and invest in the future of their children. CST has become a foundational institution in our community and our commitment is that it will continue to be so.

Only God can do this type of thing. Cornerstone School of Truth is a miracle. It is a testimony of the power, grace, provision, patience, kindness, and love of our Perfect Father. Praise God with us as He is the One who has done exceedingly, abundantly more than we asked thought or imagined according to His power at work within us! (Ephesians 3:20)

We continue to move forward with hope and expectancy of the “more” that He has in store for our community of Gwo Cheval. Surrender and partnership with Jesus is the only way to see His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10)

Thank you Jesus for all you have done and all you will do! Amen.

Salvation & Healing

Sonithe, one of our leaders, shared a beautiful gospel testimony with me about one of our CST families. First some background: San Bouda, used to be a voodoo leader - he was the one you would call on if you wanted a séance to happen. He had a real connection with the evil spirits. His daughter Cathialove was a student in our school until she tragically died from a sickness during her Kindergarten year. San Bouda decided that since his voodoo gods couldn’t heal his daughter he would come check out Jesus at our church. God encountered His heart, he gave his life to Jesus and has been following Jesus for a few years now - hallelujah! Now to the current testimony - his son Wikenson is now in our kindergarten class. In December of last year, Wikenson became very ill and was close to death (sound familiar?). From his waist up his body was swollen and he was bed ridden. San Bouda’s family urged him to return to the voodoo ceremonies to see if his son could be healed. San Bouda responded with eternity in his heart, “I’d rather have Wikenson die and remain in Jesus than return to the darkness.” Our school staff and church began praying for Wikenson. One man received wisdom from God and gathered some local herbs and made a tea. When Wikenson drank the remedy he vomited out what apparently was some kind of poison. During three days of continued prayer, the swelling in his body moved from his upper body down to his legs and then left him completely. He has returned to full health and I was able to run and play with this joyful son of God who is destined for greatness.

Praise God for salvation and healing!!

February Haiti Trip

**Due to the current state of Haiti and the Lord’s leading we (the Lancour Family) have not been back to our Haiti home as a family since September of 2022. Jesse has taken four trips back during our time away and the following is his update from his most recent trip.

Arriving at our home in Haiti used to be a "simple" 3 ½ hour drive from the capital out to Gwo Cheval, our mountain village. Now we avoid gang territory by traveling through the Dominican Republic for a day and then driving the beautiful yet rigorous 3 ½ hours up the mountain to our house. Our truck in Haiti hasn’t been able to get all the required maintenance it needs so some friends of ours picked me up at the border and drove me to our Haiti home.

During the week our property is beaming with life. Students running, playing, learning, swinging, falling. Teachers corralling, helping, preparing, teaching. Lunch ladies washing, rinsing, laughing, hauling. Administrators typing, meeting, counting, dreaming. When I arrived late afternoon, just a handful of people remained but I knew the significance of what was happening on that holy ground day after day. Jesus was there. He was the joy in that day’s recess. He was the wisdom in that day’s lessons. He was the hope for tomorrow in the heart of our students. He was the provision of food on the table and water in the basin. He is what makes Cornerstone Haiti’s campus a city set on a hill that brings glory to our Father in heaven.

I was welcomed into our home by a lot of dust and mold growth. After removing a layer off of most things I was also welcomed by the presence of the Lord there and a deep desire for our whole family to be in that home again. There is so much work to be done in maintaining our home and the school facilities, one day we’ll catch up.

A clear message that Jesus gave me to share was part of the history of one of Haiti’s founding fathers, Toussaint L’Ouverture. He was a slave that received freedom and in his leading of the revolution still had compassion for his enemies. This led him later to be captured by Napoleon who sent him to prison in France to die. Jesus has freedom in store for Haiti, He’s eagerly waiting for His church to “Preach…the unsearchable riches of Christ…to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places” Eph 3:9-10.

My 12 days in Gwo Cheval were full of connection and joyful embraces, mutual honor and love, encouragement and vision for our future. God has begun a mighty work in our midst and I feel as though we are just now scratching the surface of His plans and desires. I will continue defining success through our collective awareness of Immanuel, God actually with us, and not a western view of success which tends to neglect the heart of a people. In that measure of success, I think we are right on track! We praise You Jesus!

All for Him,

Jesse Lancour
Co-Founder & President of Cornerstone Haiti

Endurance

The past several months have been more draining than usual. Part of that is because there seems to be no relief from gang violence in sight as kidnappings and gang wars continue to rage on, making certain parts of Haiti very high risk and other parts of Haiti simply more difficult. Part of it is the pressure of the continually increasing cost of living for an already extremely poor nation. Part of it is that locally we are the only missionary family still full-time in the area, which brings definite loneliness from time to time. And another part of it is keeping hope alive for all that God has put on our hearts to see happen in our community even though it seems like “bad news” just keeps flowing. So in light of all of this, the question that was rising in our hearts was “how do we keep going? Move forward? Endure?”

Galatians 6:9 “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

At the beginning of June our family had the great honor and privilege of going to a missionary conference at a beautiful all-inclusive resort in Cancun, Mexico. Talk about a totally different world than our mountains of Gwo Cheval, Haiti! There were luxurious rooms and pools and ocean and fun for the kids and all sorts of delicious foods to enjoy at any time of day! We got to reconnect with some dear friends of ours (also missionaries in Haiti just a different part and because of gang activity we haven’t been able to hang out in person) and we got to meet SO many like-hearted missionaries from all across the world. There were sessions of worship and teaching and prayer ministry as well as a “kids’ club” during those times so that us adults could concentrate a little bit more. It was literally a dream come true for us. But the thing that we were looking forward to the most, was hearing from the speakers who had been scheduled to be there.

The ones who shared have been missionaries on the field for 30+ and 40+ years… and still actually love God and people. We have met a few very long-term missionaries before, but most seem completely drained and very angry. But these men and women love Jesus and love people and have given their lives to do what God has told them to do. How do we end up like THAT? What is the secret? What are the “5 steps” to staying long-term on the mission field? How do we avoid burn out? How do we keep our marriage and family healthy? How do we keep loving the people we serve day in and day out? How do we find joy in the hard and mundane? How do we keep going? The truth they shared was simple and yet deeply life-giving.

Know God more.

That’s it. That’s what it all boiled down to.

Each one told this group of a couple hundred full-time, over 5 years on the field missionaries in their own unique ways that the only way to endure in ministry… and really in life… is to know God more. To seek His face. To get in His presence. To see that as you know God more, you’ll realize that there is so much more to know of Him. And then at the end of every session we all sought God together. We cried out for Him to meet with us… to strengthen our hearts… to bring healing to our aching souls… to wash over us with His Holy presence… to help us drink deeply of His living water. And you know what? God met with us. He opened our hearts to deeper revelations of who He is… our perfect Heavenly Father. Our Savior. Our King. Our Counselor. Our Mighty God. Our Peace that passes all understanding. Our Justice. Our Strength. Our Endurance.

And so we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. We give everything we are FIRST to knowing Him, seeking His kingdom, learning to abide. We soak in His presence, lean in to learn His voice more clearly, immerse ourselves in His Word. We endure only by His strength. We surrender ourselves fully to Him and embrace all that it means to pick up our cross for the joy set before us. Only to Him, through Him and by Him can we endure and walk fully in the calling He has placed on our lives. God is calling each one of us to lean more fully into Himself… to walk in obedience by His grace… to keep moving forward by His strength... to endure.

1 Corinthians 15:58  “Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

Privilege

Not too long ago our almost three year old daughter was having some respiratory issues. She was losing her voice and started having some pretty heavy wheezing in her breathing. It didn’t affect her much during the day, but was getting worse at night until one night she woke at about three in the morning crying and trying to catch her breath. If we had been in the States I would have definitely taken her to the ER in order to get a breathing treatment, but in the early morning hours in the mountains of Haiti, prayer and home remedies are pretty much your only move. We prayed, used essential oils, coached her in breathing, snuggled her and prayed some more. She was able to calm down and then I slept mostly upright with her in our recliner until the sun came up. The next morning we called the Haitian MD at our local clinic and asked if we could borrow their nebulizer equipment and supplies to give Felicity some breathing treatments before bed to help her sleep better and get over this virus faster. The doctor was eager to help and we sent a friend of ours to pick up the supplies by “moto” and had them within an hour. I set up the equipment and gave her a treatment which immediately helped decrease wheezing, helping her breathe easier. We praised God and went about our day filled with gratitude as well as a deep sense of just how privileged we are.

I know not everyone likes to hear or even think about the reality that privilege exists, but it does and it comes in many shapes and forms. It includes race, socio-economic status, country of origin, family connections… so many things. For us, being white Americans raised in the middle class of the midwest, we received the opportunity for higher education… our privilege goes beyond what our neihbors and community in Haiti can imagine! Even in the story that I shared above, the only reason we had the local Haitian doctor’s phone number is because we are friends with the Americans who run the clinic. And the only reason she took our phone call is because of the position we carry in the community which comes from being American. The reason she just went ahead and sent over all the nebulizer supplies with only an explination of what was going on with our daughter is because she knew that we are educated and would know how to give the treatment. We had the money to pay someone to go and pick up the supplies for us. We had the reasoning and research ability to figure out what was going on with Felicity in the first place. I could continue to go on and on, but the reality is that even in this difficult and at times scary situation, being privileged helped it go better for us. This would not be the situation for the general Haitian person in our community.

Now, should I feel bad about the fact that I’m privilged? No. Feeling bad about it doesn’t help our neighbors. I am truly thankful for the privilige that I live in and at the same time I recognize that my experience is not the same as most of the other people in our Haitian community (or really world for that matter). But the question I have been asking myself and need to continue asking myself is how can I use privilege and I would say God-given privilege to elevate those around me? In the areas that I am “blessed,” how can I be a blessing?

In Matthew 25:14-30 Jesus tells the parable of the talents – a wealthy manager (God) entrusts varying amounts of money (talents/gifts/position/privilege) to three servants (His kids) and goes away on a trip. When he gets back from his absence he checks in on His servants and is pleased with the two who brought increase to His kingdom, but is furious with the one who, though he didn’t lose any money, brought no increase. This applies to so many different areas in our lives, but I would suggest that overall it can apply to the privilege (no matter what degree) that we carry on our individual lives. We are not supposed to “bury” the gifts God has given us (influence, ability to create wealth, social status – privilege), but are to use it to help, elevate, honor and bless those around us who are not in the same position. This is one major way to bring increase to God’s “wealth”, to establish more of His kingdom on the earth until the day we see Him face to face.  The way of the world is to bury the talents God gave us and keep them only for ourselves trying to eliminate risk in our lives. We are convinced that it is more blessed to save than to give when our Lord Himself demonstrated and commanded the opposite. 2 Corinthians 8:9 says that ‘though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.’ I don’t want to selfishly hold on to all that I have been given. I want others to benefit from what God, by His grace, has poured out on my life so that they might know Him better and live how He desires them to live. I want all of the privilege that I live in to be an increase to the Kingdom of God in every way. This is part of what it means to follow Jesus. So let’s be grateful for how our “talents” make our lives better but more importantly focus on others and use them to increase the kingdom of God in every way!

-Kirsten