Providing Counsel

Originally published in The Global Voice, Volume 13: Issue 3, March 2015. You can read the whole edition here.

Proverbs 11:14 Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.

This Proverb relates societal failures to people being without guidance. The text also states that safety can be experienced when there are an abundance of counselors.

As a development organization, the work that we do to build structures, assist schools, and provide food and water often gets the most attention. While such things are wonderful, and very beneficial to those who both receive the service and perform it, the human development work that we do is the most rewarding and sustainable.

According to this Proverb, counselors are necessary as a societal safeguard. We would be narrowing the text to interpret it as solely emotional guidance; it doesn’t have this limitation on it. Instead, the phrase “abundance of counselors” seems to imply that a society that utilizes systems of accountability to provide counsel for various endeavors will experience a form of safety.

People within our organization have developed specific capacities that allow them to give a perspective of wisdom to those who desire to do well in their society. Some of our people provide entrepreneurial counsel, maternal health counsel, guidance on food production, marital counsel, counseling to overcome addiction, guidance counseling for navigating difficult decisions, and more.

In this edition of the Global Voice, we will look at what Clark and Rina Miller are doing as our full-time development agents in the Philippines. Both of them are involved in some form of counseling; Clark for unschooled youth, and Rina for mothers-to-be.

By sharing what wisdom God gives us in our various fields, we can all bring a safeguard to our societies, and ensure the kind of security that maintains our life and health.