Lahash Staff/Board Retreat

Our Portland staff and Board just returned from a great weekend to Hood River, Oregon where we spent time visioning, praying, and hearing reports on progress across East Africa. The photo above - from left to right shows: Dan & Erin Holcomb, Leisha Adams, Kristy and Joel Strong, Liz Harrison, Benhard Obiero, Lyla Peterson, Doug Hazen, and Cathy and Clark Blakeman.

We've been growing rapidly these past few years, and it was essential that we take some time to analyze where we've been and where we are headed as a community. In this time we heard reports from the following people:

• Lyla Peterson: Our health initiatives with our partners and where we are headed over the next several years
• Leisha Adams: She just returned from Tanzania with our partner conference in Dodoma and provided us with summaries of the projects and strengths/weaknesses
• Dan Holcomb: I shared on the over state of the involvement, donations, travelers, and the past and present of the movement
• Joel Strong: Joel's been designing this amazing database which is going to assist us immensely in our various partnerships

We also had some group discussions, and were assisted in our cultural understandings by our friend Benhard Obiero who is from Kenya. For lunch on Saturday, Obi also directed a crew of half a dozen cooks in preparing a delicious Kenyan meal of Sukuma, Ugali, Rice, Cabbage, Chicken, and of course Cokes!
It's been amazing working with each of you partners, travelers, and friends over the past several years as we take on the task of providing essential love and care for East Africa's most vulnerable. We had some success, some failures, and learn many things along the way. We see small miracles of God at each step along the way, and we pray that he will continue to guide us as we move forward.

Please pray for us as we take steps to ensure sustainability, greater accountability, better training, deeper spiritual discipleship, more cultural sensitivity, & a unified vision and message over the next 5 years.