Want you to interview mother Teresa for our book. In the course of

that interview with mother Teresa, she turned the tables on me, and

she simply asked this question. Young man, let me ask

you, what are you doing to help the poor and the suffering?

And I figured I shouldn't lie to her. I need to tell her the truth.

And so I did, and I said, I'm not really doing much of anything.

And she replied this way. She said, well, everyone can do

something. Just do the next kind thing that God puts in front of

you.

What drives a person to tackle global poverty and hunger head

on? Today, we're joined by Hal Donaldson, president and

CEO of Convoy of Hope, a faith based organization

recognized by Forbes as one of the top 50 charities in the

United States. How a steered convoy of hope to distribute over

2,500,000,000 in aid, impaction,

and action. Listen in on our conversation as we

explore the depths of what really matters in serving

both ourselves and serving others while

attempting to fulfill God's call in our lives. These things

are deeply woven into Hal's latest book, What

Really Matters. Hal, welcome to seek, go, create.

Hey. It's great to be with you, Tim. Thank you for the invitation. Really grateful.

Great to have you here too, Hal. And I and I've gotta admit, you

are I'll use the terms kinda weird. You're kind of a rock star, but you're

kind of a a a silent rock star. I

I I got your stuff across my desk. I saw the book title. I said,

yeah. We want him. And then I started doing a research. I said, gosh. This

guy has a a lot going on. So we're gonna have a great

conversation. But let's pretend for just a moment

that, let's say we met outside of your domain,

maybe outside of Church World or outside of nonprofit, etcetera.

And you just bump into somebody and they ask you what you do. What's

what's your typical response when people ask you that?

Yeah. Well, first let me just say, I'm going to tell my kids tonight that

you call me a rock star. They're going to be very impressed with that.

But, yeah, I, I went out like I'm on an airplane, for example, and,

the person sitting next to me asked that question. Typically we'll say, I am,

president of a charity that is feeding children all over the world,

responding to disasters all over the world. And we really specialize

in mobilizing and activating churches and bringing

them together with businesses to really make a lasting difference in the

lives of people who are hurting or impoverished. What's the

response you typically get from that? Tell me more, and they want to go a

lot deeper. Like we start talking about our women's empowerment initiative

and the tens of thousands of mothers every year that we're

helping start businesses. And they wanna talk about the farming

initiatives. Again, training tens of thousands of

farmers and families every year, helping them increase their yields. So they wanna go deep

and wanna understand really where it all came from. How did it all

start? That's one of the questions I get quite a bit is, how did this

all start? You know, I was interviewing a pastor recently,

and we were talking about the same thing. And he said, you know, there's some

people that might have a little bit of an edge to them when

he mentions that he's a pastor. But my guess is

that regardless of spiritual background, regardless of where they are in the

world, I would guess you don't get anybody go, oh,

I can't can't believe you. Feed the hungry, take care of the

widows. I mean, it's pretty foundational needs based

stuff. Correct? Yeah. It is. And, you

know, I like to say this that, hey. Christians don't have a

monopoly on compassion. We don't. And we really encourage

people of all faiths. We encourage people who aren't religious,

don't believe in God, to be compassionate. So yeah, it's been

a, it's been a great conversation starter, Tim. I've met people where they

become lifelong friends and just because they believe in what we

do and, they may not necessarily believe in God yet.

But they are on a journey, and they certainly are interested in the

ongoing conversation. So that's certainly, been my

experience. Yeah. And I I love that. I love it. Because and as Christians, we

read that in scripture. I think sometimes we read in scripture

what we are to do as Christians, and we look for other things to do,

like correct other people or I went to bible school for a

few years, beat people over the head with a bible, something like that. But I

love the foundation of what you're doing. To to I tell you what I'd love

for us to do during this conversation because we've got a lot of leaders listening

in. We talk leadership. I've read through the book and and a lot

of the themes there so resonate with a lot of our topics we've been having

recently. But I think before I go any further,

I wasn't as familiar with Convoy as Hope as I would have liked

to have been. And so kind of to get

started, I know I mentioned a few things in the introduction, and those are

numbers and stats. But what and this may be general because

I wanna talk specifically operations and leadership things later.

But what in general would you like people to know about Convoy of Hope before

we dive into talking about your book and leadership and some other things? Yeah.

At the core of our mission is to really activate, mobilize

churches, and to resource them. And, you know, I've I've found this to

be true that thousands and thousands of churches that work alongside

convoy of hope, it's really convoy of hope working alongside them.

Our desire in every community in every setting is to

really elevate the local church, lift up the name of Jesus. We're really

not interested in building another charity. We're really

interested in fulfilling the mission of elevating the local church. We

believe that the church is God's answer to meeting the needs of

humanity, both physical and spiritual needs. And so we are a

supply chain to the church. There have been times where we have been asked

to do other things outside of the church realm, and we have turned

those opportunities down. They would have been fruitful financially. They

certainly would have led to maybe more name recognition, but we

didn't wanna leave what we believe God had given us as a mission.

And the core value of Convoy of Hope is that it's about the

local church. And so we have spent, the last 30

years coming alongside thousands and thousands of churches

and helping them be the hero in their communities and to lift up the name

of Jesus. So, Tim, that's probably at the core of everything

we do, is whether it's children feeding, women empowerment,

disaster response, everything we do is to

lift up the name of Jesus and to elevate the local church. The reason

that that means so much to me, Hal, is

because for some years now, I

have actually been I don't wanna say critical, maybe

cynical, but the local church has taken kind of

a beating over the last few years for some time now.

And some of its leadership challenges, some of its, you know,

maybe culture and different and some of it maybe the the church has brought on

itself. I haven't run across many people

that are speaking in such a positive way

hearing that. Well, that's and we give God the

glory for that. It's why we've experienced rapid growth is because

we we are tethered to local churches across the country. Yeah. And the and the

good thing going back to something we talked about earlier, I actually

think one of the things you may be doing is helping that local

church stay on one of our biblical

assignments, which is to feed and take care

of and nurture and go out. You know, it could be that y'all

come in and really provide that mechanism. Correct? That's

exactly right. I think part of what we do is we remove all

excuses. We're supplying the church

with resources, know how, and we're helping them

just really mobilize and activate their own people. And

so, yes, that's, that's really our calling. And, I think there are thousands

and thousands of churches across the country and around the world for that matter

that would say that we've stayed true to that mission. It's

we're really not interested. I know it doesn't sound like probably

a wise thing to say, but I really am not interested in building another

nonprofit or another charity. If that's all we do, then we have not

fulfilled our calling and our mandate from the Lord.

Yeah. That's excellent. I wanna come back to your

role in the organization as we

maybe wrap up. But what I'd love to do now is backtrack

because when I when I'm interacting with people that I would

call them, I would put them in the achievement oriented

personalities, and I believe you would definitely fit into that.

All of our guests really kind of fit into that. I I like

to find out a little bit of the background that may have

fed into that. From doing reading on you, I'm gonna mention 3 things

that seem significant, and I will sometimes call them

catalytic events that they really impact because I've heard you

mention them as, you know, one when you were 12, one I think when

you were able to interview mother Teresa, and then one when you had a health

issue. I I think you were 50 years old at the time. I don't I

don't there may be I think there were some others, but those were the ones

when I'm just stepping back looking. Yeah. What do you wanna

say about those as we lead into what really

matters? Because I think all of those were significant, but anything I'm

gonna allow you, whichever one you wanna choose or pick from there, if not all

of them briefly. Yeah. I I I would

probably combine those first two because they kind of work

together. When I was 12, my parents were hit by a drunken driver. My

father was killed. My mother was seriously injured. I was in the hospital

for a number of months. Our family didn't have insurance. And so the

man who hit them didn't have insurance. Our family was forced to survive

on welfare and food stamps. We made it, we survived in

large part because of the kindness and the generosity of a local church

that wrapped their arms around us. And one family in particular, they

allowed us to live with them in their single wide trailer for a year.

As a teenager, I had a lot of, questions because I

experienced the shame and the pain of poverty, but I also

experienced the power of kindness. People put shoes on our feet. They

brought groceries to our door. I think that's really where my

love for the local church began because I was a recipient,

But fast forward to adulthood and I thought the best way to

escape poverty was through education. I worked my way through college or in

several degrees. And in my twenties, I landed a job as

a ghostwriter, helping people write their books. And

I have a journalism degree and I began writing books

and I got a contract that took me to Calcutta, India,

where I met with some missionaries who I was going to write a book for.

And they said, well, we want you to interview mother Teresa for a book.

In the course of that interview with Mother Teresa, she turned the tables

on me, and she simply asked this question. Young man, let

me ask you, what are you doing to help the poor and the suffering?

And I figured I shouldn't lie to her. I need to tell her the truth.

And so I did. And I said, I'm not really doing much of anything.

And she replied this way. She said, well, everyone can do

something. Just do the next kind thing that God puts in front of

you. I returned to the States after that

conversation convicted, feeling like I needed to have a

priority change, began praying for God to do a work in my

heart. And one day, Tim, I

felt led to do something quite unusual. And I thought I was

going to write a book about it, but I felt led to travel to 8

cities in America and live in the streets for 3 days 3 nights. I

went to Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, DC, New York, major cities.

I walked the streets after midnight with a hidden tape recorder interviewing drug

addicts and gang members, prostitutes, runaways, and the homeless.

And I rode with the police on the midnight shift. And all I can tell

you is that in the streets of America, God broke my heart,

and he had to do a work in my heart before he could do a

work through my hands. Came back after those

trips, and I, again, felt compelled 30 years

ago to load up a, pickup truck with $300 worth of

groceries and and start passing an amount to, working poor

families, actually migrant farm workers in Northern California. That

was the sort of convoy of hope 30 years ago. God breathed on it.

We went from pickup trucks to box trucks, to

semi trucks, to a fleet of semi trucks, to

warehouses around the world. And so in a nutshell,

I combine that 12 year old experience and the love and the

kindness I experienced really to the work that we're doing

today. And one thing, you sort of mentioned it, but it's something

that is on people's mind when they hear a story like that. And and I

do wanna say, I have heard some interviews, and

I've read more from your book. There there is more to the story. It's

when when one says a something so

quickly about father being killed in an accident and all that,

I I don't wanna I don't wanna imply we're being flippant about that story at

all, but it was significant. And so what I I wanna

follow-up is ask, was your heart because many

people go through disappointment. I interviewed someone recently. They said the biggest

hindrance to success is discouragement and disappointment. And

so to talk about I'm I'm really

fascinated now at this stage of my life. I'm 60, and I'm going, what's the

condition of my heart? And I used to never think about that. But what was

the condition of your heart during that time, those those years?

Yeah. I I asked the hard questions at

beginning at age 12. You know? Is he a good god?

Did he cause my father to die? Or is he

impotent? Did this just happen by chance? So those were the

hard questions that I asked of the team. And Bill

Davis, Bill and Levadas, they're Levadas Davis, they're the ones that

invited us to live in their trailer. So as a 12 year old boy, I

was hurting and Bill Davis came and he put his arm on my

shoulder. And he said, don't allow the tragedy of your youth to

become a lifelong excuse because where you start

in life doesn't have to dictate where you end. And those words I

held onto Tim, I held onto them. And, I think they

really helped me get through high school, which was very difficult.

Because you're going to school without a sack lunch. You're going to school with holes

in your shoes. Those were hard times and I had to start

working at a very young age. I was the oldest of 4 children.

And so I became the father of the home at age 12.

Those were some really difficult times, But if it

wasn't for the local church, I would have chosen a life of bitterness.

I would have. I wouldn't be on this podcast with you. I'd probably be in

jail. But again, the love, the kindness that

that church showed me is something that changed my life. In

situations that are challenging,

would you say now that there are blessings that have

come from what anyone would agree is a

challenge, losing a father, your mother, you know, going

through difficulty. What are some of the things in looking back that

it's a blessing? First of all, you're able you you've got a story to

tell. Right?

Right. Right. Right. Yeah. I think, maybe a

a lesson that I learned along the way. I think when I was younger, I

wanted to try and apologize for God. I was trying to explain

for God. People would ask me questions like, you

know, why are good people hurting? Why are they going

through difficult circumstances? And I think we make a

real mistake when we try to explain it away,

and we use slogans, cliches to try and explain that

question away. I think we're much better off saying, you know, I don't

understand why children are abused. I don't

understand why women suffer, at the

hands of their husband. I don't know why lives are lost in disasters.

I don't know why. But this I do know, that there are

some things we're not going to be able to understand until we get to heaven.

And I do believe that he's a good God. I believe he's a good

God because he took my life and he showed

me his kindness and his goodness. And I've seen him through Convoy of Hope

give 1,000,000 and millions of people, hope

and restore their hope. I believe it. I will go

to my grave believing he's a good God. And so I

think as a believer, as a follower of Christ,

I learned at a young age, don't try to apologize for

God. Don't try to explain him. And

when I got to that point, it really helped me. It

relieved a burden. So now I don't approach my father's death

with resentment. I don't understand it. Even now,

I don't understand it. But I believe he's a good God, and I

believe he has a purpose, for everyone's life.

Yes. And I think one of the key things that I I hear is that

and there's a really, really good chance that we will not

totally grasp it. I think one of our desires is

to control and understand. And as

I mature, I think part of that maturity is just

letting go of that desire to control and

and rule and reign in my life and allow him to rule and reign in

my life. How one of the things we have as a title here

is kinda like a subtitle is the leadership journey.

And Yeah. When we're talking about an organization

that's 30 years old, has done all that convoy of hope

has, and I think I saw 12 years of

20% plus growth over the last few years. One of the things

I love to know, we've got some young leaders. We've got mature leaders that

listen in here of both for profit and nonprofit.

What are what are some things you can share about your leadership

journey along the way? Obviously, you were younger

when you started and probably had some drive, energy,

etcetera. Anything come to mind when I mentioned the leadership

journey that you've been on? Sure.

I'd like to tie it back to, the last, segment if I

can. You know, I think as leaders, it's okay to ask questions.

And even if those questions may feel harsh, God can handle

it. One of the things I do, Tim, is I write my questions down,

and I, tend to put them in my wallet. If you were to look at

my wallet today, you would see that I have several questions for God that I'm

asking, and just so God can handle it. And so as leaders,

it's important that we're asking the right questions and we're not afraid

of asking those questions. Asking the right questions

is not a lack of faith. I believe it actually is faith

when you know who to ask. And so, you know, I carry those

questions with me and I'm asking God those questions every day. So that'd

be one thing I would say. A lot of people are paralyzed by the fact

that they have unanswered questions. We don't need to be paralyzed

by unanswered questions. In my case, I don't need to be

paralyzed by the magnitude of the need out there in the world. God wants

me just to do what I can do every single day to wake up and

do what I can do. And I think as a young leader, I thought that

I had to work at 125%.

And if I didn't, that I was really disappointing God. I

wish in my early days that I had prayed more and worked less.

Honestly, if I had, I probably would have saved myself a lot

of grief and a lot of challenges along the way. The last thing I

would say is probably make sure that you're living under

the right expectations. If you are,

ambitious and you want to accomplish something for God,

that's beautiful. We all should be that kind of person that wants to

do what God's asking us to do. But a lot of times we're living

under the expectations of other people. It could be a spouse. It could be a

child. It could be an employer. And those expectations

are unrealistic. And as a result, we work at

125% to try to achieve our goals. I think

when I was in my twenties, I put up on pedestals people

who had the loudest voice, who had the largest network, who

were the most seen. In retrospect, I

wish I had put on pedestal people who were the most humble,

people who were the most loyal, the most faithful and kind.

Because what happens is as a young person, you have a tendency to

try to emulate what you see and what you idolize. And you

begin to work so hard to achieve what they've achieved, but

that may not be what God's called you to do. And so know,

in retrospect, I wish I had just tried to emulate and idolize

people who are just faithful. And and, I think you've

got some examples in the book. And that's the reason I even do a podcast.

I love asking questions. I've even, in my quiet time, said, God,

are you okay with my questions? And I I think he's told me, I love

it that you ask questions. That's the way I wired you. But do do you

have any examples of, I'll call them an

audacious question that somebody listening might go, oh my

gosh. I can't believe Hal asked God

that. I mean, anything come to mind when I say that?

Sure. Oh, yeah. Many. Many. Because, I would

approach it this way, that if if I have the ability to, answer those

questions or to fulfill those questions, then they're probably

not the right questions for God. The questions I ask God

are things that I can't do on my own and my own

ability. I'll give you one. So, you know, about 4 years ago,

we felt like that it was time for us to consolidate our

offices and our work into one facility. And, you know,

I wrote down in my wallet, a little piece of paper in

my wallet, I said, God, how on earth do we

raise $70,000,000? Because, you know, we didn't

wanna take children out of feeding lines. We didn't wanna take women out

of the women's empowerment program. We didn't want to stop our community

festivals across the United States. So God, how do we

continue to do that and to grow that, and simultaneously,

how do we raise $70,000,000 So that

was my question. All right? Because, again, that's

beyond my ability. I could not do that,

but God can, and God showed us how.

And so I felt like the Lord answered me, and it

was how to knock on one door at a time, just

one door at a time, and ask people to help.

And we did, and God did it.

You can't take credit for that. You can't reach for the

glory. God did it. And there are many examples. There are

more personal examples of relationship issues that have,

come up through the years. I discovered a long time ago, God is a

great reader. He reads. He reads really well.

I love the imagery of you writing it down and putting it

in your wallet. Wallets generally, and

this is symbol little symbolism here is where we keep our

money. You know, we we keep credit cards, maybe some pictures

of, you know, family and all that. I've got kind of a lean wallet myself

right now, and I love the imagery of you taking your

questions for God and inserting it in there with

those those typical financial things that are in a in a

wallet. How what what do you

what if someone were to ask

and I don't know if it's changed over the years, if it was early on,

if it was different, and now it's it it it's different than that. But

what would you say are your superpowers? What are some things that

God gifted you with

that are they come natural to you?

Yeah. You know, someone asked me one time, you know, what do I want

written on my gravestone? And I said, I'd like it to

say that I treated everyone the same, everyone the same.

And again, I come from poverty. I come from

inferiority and brokenness. And it

helps you it prevents you from getting full of yourself. And

when you get full of yourself, you no longer hear God's voice. You don't hear

it with clarity. And so, yeah, I think that's

probably the most important thing. And, Tim, if you're my friend,

I make it my goal to give you more than you give me.

So if there's anything that God's blessed me with, it's, a

desire for friendship. And I think when you have

that approach to life where every person is valuable

and everyone is a child of God and you want to be their friend,

you become like a spiritual magnet. And people wanna hang

out with you. They wanna be with you because they sense that you care,

that you value them. So I've never said that

before to anybody, but I kinda feel like that's one of the things that God

has built upon is just a love for people. Yeah. And there's

it kinda goes back to that heart issue we were talking about earlier is I

I think hard hearts repel.

Hard hearts repel, soft hearts attract. And and

I and I think that layers in to what you were saying, which is

interesting. I'd written the word humility next here on kind

of my my list because you had brought it up earlier.

And I and I don't wanna the way I'd like for the us to

discuss humility because I believe what you just said is a

description In some ways, maybe it's a character trait of humility.

But what I'd love for you to if you could expand on, earlier you

said you wanna be around people that are people of

humility. You wanna surround yourself with that. And and

one of the things I've noticed with myself and and I think you contrasted

that with people that are loud public figures. They, you know, they

were charismatic and things like that, and that might be a word you didn't

use. It's a word I use. Yeah. I believe I'm better at it

now, but I think years ago, I struggled with identifying humility

in others, maybe because I struggled with it myself. But

how do you gauge humility in

others? Yeah. It's probably a lot different

than what people would assume.

They assume that if you're an introvert, you're humble.

They assume if you are kind, you're humble.

I think it's different than that. I think each one of us has

an aura about us, and that

aura speaks volumes. And and

rarely do you have to use words for people to know whether or not you

are someone who is full of themselves or not,

whether that person is aloof? Do you have a humble aura

about you? I think it's that's where the Holy Spirit comes

in. I think it's the Holy Spirit that really reveals

what that individual is about and what he or she is

about. So at least that's what that's been my

experience, Tim. Really has been. I wanted to follow-up with what you said about

the heart, and I I do believe the heart is the foundation that God builds

upon. And if the heart is flawed, God

can only build so tall because it will

collapse under the ego of that foundation. And so

I think it's imperative that you really have a heart after

God. You have a heart that's solid because that is the

foundation that the Lord will build your business, your church,

or your organization around. And what's interesting about that over the last few

years, the Lord has been working on me. I had my father passed away, and

we've had some situations in in family and

all. And also even with COVID and things like that. I asked a

lot of questions of the Lord too. It's like, Lord, what is going on here?

What's happening? And he kept bringing me back to

thinking eternally. And that from an eternal

perspective, the condition of my heart is the most important thing.

And for for a guy who's an industrial and systems

engineer, time is important. Deadlines are important. I

I work with leaders and leadership teams. You know, I I I can

get to thinking about a lot of other things,

and, that reminder is is very healthy.

I have found when I force myself to

overlook that character trait of humility and do

business with people or interact with people that

may not have that character foundation. I'm not saying

anybody's perfect. We all have, you know, flare ups and situations. But

can you talk a little bit about that, especially touching all the people you do

with your organization? How important is it to work

with people that have some humility?

Yeah. I think it's important to work with people who are like minded,

who understand the mission. There are a number of organizations,

individuals that we've chosen not to work with, not because it

wouldn't be profitable, but just because we know

that eventually there's gonna be a train record. Let's find people

who are like minded, who are after the same things,

who aren't after the credit, who aren't after personal gain, but are

after the mission. I could give you many examples of that, where we've been very

careful to make sure we align ourselves with people who we believe

in. And I like to say it this way, that if we're not willing to

hand them the microphone in front of our constituents and our

donors, then they're probably not someone that we want to be working

with. That's, for me, a litmus test. Will I hand them the

microphone k. And let them talk? One of the things

I'll ask it this way. How are you

defining success today? And then

maybe go back in time. I don't know if it's 30 years ago or 20

years ago or I I think at the age of 50, we'll talk a little

bit about the catalyst, I think, for the book. Yeah. But how are you

defining success either then or now in contrast if it's different?

Yeah. It's much different. Like I said before, in the early days, I was certainly

self reliant as opposed to god reliant. I thought I really

measured success by the accolades of other people, not necessarily,

the favor of God, but the accolades of people around me.

That's a really dangerous path. In the book, I say

that, success is more dangerous than failure. It is for

that simple reason, is that you can get full of yourself, and you

can begin to rely on yourself and not be willing to even give God a

vote when you're trying to make decisions. And so, yeah, I would definitely

fall into that category. But again, that goes back to my childhood.

I'm trying to escape poverty. I'm trying to escape inferiority

and trying to escape all the things that I hated as a

teen. And so, you know, that compels you to do things that you probably

shouldn't do. And so along the way, you know, I guess I've learned

to use restraint and, to give God a vote. Success

for me today is something that I'm sure that many people already know.

It's obedience. It's obedience. A lot of people are after a

balanced life. I'm after an obedient life. Because

if you're obedient, you're going to be balanced. If you're doing what God's asking

you to do, you will live a balanced life. And so for

me, success is equal to obedience.

And what are some if I'm around you

either as your wife or I know you've got children or people that are

in your close circles, what are some ways

or clues that they know that you're being obedient? Either

practices or anything like that? Because

obedience is a word we use quite a bit in church circles, and I'm

not sure that a lot of us translate that to a practical day to day.

What does that look like for you? Yeah.

Typically, what they'll my wife and my children, we have 4 daughters,

and they will identify this. They'll they'll identify

the fact that I am that my schedule is outrageous,

and they're willing to tell me that. They will,

that I look tired and, you know, or,

hey, dad, you're not around. You're just you're traveling too much. It's

those kind of things that let them know that, you know, I've gotten out of

balance, and I'm not living in obedience. I'm living in an

ambition and, you know, reckless ambition is a very dangerous thing

as well. And I certainly have lived through that in my lifetime.

Mhmm. I remember during the nineties, I was

extremely proud and prideful of the fact that I

lived off very little sleep. There was a picture

that our, daughter did. I think it was in kindergarten

or something where she was a family picture, and

my dad's eyes were red.

Yeah. And the teacher even asked her, said, oh, you know,

your dad's eyes are red. She goes, well, that's what color they are. They're

red all the time. And I was

somewhat prideful of that, about how

little sleep I needed. And, you know, and some of

us have even said absolutely silly things, Hal. Like,

I'll sleep when I die, and, you know, I'm doing the things

that God needs me to do so he can equip me. But I think when

we use words like ambition and success and

achievement for people that describe people like

you and others, there's other a lot of others out there, there are

words that can creep in like like hustle

and, you know, like you mentioned

earlier, a 120%. And and and I've even

I've even observed that a lot of people kinda

have some addictions related to that. That's a strong word. But

we can be addicted to busyness, to achievement,

to more. My addiction was more, truthfully. It

wasn't drugs. It wasn't I just was addicted to more.

Are there any of those that you've identified that that you had? Because

someone doesn't do 30 years just

cruising along. There's something that's making that motor, that

engine inside them run, and it may not always be healthy.

Yeah. I think for me, it it was it is to this day.

Again, a love for people and a desire to help

people escape poverty. It's, all these

things that we all believe in. But even in doing

good things, we can overdo it.

I found myself I'm traveling all over the world, Tim. I'm in Afghanistan,

Indonesia, Philippines, Africa, South America,

all over the world to feed the hungry and, you know, to

help them escape poverty. But I was doing things that God

wasn't asking me to do. And meanwhile, I

was missing amazing opportunities to invest in my children

and my wife's. And so again, just because you're doing

something really good, it doesn't mean that God's asking you to do

it. That certainly was the case for me. I think for a lot of

times, a lot of people, and I have the opportunity to talk to a lot

of leaders and pastors, And I think a lot of it is, less

about ambition and more about boredom that they're trying to,

really run away from boredom and to keep their life

occupied. And I think that's one of the things that I have

experienced that I I've learned to, maybe enjoy the quiet a

little bit more and the time with God,

or with my wife or with my daughters and just to

enjoy that and not take it for granted. And I think there

are a lot of leaders that are they're actually running away from boredom maybe

more than they are ambitious. I I know I I think it was the

age of 50 you had a bit of a health scare. But is some of

that also just age or maturity

or things like that? We're just finally

getting it? Yeah. I I really do think

so. And I think the older you get, the more you realize what

really matters in life, you know, going back to the title of the book.

But yeah, at age 50, I found myself,

laying in a hospital bed with heart issues. They had to put 2 stents on

my heart. And laying there, I just really felt convicted that I was trying to

do too much, but God really made that very clear I was trying to do

too much. When I was released from the hospital, I resigned one of my

jobs. I stepped off of 8 board of directors. I canceled 2

book writing contracts, and I gave really focus to

Convoy and to my family. And I can tell you

the irony of all of that is that when I made those decisions,

God began to do so much more than I ever could. You know, one of

the thing there's 2 biblical stories that pop in my head

here, and then I'll I'll pose it as a question. But

I've I've studied the gospels quite a bit, and with the background I

mentioned earlier, hustle, hustle, grind, grind, you know, that some of

us have lived through. I don't

see that Jesus ever really hustled that

much. We could tell had about 3 years

ish for his, what we would call his ministry.

They walked everywhere, didn't cover much really ground.

Obviously, he never got on an airplane. I guess so.

Right. Right. And, and I never I

haven't found a scripture where it says, you know, and Jesus, you know, yelled to

the disciples, alright, guys. You know, pull up the tunics. We gotta pick it up

and put it down to get over to Capernaum here. I just I

never see that. And so that's one example. And then I I I

recently interviewed a pastor, Troy Grambling, where he'd written a book called

Potential, and he used the story of Moses. And

and as best we know, Moses spent 40 years in

the palace, 40 years on the backside of the desert, and then 40

years with the people of Israel. And during

that 40 years in the desert, it seems as if he did nothing.

And so I pose this as a question to a high achiever.

Big organization. We have a lot of list

leaders. Is doing nothing an option

at times? Definitely.

There are times when doing nothing is better than doing something. But most

of the time, doing something is better than doing nothing.

And I use Jesus as the marvel because when you

look at his life, he didn't heal everyone. He didn't feed everyone. He

didn't meet every need. What did He do? He did what His father

asked Him to do. And that's why prayer is such an important

component of our lives. You can't meet every need,

but you wanna do what God is asking you to do. And

so that's why you need to be willing to work and to help

and to do the work to help people. But you also need to back that

up with prayer so that you make sure that you're doing the right thing at

the right time. Yeah. One thing that jumped out at me while I was reading

through the book also is and this is maybe transitioning

into a little bit of a leadership discussion around how you've operated

at at Convoy of Hope. I I

I coach for profit businesses and I also work with some leadership teams and

some ministries. And I have found that it is

very difficult for some people to operate in a

board structure with a board. And and I kept

seeing story after story of you interacting with your

board. And I think it relates to what we just talked

about. How do you know when to do something, when to do nothing, and

things like that. I think I I definitely am not taking away from prayer, but

if if the board is praying and if you're praying and all of that. But

I I would love for you right now because there are people listening in that

they think that having a board is just a legal structure and

you want them in place and you don't want them to ever get control over

whatever because they've seen stories like that. And then and then they also don't

really consider them sounding boards and things like that.

Talk about what a health because I perceive that you have a

healthy board structure and relationship. Talk

about that at Convoy just for people that may need some

help in those areas. Yeah. Well,

Tim, you're speaking my language because, I believe that

governance is part of that foundation. And why is governance so

important? Proper governance, what we call shared governance between the

executive team and the board of directors. Why is that so important? It's because

of accountability, but you do not want to build a ministry

of this size around a personality. You really want

to build it around a leadership team. And that's why I

think board selection is so critical. Even if you are small,

it's critical. And at convoy, we use a

matrix of source. We want to make sure that we have adequate diversity

and that can be gender diversity. It can be vocational, it can be geographic,

can be denominational. And to make sure that we're filling in all the

boxes, if you will. And so that kind of board

selection is critical because if you select the right board members, it's

going to prevent a lot of problems, down the road. You choose the wrong

people. A lot of times churches, and I would say even organizations,

businesses, they choose people who have the most money, who can give the most

money. That's not criterion for a board

seat. Really what you want on a board is people who are wise, who

have a diversity of skill sets, and people who hear from

God. That's what you're looking for. What they

can give is really irrelevant. I think at convoy, you know,

we've tried to live that out for many, many years. What's

the relationship? Some people believe that a board is there for an annual

meeting, and that's about it. But I I get the feeling there's a lot more

there between not just you, but the leadership team that's the

organization and then also the board. What are some of the rhythms or

relationships that are there that you have that have led

to y'all success? Yeah. Well, I think it's

first really identifying what are the board responsibilities and what are the

executive team responsibilities. So I think having a good understanding of

that and how those two entities interact is critical

on the board side. You know, that they are the keepers of the mission.

They're the ones that have to make sure that the organization is

staying on mission and not experiencing mission creed. The

second thing that they are responsible for is fiscal responsibility,

making sure that this is an organization that is financially

sound. And because that will give longevity, that will

allow the mission to continue long after current leadership

is gone. And I think a third area would be making sure that the

people that are a part of that ministry are well cared for, Making

sure that and a lot of organizations, I think they leave that to the executive

team. I believe that the the the board actually has a responsibility

to make sure that all these people, there's 100 of people that make up an

organization, in Convoy's case, 100 of thousands of

volunteers, making sure that they're well taken care of.

Those are just a few of the things. Obviously, they make decisions. They make fiscal

responsibility type decisions on a regular basis, but I

think it's caring for the people that's often overlooked. The

reason that's such a good nugget for people to understand

if you're a board member, I'm on the board of a few ministry organizations. You

are also. And I think I've always looked at it as

a fiduciary responsibility to, protect, oversee

the assets of the organization. And I do think that a lot of

people ignore the key asset of the people.

So very powerful there. One other

thing well, maybe not one other thing, but something that was just curious to

me as I was reading about Convoy is I

being kind of an operations guy, I'm a systems engineer, went to Georgia

Tech, all that type stuff. I I look at an

organization like Convoy, and I go, wow.

They are doing a lot on what I would call a regular

day to day basis, and then they have what I would call the

response, the response,

items that come up. And, and I guess even share

some of the recent responses. But I would love for you to talk a

little bit about overseeing, leading

an organization that has day to day feeding

x amount of people, that we're gonna do that regardless of what's happening in the

world. And then a hurricane goes through and

they're flooding in North Carolina and we wanna do something there.

I don't wanna say 2 different mindsets, but there's 2 different operations

in my eye mind that's going on there. Well,

I think that's very astute, and that's accurate. You know, in our case,

our disaster relief team is a separate division,

and they are like a fire station. If we have

dozens and dozens of trucks and different shower trucks and we have

debris removal trucks and tractors, we got a lot of equipment, but

it's like a fire station. They're ready to go at a moment's notice.

Everything is gassed up. It's ready to pull out of the facility

and they often do at a moment's notice. So I

would say fire station. But here's the other piece of it I think that's really

interesting is that we budget for the maintenance of those

people and for the department and the equipment. But we don't budget

for disasters. And here's the reason why, Tim, is because

if you do that, you're going to be hoarding tens of 1,000,000 of dollars

waiting for the next Katrina or the next Ukraine or the next,

Helene and Milton. You know, you're gonna be hoarding 1,000,000 of dollars, and

we don't believe that God has called us to do that. When our team is

deployed like they are right now, they're in 6 states

responding to Helene and Milton, and we don't want them worrying about

money. Their focus is to lift up the name of

Jesus, to elevate the local church, and to make sure that we're

meeting needs, whatever that costs.

That's really the goal, is go and do

and represent Jesus in some very dark times, dark

places. And we believe that if we are willing to do

that, that on the back end, God will pay the bill. And he's been doing

that for over 20 years since we've been involved in disaster response.

And I think we're approaching it's near a 1000

disasters that we've been involved in, everything you can imagine around the

world and in the US. And I think last year alone was over

70, 80 disasters that we responded to. But in

H1, it's we're not we're not dependent

on CNN, Fox, MSNBC. You

know, we wanna be the first on the ground, and we wanna be the last

to leave. Because a lot of times, organizations

leave disaster zones because they can't raise any more money. We

don't wanna be driven by money. We wanna be driven by obedience and need.

Mhmm. That's good. Because one of the other things that come to my mind

is that in general, my observation, you can tell me if this is

correct, people will often

give to the event, especially the major event,

sometimes more diligently than they will

for that child that needs food every day.

What can you say about that just when I bring that up?

It's very true, and that's one of the reasons why we have a global program

division, and we have a disaster, response division.

And the reason for that is that we want the people who give the global

program who are really sustaining that initiative to

continue and stay focused on that. And if they wanna give a one time

gift to disaster service in response to hurricane Elaine or

Milton, for example, that's beautiful. That's great. A lot of

churches, a lot of businesses, do that. They give the one time

gift. And we thank God for that, because it's that giving that

sustains us for the long haul. I don't mind telling

you, there are disasters that happened 2 years ago. Convoy of hope is

still there. We are still helping people put their lives back together,

and it's sustained by the generosity of people. If you're doing the right

thing in the wake of disasters, elevating local church, lifting up

Jesus, meeting needs, we believe God will pay the bill, and as

long as you're willing to stay, he will sustain you. We've seen him

do miracles. Convoy of Hope is an organization through the years that

just has experienced miracle after miracle.

And we like to say around here, hey. We're just following the miracles.

That's what we do. So how you are

following the miracles and somewhere along the way, you've been writing, it sounds

like, a good portion of your life, but yet

you write something that's titled What Really Matters.

And and it's a book that I I like the subtitle is how to care

for yourself and serve a hurting world. How do

you reconcile caring for yourself and

serving and caring for others? I used to think that caring for

myself was unnecessary, that basically

almost abusing myself and traveling all over the world and doing all I was

doing that. That was a necessary sacrifice in, in order for

the mission to be fulfilled. And I guess I got to the realization

where I, I, again, through the health crisis I had at age

50, I began to realize taking care of yourself is not an act of

selfishness. It's an act of selflessness.

Because the healthier I am, the healthier you

are, the more you're gonna be able to do for other people.

And God does not expect us to run with an empty

gas tank. We're gonna be able to do a lot more for people when that

gas tank is full. So I think that realization was

one of the things that happened at age 50 that has really transformed my

life. Who is who would you say this book is

for? Did you have an audience in mind as you were writing it?

I did. I'll tell you what was happening, and and this is really what provoked

the book. Because of Convoy of Hope's rapid growth, you know, I think

35 on the Forbes list, I was getting a lot of

calls from pastors and business leaders and organizational

leaders, and they were wanting to know the secret sauce. And,

invariably I would say, well, it's the heart. You gotta make sure your heart's sound.

It's it's healthy. If your heart is healthy, then God will build upon

it. And they would say things like, well, I get that, but what are the

organizational adjustments that I need to make? I said, no, it's really about

the heart, and that's where it starts. So I figured, Tim, rather than me just

being a broken record, I just wanna write a book, and I'll just slip it

in the mail to them. So now when I get those questions, just send them

a book. The cool thing is I believe you've done

some ghostwriting and writing for people, but you also had someone

that helped you out with this book. And I think is it Lindsay? Did

it tell me a little bit about that process.

Yeah. Lindsay's my oldest daughter. She's a trained lawyer,

and, she is an amazing researcher

and a gifted writer her own her own right. She's,

someone I'm really proud of. And the whole process was

that, she and I put the outline together and she goes after

the research and everything from scriptures to other

things that we cite in the book. Yeah, she's been invaluable. And this is actually

the 3rd book we've written together. And we have a system in place. And

I don't know that we're going to do another one real soon, but we've got

a system in place and she's really a benefit. Excellent.

Well, I wanna share my favorite chapter is chapter 9. I've actually

got page 153 pulled up. And one of our

topics we just have constantly addressed here

on seek co create is kinda taking

care of yourself. And it really you you kinda go

into sleep and things like that, which I talked about earlier. I used to have

a, a a very, unhealthy

badge of honor of lack of sleep. Sleep's important to me

now. Rest is important to me now. I'm I'm not ashamed to

say I like a good night's sleep, and I don't mind a nap every once

in a while. Hal, at 60, almost 61 years old, I'm I'm good with

that. So, anyway, excellent job with the book. I'm sure

people can find it in all the places, Amazons and all. Anything else about where

people connect with you or the book that you wanna share? If

they want more information about Convoy of Hope, they can just go to convoy of

hope, dot org. We look forward to hearing from them. Excellent, Hal,

and appreciate all that you've done and appreciate you writing this book. I think it's

valuable for leaders. I think it's a message that they all need.

Every leader I deal with, they need to slow down, be more

obedient, be still and quiet. How we're seek, go

create, those three words. And I know with your

scriptural background, you can guess where they probably came from, but I'm gonna

allow you to choose one. This is my final question. Seek, go, or

create, and why? Oh, I I I love the word

create. And I I used to think, Tim, that we that,

you know, we could create simply by making organizational

adjustments. But I I think the older I've gotten, the more

experience I've had. I I think you invite, you know,

innovation. You invite creation by having, the right

mindset, the right heart. And certainly, that's what we try to do at Convoy.

So I love the word create. I appreciate people listening in. It's been a great

conversation of depth for people of achievement

mindset, people that are leaders, or someone that may even wanna

help and support the, Ministry Convoy of Hope. We have

new episodes here every Monday. We are on YouTube. We're on all the

podcast platforms. Until next time, continue

being all that you were created to be.