It's always an insightful talk whenever we have George Roller on the show, so we're bringing him back to share his perspective on generational poverty and poverty mindset through his missionary life in Guatemala. Partake in this conversation where we discuss hope, expectations, and other ways to combat stagnation and instill positive goals in people. Keep listening!
Key takeaways to listen for
Resources Mentioned In This Episode
A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. Payne | Paperback
About George Roller
George Roller, Founder and President of Send Me, graduated from Saint Louis University with an Executive Masters Degree in International Business and works as a turn-around consultant for companies facing closure from poor market conditions and extraneous circumstances. His insight has saved more than 100 companies small and large from bankruptcy, foreclosure and losses in a wide range of industries from fishing lures to fiber optics. He brings his unique experience and vision to help eliminate poverty within the target community of Joyabaj Guatemala and continues to help those without the ability to help themselves.
Connect with George
Connect With Us
Master your context with real results leadership training!
To learn more, visit our website at www.greatsummit.com.
For tax, bookkeeping, or accounting help, contact Dr. Nate’s team at www.theincometaxcenter.com or send an email to info@theincometaxcenter.com.
Follow Dr. Nate on His Social Media
It's always an insightful talk whenever we have George Roller on the show, so we're bringing him back to share his perspective on generational poverty and poverty mindset through his missionary life in Guatemala. Partake in this conversation where we discuss hope, expectations, and other ways to combat stagnation and instill positive goals in people. Keep listening!
Key takeaways to listen for
Resources Mentioned In This Episode
A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. Payne | Paperback
About George Roller
George Roller, Founder and President of Send Me, graduated from Saint Louis University with an Executive Masters Degree in International Business and works as a turn-around consultant for companies facing closure from poor market conditions and extraneous circumstances. His insight has saved more than 100 companies small and large from bankruptcy, foreclosure and losses in a wide range of industries from fishing lures to fiber optics. He brings his unique experience and vision to help eliminate poverty within the target community of Joyabaj Guatemala and continues to help those without the ability to help themselves.
Connect with George
Connect With Us
Master your context with real results leadership training!
To learn more, visit our website at www.greatsummit.com.
For tax, bookkeeping, or accounting help, contact Dr. Nate’s team at www.theincometaxcenter.com or send an email to info@theincometaxcenter.com.
Follow Dr. Nate on His Social Media
[00:00:00] George Roller
Sometimes people just need a job or a vocation or some little thing, or a hope or a hamburger, man, Nate. They gave them the hope and they went down and got a job and they turned it around. I just think of those people not being deeply integrated into poverty. They're able to step out.
[00:00:17] Dr. Nate Salah
We see it all around us. Poverty. It's in our nation. It's around the globe, and we wonder, how do we fix it? Do we just throw money at it, or are there other ways to address this issue that affects so many people? I've invited an expert in this area back on the show, a missionary to Guatemala, George Roller, who faces this issue day in, day out, and he's illuminated. Maybe not the end game, but definitely the beginning of a conversation. Can't wait for you to listen in. I'm Dr. Nate Salah, and this is A Call to Leadership. George Roller. So good to have you back, man.
[00:00:55] George Roller
It's good to be here, Nate.
[00:00:56] Dr. Nate Salah
Good to be here. All the way from Guatemala. Yes. Yeah, man. So we left off and such a great conversation. If you're a listener you haven't heard the first episode with George, myself and with Joe, definitely go back, listen to that episode. Such great content on George's decision to go into full-time ministry. His call to help those who need help, where they need it most. And so just off camera, we were talking a little bit about poverty and how poverty is not a new idea. It's not like, oh my goodness, there's poverty, right? It's been around. We haven't figured out ways to really move out of poverty. It's still exists. It's still everywhere. And having a conversation around it and perhaps some ways to have progress in this area, I think is timely. In fact, just last month for us, my son and I were doing a, what it called, 30 Days of love.
[00:01:57]
And so I was moved to just spend time during the Christmas season in charity, how to really be intentional about being charitable. And so our very first day we went to downtown St. Louis and we got 10 bags of hot McDonald's and just drove around the city and looked for people who were homeless. And at first my son's like, is this safe dad? I said, well, if it's safe or not, it's gonna be okay. And you know, we prayed and he's like, what if we don't find anybody? I said, we're gonna find people. And he said, what are they gonna say? I was like, well, we'll just roll the window down. We'll just say, Hey, we've got hot food on a cold day. Would you like some, a bag of McDonald’s? And George, when we started to see people, that's exactly what we did. And to see the look on individual's faces like, wow, you're bringing me a hot meal. Thank you. I mean that human connection for someone that's in a poverty situation, it's moving. It's a connection. It's life-changing. And it affected my son in such a great way.
[00:03:04]
He's like, dad, how can we continue to make a difference in people's lives? What can we do? We were in DC a few weeks ago for a conference. I brought him with me and we were walking down the streets of DC and we saw a bag. It looked like a tarp, a rolled tarp, and it was rainy. It's like, what's the tarp doing on the street? Well, it was a person in the tarp trying to stay dry. Dry. And he saw that. He's like, wow, dad from a middle class. Now I grew up. poverty, not abject poverty, but we were poor. Didn't have much. There were a lot of days where we didn't have enough to eat. My mom and myself, and people who are listening to the podcast would know this, cause I've talked about it before. There's that kind of poverty to where you can still make it, but then there's a different kind of poverty, and I'm sure you're gonna talk about that. That's abject poverty. Poverty that has no real way out in and of yourself.
[00:04:02] George Roller
Nate, I, you're exactly on target. I look at poverty kind of in two ways. You have the type of poverty where you have situation, where you lost your job. And I've studied a lot of books. It talks about moving between lower class, middle class, upper class, upper class, middle class, uh, bankruptcy. Some people that are marginal, middle class, maybe they lose a job and their car breaks in the same week. And then, you know, then they have a court hearing and next thing you know, they lose their job and next thing you know, they're literally homeless that quick.
[00:04:32]
And then you have what I call generational poverty or cyclical poverty. And I look at that like, you know, it's a deep ravine. And they've got, you know, in the case of where we work in Guatemala, you've got 500 years of generational poverty. And so there's so many things that can change. Just like your efforts of bringing hope to people can sometimes make a difference. You, you read and you hear about a lot of specials where someone goes and does one or two things and someone pops up and they go like, I can make a difference. I can take this vocational class and I can get ahead. Or, you know, and then they make that change, you know, and then they step out. And then when you have generational poverty, you're working on so many different levels on the psychiatric level, the health level, the expectation level, executive skills, there's so many things involved to help someone lift out of generational poverty. We call it crabs in a bucket. Mm-hmm. Somebody is wanting to get out of the bucket. Yeah. You know, and it's very difficult.
[00:05:33] Dr. Nate Salah
Because you mentioned it's like a track when we're off-camera, right? You've got your, those who perhaps grow up in wealth, And they understand. Now, of course, you can grow up in wealth and end up being poor by poor decisions, but generally speaking, you have this track that you're on, right? Education, investments, so on, right? Yeah. Your peer group, all of that, right? Your community, your, your entire social environment is a track. And then there's another track and there's the poverty track, right? Where you have generation after generation after generation on this track.
[00:06:05] George Roller
Exactly. And you get it. There's a great book called The Framework of Poverty, and it talks about the movement between the three classes. And it's really enlightening, you know when they talk about what happens and moving between that. But I mean, one example I have, you know, we took in four kids four years ago, and two of the kids in this process have, the older ones have kind of made their own way, left the house, stolen from it's done different things as their poverty track kind of took place and then they started tracking with it. The two younger ones we've been able to not control anymore, but educate and kind of form, I guess would be a better word, but one example I have, it's just so heartbreaking. We have decided that we wanted the kids to travel with us. So we wanted to get them passports.
[00:06:52]
We're getting them passports for an indigenous kid that doesn't have a mom and dad, that's like heaven and earth moving heaven and earth in Guatemala. So I won't even tell you about the amount of money, but, uh, 10 visits to the passport office. Thousands of dollars to get everything approved. We finally get the passport office to approve their passport. They literally are taken by the, to the lawyer to the line to get their photos and to print their passports. And the lady doing it, looks at them and says, you're indigenous kids. You guys are too young. You shouldn't have passports. Starts tearing their paperwork up. What? And the lawyer had to come outta the office, patch everything up and kind of give her a stern warning to give that the paperwork's in order they should get their passwords. And she says, I can't get a passport. Why should they get a passport? And that's generational poverty. That's crabs in a bucket. If you start to climb out, they're gonna eat you and pull you back down.
[00:07:51] Dr. Nate Salah
That's almost unbelievable because in the US context, right? That's, you're terminated from your employment for that. Right?
[00:07:58] George Roller
The hardest thing for me to understand in dealing with this, Nate, is, is that like in America, and I'm not saying America, it's in the western world, you know, a parent or an uncle or an aunt or a grandparent, they will do anything to see the next generation, you know, grow. I mean, you've heard stories of fathers that work two jobs and all the money went to put junior into college, or a mom that saved money to, so her daughter could have a chance at life. in a third-world country. I think the needs and the lack of nurturing is there that they, they, it's the exact opposite. They actually don't want their kids to succeed in many cases. Not a hundred percent. But when I'm talking about it, I'm talking about the majority of people. Yeah. Don't wanna see them, you know, to succeed.
[00:08:43] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. And I, I would imagine someone listening who grew up in an environment here in the United States, which had a poverty mindset, may have experienced some similar behaviors in their own peer group. Parents or grandparents, or nieces and nephews, uncles, you know, someone in the group who have tried to hold them down. and trying to keep them from excelling for a number of reasons that maybe are similar to those third world.
[00:09:06] George Roller
Exactly. It can be. I think it's just the nature of poverty. Mm-hmm. , it doesn't have anything to do with the continent you're on. Yeah. But it does have to do with maybe the people you're around. Yeah. And it is. It is huge. And when you think about even the physiological part of it, I've been studying a lot about trauma and I'm not a medical professional, but I learned enough to understand that. You know, like if you look at the desktop of your computer and you see a folder and you wanna open it up, you double click on that folder. In about a quarter of a second, that folder pops up and then you have maybe 10 items there. You double click on the one you want in a second and a half or so, it clicks right up. It's a big file, maybe it's two seconds or something. Call that retrieval of information. Well, when you're in trauma and you've been traumatized and you don't have nutrition, the kids and the adults cannot retrieve information.
[00:09:55]
Hmm. So when you say, Hey, what's eight times eight? Or what's the capital of Missouri? Or what's, they actually have that information, but because of the trauma and because of the lack of nutrition, they don't have a pathway to that information. Right. And so because they don't have that pathway or that ability to retrieve that information, then their academic future really gets limited. And sometimes they get, you know, labeled like, you know, special needs or something like that when it's simply a counseling or a nutritional Yeah. Or the young man that we're so privileged to take in to our home. We've spent three years teaching him his multiplication tables. He's not special needs. There's a, a lack of trauma and nutrition's taken place. And it just now, after the fourth year that I guess the nutrition or the expectations is there. that he's now getting it. And how many kids have that opportunity to build, to grow?
[00:10:54] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. Couple different word pictures come up. Like one is that if it's a train on a track and the, the individual is a train, there's the train has the fuel, but the track is broken, the pathways, you're not able to get there. And so you have to rebuild that pathway. You have to rebuild those tracks to get to the intended destination. In another word, picture, maybe a little different. If you've ever seen a movie Castaway with Tom Hanks, he's stranded on a, on an island and yeah. And so he, he wants to get off, but these waves are crashing and in his little makeshift raft that he's created, and he just can't seem to get past these waves.
[00:11:30]
And I wonder if that's a bit of the way that poverty works, because I think about it, my own life growing up poor and transitioning over the years into, you know, comfort, you know, upper middle class I guess you'd say. And so it's like, okay, well what were those steps? You know, I grew up in a broken home and you know, we've talked about this before, trauma and all that. And so you try to like deconstruct your own life to figure out, okay, what were the steps that you were able to, to cross that way components, the components of success. right? To get to that outcome. And you, I think you're hitting on a number of the different pieces, right? The social environment, the peer group, the small victories, you know, creating opportunities and building your own, reconstructing your own, if you will, that track, you know, so that you're can actually get to your desired destination. I mean, those are, there's a lot of pieces involved there.
[00:12:21] George Roller
There are a lot of pieces. I think two of the top pieces is hope and expectations. And as I've worked with the kids in our home, you know, if I write a book, it's gonna be when poverty walk through my front door. And when you're dealing with these kids on a daily basis, you love them. They're basically your kids, but you can't legally adopt them. And you see it and you start talking about what do you want to be when you grow up? You know, I raised two biological kids here in the States. They're both raised the Lord. They're both successful and doing well. They've both got a college education and they're upward bound. I set expectations the whole way. Not unrealistic expectations, but expectation. You will go to college, you know, when you started this company, you'll double your salary in the first five years. These are the expectations I put on them where I rot them to mm-hmm. and that's kind of the way I'm wired. Yeah.
[00:13:14]
And so as I talked to the kids we have now, there's no expectations. There's no. , you talk to him, you wanna be a doctor, you want to be a coach. You know, the youngest one wants to be Captain America. Okay, you wanna be Captain America, maybe you should start lifting weights. You know, and there's no expectation that any of these outcomes could actually happen because there's a an air of like desperateness or lack of hope. So instilling hope and expectations believable.
[00:13:44] Dr. Nate Salah
Right, is huge. Yeah, man, you hit it. Someone listening right now is getting it. Like they're getting either why they're able to move forward through hope and expectations. I love how you identified that so clearly. Or on the other side, someone's listening saying, yeah, I have no hope and my expectations, I can't even define what expectations are, let alone anyone else for me. And I think those are such critical pieces for those of us who are in leadership. Who have opportunity to identify at minimum those two pieces and I think about my own life, same thing, right? My mom was full of hope, right? Very optimistic about a lot. Like you could do anything you want even though we don't have much.
[00:14:28]
You can. But then super high expectations. I came home with straight A's in eighth grade and she was like, okay, I expected you to get straight A's. And I was like, oh man, I gotta raise the Annie here. You know? What do I gotta do next? Maybe I gotta win student council president. Right? But not that she disparaged that it's that her expectation was that you, I expect you to reach the highest possible level because you have the aptitude to do it. And like you said, it's gotta be realistic and believable. Right?
[00:14:58] George Roller
The, key is it's gotta be believable or the person that the expectations are on with their self-imposed or socially, or by parents, that you gotta believe that you can achieve that. And that's what I'm working through with our kids right now. They don't believe they can be a professional, right? Because three years ago they were barefoot running down a trail and not able to attend school. So the track has been so steep to get them to where they are today, just graduating the grade as an example, my, the oldest daughter I have with us right now is entering seventh grade. She's actually, I think technically three grades behind if you're to look at the age cycle. But she's 14, almost 15. She's going into seventh grade. This is the highest academic standing. Anybody in their greater family has ever achieved seventh grade. That's huge. parents, eight brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, grand. This is the highest level of education that anybody have has achieved.
[00:15:56] Dr. Nate Salah
I think that's important too, that you bring that up, George, because we have to set expectations based on the context that they're experiencing. That's good. I like that because if we try to set it based on someone else's context, then we're likely to be disappointed, because this is not your social environment. What is your social environment? What are the parameters, and then how can we create wins within those parameters and exclude all other factors that are irrelevant really in this journey, right? I e, well, you know, we need to get you to Harvard, right? That's a little irrelevant, right? Besides that, there's really no, the ROI on that is insignificant, even if we made that attempt. So let's look at what our highest possible ROI is. Seventh grade. So then let's celebrate that because I believe that small victories build courage and actually that's a huge victory, right? Right. I mean, that would be equivalent of maybe the Nobel Peace Prize for someone that's grown up in an environment that stewards and shepherds that type of opportunity.
[00:16:58] George Roller
Yeah, I think you make an excellent point with the concept of the wins. I look at it like a staircase, and by that I think it creates data points that creates a projectory. So if you are taking three steps, I did first, second, third, fourth grade, now you have a staircase. What's your projectory? 12th grade, right? You've achieved this memorization, you've achieved this skill. What's your trajectory? Success in life? Because this is all what I've already learned, and I'm only. .
[00:17:28] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. So how do you create those steps in your own journey as in ministry in Guatemala with these groups? I mean, you know where they are, you know where their starting place is, you know what your desired outcome is, you know, what are some of the roadblocks that you face?
[00:17:46] George Roller
The biggest roadblock is what we've just talked about is, is hope or the opposite of hope. Not having hope or not having expectations or not believing expectations are achievable. So we have something we've developed called, uh, plan for Life, and we have, it's working kind of in raw form right now and it has 10 aspects to it. And they include things like education, psychology, financial skills, spiritual training, dental executive skills, you know, those type of things. Managing money because like we have a girl on our property right now going to nursing school and it does her no good to become a nurse if she cannot manage the money. When she graduates, or if she doesn't know to executive skills being as simple as brush her teeth, comb your hair, and tuck in your shirt when you come to class. Mm-hmm. . So if you can't do those things, then maybe you wouldn't get a job when you've completed nursing school. Right. So there's such a broad aspect to that.
[00:18:46]
And so for us, what we do is we look and we assess someone when we bring them into the program. We have 11 in the program right now, and we assess where they're at. So like Mary, she had achieved all the grades, which was very unusual, so she could go on to nursing school. So check the box on that. We don't need to spend any more time with that. But now we need to look at some of the executive skills and expectations. But to your question on the on blocks is it's really almost all mental with what they can achieve.
[00:19:15] Dr. Nate Salah
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So as you're talking it, it reminds me, it gets me thinking about. How we create a sense of engagement, how we move out of a position where people have no real taking ownership. And a lot of what you're talking about is education. And as we both have discussed, I'm huge on education. And I believe that poverty is bondage. And I believe that we can be liberated from that. And it's been said that it's almost like slavery. You're enslaved to this tract that you're in. Right? And it's been said that the educated mind cannot be enslaved. It's a, it's a huge statement really, to unravel. Right. So what does that mean? It means that the more education I have, the more I have internal and external resources to help me to navigate to a better future state. I mean, cuz that's really what leadership is. And we're talking about leading, you know, we're talking about being led and then we're talking about leading.
[00:20:18]
And so when we have the educational components that are tied to not just a reward, but satisfaction, perceived satisfaction, you know, we look at rewards as the answer, but it's not really necessarily the reward that's the answer. It's our perception of future satisfaction that motivates and guides us. So, you know, the nursing, the degree, the certification is a reward, but what satisfies me in that, right? What satisfies me is knowing that some of my needs will be met, satisfies me to know that I'll be able to have comfort. Uh, it satisfies me to know that I can eliminate some of my self-limiting beliefs and maybe I can help others along the journey. All these and many, many other components to it. Right? Do you tie your educational journey? To a sense of perceived satisfaction.
[00:21:10] George Roller
Absolutely. One of the things that we work with, and actually started this with my son years ago, was I did a chart on the wall and on the left-hand side, like a little Excel spreadsheet, I'd put a quarter hour of homework, a half an hour of homework, and then all the way up to say three or four hours a day in homework. And then in the middle I would tie that to a possible job. Like the bottom one would be like, you know, McDonald's and then it'd be trash collector and then you know, assistant office manager and then all the way up to a doctor or engineer. And then I put a dollar figure on it, which was wrong because you know, an eighth grader doesn't know what 50,000 is versus 70,000. So I erased the dollar figure and then I started putting lifestyle things. So like I said, okay, if you study for a half an hour, you can be an office manager and you can ride a bike to work. And if you go up one level and you go 15 more minutes a day, you can have a car. And then if you go up two more things and you study and you become something else, then you can have a house and a car.
[00:22:08]
And then if you wanna be an engineer or a doctor or a cpa, then you can have a car, a house, and a vacation home. Mm-hmm. . And so I do the same thing in Guatemala, but I'd use different things to run the lifestyle, but it's not from a greed based thing. Like, oh, I got so much money in the bank. Or it's literally like for them, like, Hey, I can have a motorcycle. I don't have to take the bus system anymore. Mm-hmm. Or I could have my own house, or I could actually take vacations or dress nice. I don't have to get my clothes from the hand-me-down store. So absolutely, you tie that and then you know, you can tie it to other things like helping other people, like helping your mother or helping your brother. There's a lot of the people that are stepping out of poverty that we are around a lot of their resources. They want to go to help their siblings step out as well, or their parents or make their parents' life easier or help their parents have a surgery that they've needed for five or 10 years.
[00:23:07]
So absolutely, and I think if you present that correctly, it doesn't come from the greet angle, it comes from like an expectation or a goal that you can achieve. Yeah. So it literally kind of paints a video picture of like what that would look like. Why would I want to do that? I sit down with my guys often and I say, well, if you continue this way, then you're gonna just go to the United States through a coyote and you're gonna sneak through that Mexico border and this is what your light's gonna look like you can educate yourself and do this, and this is what your life looks like. You're here with your wife, your kids, you see your kids grow up, you have a car. And so the visualization does help very much.
[00:23:51] Dr. Nate Salah
And that's a real thing. I mean, that's a real sort of competition to creating an environment to where you will be educated and learn to thrive in your community versus like you said, I mean, and what's a coyote?
[00:24:06] George Roller
So it's not actually a real coyote, sorry, uh, using phrase. So a coyote is someone that takes the people from Central America and actually takes them across the river and brings them in the United States illegally.
[00:24:16] Dr. Nate Salah
And what would you estimate the percentage of people who actually take the coyote route versus the education route, currently?
[00:24:25] George Roller
Right now, probably be 90%, maybe 95% in the area I'm at. Yeah, we have in our area, Nate. We have lost 60 to 65% of all the men, like literally all the men. And when I say men, that's loose. That's like from down to 10 years old. So like a 32-year-old father and his 12-year-old son will come. And so when we go out to the countryside to help, we're running into these abandoned women. And of course, that leads to abuse with their daughters. And cuz there's nobody there to protect the family home. And then you go to the next family home and that's a lady and her daughters and you go to the next family home and that's a lady and her daughters or a grandpa. Wow. So, and right now that's the only thing that they look at is their way out. They don't look at school unless they're talking to someone like myself cuz nobody is pushing the school. Right.
[00:25:24] Dr. Nate Salah
That's a resource and a viable resource at that.
[00:25:26] George Roller
But the outcome could be Yeah. Yeah. They're just saying like, yeah, I take this coyote, I sell my motorcycle. And I traveled the US just like all my buddies did, and then I have this money and this straight life in the United States. They don't understand the cost of living here, and then they send their money back home, and then there's just all kinds of breakdown. Besides the actual neglect of breaking the law and entering the United States. There's all kinds of other emotional things. They leave one family and sometimes they come back to the US and create another family, and then they get deported and they go back to Guatemala and create a third family in their wake. They've got three families that are totally dysfunctional.
[00:26:03] Dr. Nate Salah
Are there cases where you've been able to help someone making a decision and not go the career route?
[00:26:10] George Roller
I can. I like to think there could be a couple, but I know one for sure. That was one of the sharpest guys I'd been around and well educated. He was actually college educated, but he had just not been able to find a job and he had it in his mind. The only way. to make. It was do what all his friends were doing was to hire the coyote and come to the United States. And I got wind of it and I brought him into our house with his wife and we went through it. Just, I went through exactly what would happen. You know, look at your kids right now, what are you doing? You know, and it worked. And so I think it put him on a different projectory, you know, with his education and with his, what he was able to do. But I think I got a reputation by doing that. Now three or four people have left and they all have left family members saying, I knew George would talk me out of it. So I just left before I told him.
[00:27:03] Dr. Nate Salah
Oh, Wow. And so this is what you're facing? Yes. It's jaw-dropping. If you think about it in any community here in the United States, and name any city, right, or any municipality where 90% of the males are gone. . It's almost like post-apocalyptic, you know, sounding, but yet that's what you're experiencing in your communities there.
[00:27:25] George Roller
Yeah. The area we're in is a very small town, and we've been told they can't tell us the exact number of people that leave, but they can tell us the exact number of people that return. Mm. And so when they're deported off the plane, they have to put down the town, they go to hok. Being a very, very small town is number two to Guatemala City, which has eight and a half million people in it, same side of Chicago. That's how bad it is in the area we're at because of the poverty and because of that. So we know that the people that are being deported, it's a higher percentage, which would make sense that the people leaving is a greater percentage.
[00:28:01] Dr. Nate Salah
So then it's mostly women in your program? Yes. Yeah. Yes. And you're training them?
[00:28:06] George Roller
Yeah. And a few young men, but very few.
[00:28:08] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. And so what are you seeing? Is it working?
[00:28:13] George Roller
It is. But one of the things that has just caused me to be rewired as a missionary, as a businessman, as a, you know, someone helping in humanitarian efforts is the time. You know, I've always, I don't know whether it's our American standard, you know, add water and stir are three months, six months. You know, save 'em, evangelize 'em. Next, next, next. But now I have came to the mental, I don't know what you gonna call epiphany, that when I take a project to someone on it's minimum three years, most likely it's gonna be five years. So it's a huge investment. Yeah. You know, to think, okay, I'm taking Jose, I'm taking, you know, Sophia, I'm taking this person on and it's gonna be three to five years, three years.
[00:28:56]
Like if everything was perfect. Half a decade. Yeah. Because there's so many things to unwind because I look at it like they're deeper in that groove of poverty. I don't know if that's a good word, word, picture. But you know, a lot of times, like we talked at the beginning of the podcast, you know, sometimes people just need a job or a vocation or some little thing or a hope or a hamburger, and man, Nate, you know, they gave them the hope and they went down and got a job and they turned it around. I just think of those people not being deeply integrated into poverty. Right. And they're able to step out. Right. The people that I seem to be working with right now are in what I call generational, multi-generational poverty or cyclical poverty.
[00:29:35] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. I've heard it said that poor people teach their kids to be poor people, and it's such a statement and I try to grapple with that is that's true and in some cases, It's, I've absolutely always true.
[00:29:48] George Roller
Yeah, I mean, like I said, you know, you were raised by what it sounds like to be a powerful, optimistic mom. Someone that was sort of, if you're being honest, kind of outside her pay grade. Yeah. She was, you know, she was on, she was in a certain situation, very motivated, a broken home. Yeah. And she was pushing you. That is highly unusual. And I was raised by a similar situation, almost identical actually, you know, as far as checking the box. And my mom was the same way. She was very optimistic. She wasn't as driven, but she was very optimistic and expectations and supportive of all that. But when you have someone that is dealing in multi-generational poverty, the baggage, if you just think of the word picture and you think of someone carrying like five international pieces of baggage from abuse and emotional abuse and everything, and then I got kids in tow, they can't even begin to think about how to help their five kids.
[00:30:48]
And if the five kids aren't helping them, then they almost disown them. Uh, the one, our number two in the ministry is a young lady that has stepped out of poverty on her own before I got there, through education and through work. And she has constantly been heckled by her mother through the process, even though she was earning almost five times a what girls in her position would of, without the education. Mm-hmm. and without the drive still at 30 years old, everything's successful, earning their money, having the lifestyle, having a motorcycle, having everything that a lot of people wouldn't have in that culture. And she's still heckled by her mother because she's not helping the mother. Right. And that's, to me, that is some of the. I don't know. The diagnostic of a poverty situation that someone can step out. Yeah. That's why I use that phrase, which is kind of uncanny, but crabs in a bucket. Someone tries to get out, everybody wants to eat the person's climbing.
[00:31:47] Dr. Nate Salah
Wow. In committing to three to five years of staying in the trenches with someone, I mean, not only is it a commitment based on your logic and reason and rationale of how you can help someone, but I know you've gotta have just a myriad of emotions that play into and, and are a part of this experience. You know? How do you feel when you're in the trenches at Ground Zero? Help our audience to understand what that feels like.
[00:32:16] George Roller
Well, there, there's a lot of frustrating days. You know? You know, one instance is we let a young man into our house and uh, uh, he was one of the few that didn't take the trip over to the United States, and I was trained him to be an accountant. And so I decided to pay to put him in school. And we had this agreement. We talked about it every night and literally I'd say, how's homework going? Well, because of his low expectations, because of his low, I don't know, moral self-standing if you would be, he couldn't even negotiate school. He was too embarrassed to ask for help. So he stopped going to school. So I'm paying for school, I'm paying for him in my house, I'm feeding him, he like a horse. And, and then he didn't even go to school for the last 45 days set and looked me eye to eye every, oh school's going great, you know, and he really wasn't a deceptive type person, but he was just caught and didn't know what to do and he didn't know or have the confidence to talk to his teacher and, and work things out.
[00:33:20]
You know, I always think about it, you know, there was a point in time when I went back late in life and got my MBA. And there was that last semester when we were doing econ and international finance and international marketing. I just kind of got in trouble, you know? And I went to the teacher three times a week during finals and I said, help me, help me. And they'd work through the programs and, and I know that a little bit of that helped a lot. And then I graduated with a strong, with a strong grade. But I had the wherewithal to ask for help. Yeah. And to have, and that takes a lot of confidence to walk in someone's office and say, I do not get this right. And so we ended up getting the bad news at the end of the year that he had didn't go to school and all our money was wasted. And everybody in our ministry said, toss him to the wind. Toss him to the wind. You know, you know, no accountability, you know, the American ma, no accountability. We caught you, you know, and as I prayed about it, God just gave me mercy.
[00:34:24]
And so we sit down and we talk to him and we said, you know, we need some more parental guidance in your life. Yeah. Your mother needs to move out of the community and move into town so she can watch over you. And she does. I'll put you and your sister back in school. Mm-hmm. . And now we have actually hired them a year later now, this is the second year he actually attended classes this year. Wow. He got through it. He had the confidence to ask the questions. We had better dialogue with the teachers and now we've hired him at the ministry and we're actually working with him and his sister to be the accountants for a hospital that we're gonna build in three years. So we're working on the staff almost five years before we actually need them
[00:35:08] Dr. Nate Salah
Man. And I wanna talk about the hospital here in a little bit. That story is so touching to me because it, it identifies a quintessential issue we have in leadership is we tend to misdiagnose the real issue. The real issue with someone not completing, uh, isn't that they're a waste or that they're useless. It's that we've set unrealistic expectations based on their, your unique circumstances and their own drives. ie, if someone has very low self-confidence, low self-esteem, low self-efficacy, low locus of control, whatever you wanna, however you wanna describe it, and we put them in an environment that has high challenge situations. As leaders, we should expect them to face misery and burnout rather than mastery and engagement. Based on the resources and the parameters that we've set them in, we've essentially set them up to fail. Absolutely. And so in a situation, now, granted, we can't identify all those components upfront. Sometimes things are lingering, sometimes we just don't have all the tools and resources.
[00:36:15]
But when you're able to identify that after the fact, rather than just throw them out and say, you're useless, you say, okay, here's where we missed it. We're gonna add these pieces because we now know what parameters we're faced with, what type of resources we have, so that we can then ream for success. It's, it's a much different mindset because we're not focused on punishing the individual. We're focused on what. Resources are missing in helping this individual to achieve our outcomes that we desire.
[00:36:46] George Roller
Really well said, Nate. One of the things that was been introduced to me by my number two, uh, down there in Guatemala was we were talking, we were having this very talk about, uh, one of our individuals and we're trying to put him into nursing school as well, to be, to run some of the diagnostic equipment to hospital. And I've been picking up that he feels like he's pushed a little bit. Like I had to go to school and I had to work, and I take care of my dad, and I had this track, you know, I already, it was tracking him, okay, you take this class, this class, this class, and so when the hospital's complete, you'll build to run the ultrasound, you'll be able take x-rays, you know, my number two and said, maybe we need to give him a year off.
[00:37:27]
And, you know, that concept in the United States, I, I've never heard that you know, you're going to get your doctorate, maybe you need to take a year, you know you're going to take your MBA Oh no, you're, you're finishing your residency once you take a, I just. I really had to like, I had to like put a bridle in my mouth and sit down and think about that. And I thought, well, wouldn't it be horrible if George just ran this guy over? Took someone that's one of the best of the best and I wasn't patient. And so I decided that I would give him a year off. And so I sat back and I disengaged the George and I said, okay, let him to come and tell me he's gonna take a year off.
[00:38:09]
And so when we had our annual meeting to talk to him and about the plans for next year, and he's an employee of the organization. And I said, okay, well you know, what's your plans? And I was fully expecting him to tell me that. And he says, well, you know, I'm gonna go ahead and start nursing school next year. Really? I'm like, okay, well giddy up. You know, let's go. But I mean, it had to come from within. That's right. External pressure would've been a crash and burn.
[00:38:39] Dr. Nate Salah
in this particular situation. That's why we have to know our people, right. Individually. Yeah. What they're going through, what they're struggling with and how, and it's not easy. No. If somebody listening who's in a leadership's like, wow, that's a lot of work. Yeah. It's a lot of work. Is a lot of work. But it's extremely satisfying when we reach our outcomes and we have those rewards that help us to create an environment where people can thrive. And so someone listening's like, okay, I get it now. And it's, it's starting to make sense because it doesn't, it this translates not just to, you know, if you're in missions, translates to the work environment, translates to the home with your children, translates to your peers. You know, I mean, this is a, a universal, if you will, application of how we do influence and leadership. And, and, and to put it this way, and of course it, it applies in a poverty situation, but it's, there's no quick fix. There's no easy, you know, just, just throw some more money at it, right? This is, this is doing life, and it takes years to create habits and behaviors, and it also takes years to unwind and change those habits and behaviors.
[00:39:54] George Roller
Well said because you can't take 500 years of, uh, cyclical poverty and change it in three months or one college class. You, you, you know, they're gonna get feedback from their grandparents. You know, why don't you just stay home and have babies? You know, why don't you just, it's raining today. Don't e I mean, that's my favorite, you know, is it's raining. Don't even go to class, you know, in an area where it rains a hundred days a year. So you have to unwind that, and you have to be patient. and I'm, I'm only preaching to myself. Right, right. You know, you're starting to understand the process and stepping out, you know, and just if this one individual needed a year off, I don't think it would've been an indictment against his drive. I think it would've just been where he was at. And then he would've been able to come back strong. Yeah. And go forward. And he still might, he might go one or two more years and then still need that one year to kind of digest. Yeah. Because they just are not built to do what we do here at culturally they're not.
[00:40:51] Dr. Nate Salah
Yeah. Yeah. And that's okay because we can put, the great thing about setting realistic timelines is that we can make adjustments based on new information. Right. Because we can only make decisions based on the information we have at the time and under. There's two, two points I wanna make. That's one I want to dive. . Um, and another point I wanna talk about how change happens gradually when there are lo just ingrained behaviors. And this is anecdotal, but when I was young, I was, I did a lot of creative writing, a lot of poetry, very wordy prose. When I got to college, as you know, in going to business school, I had a professor who said, Nate, I love that you're doing all of this wordy writing, but it doesn't belong in a business paper.
[00:41:37]
Concise and precise. He gave me those two words. And so I got to my undergrad and I started working on that. Well, four years of undergrad, still trying to flesh that out. Three years of MBA, right? Still trying to flesh that out. Five years, five to six years of PhD work. By the end of my dissertation, I finally put to death that last bit of wordiness in my writing. how many years did that take? Right. Again, it's anecdotal, but the point is, is that be patient with yourself. Mm-hmm. , you know, and set real deadlines, set real goals, but know that it's a process and you can change if you simply know, you know, I love what Paul talked about, you know, The Pillars of Love. Right. Patience and kindness. Wow. If we can just exhibit patience and kindness in how we exhibit leadership, because we're so oftentimes we don't want to happen. I think what one of the fears is we're afraid that if we take our foot off the gas, that nothing will happen. We're afraid that we'll, or we won't be good stewards of the time that we're entrusted with, but we have to be discerning in that.
[00:42:46]
Right. It's not always about you. As fast as you can go. Drive, drive, drive. I've been there. I mean, I used to do triathlon and marathon and I was always like, you know, they call it pr, personal record. And actually it wasn't until I hurt my back that I started jogging slower. I was like, you know, it's kind of nice jogging slower, not always racing to get to the finish line. Right? And I think that's okay for people who are driven like you and myself, to take a step back and say, you know what, maybe it's not on our timeline. Maybe sometimes our timeline isn't the best timeline for this experience we call life in every season of it.
[00:43:22] George Roller
Well, I think there is, I mean, you, you opened up a huge door there, because I think of several things in my own life when I have outrun a door.Mm-hmm. You know, where the environment wasn't ready or you're in front of the market. I mean, we all know businesses that have failed because they were in front of the market. You know, and I know in, we've done a lot of talk about business, you and I. But one of the things is, you know, sometimes it's better to be the second person, the second business in a market because the first one, you know, has all the r and d and they, they try to convince all the customers this new product or service is needed.
[00:43:54]
And then by the time everybody figures out that, yeah, I do need that new widget or that new service, you're outta money. And then the second company moves in without the r and d and without the changing the market. Right. And I think that's kind of what I'm seeing. I'm around right now, a lot of pastors, and one of the things that I'm hearing for the first time in a long time, I'm hearing a lot of conversation about sabbaticals and I, almost every pastor, literally I talk to now is talking, Hey, my sabbaticals this year, next year. And so, I mean, when I first was introduced to that idea, I'm like, what is that? Well, that's, I take six weeks with our denomination or with our beliefs or whatever. We believe that, you know, we need to take some time to just spend time with God and our family and just kind of rest.
[00:44:39]
And at first I was like, what, you're gonna slow down? You know, you're gonna get lapped. You know? And the more I understood and started looking at just God's natural creation about, you know, fields being left vacant, one outta seven years, when you're doing agriculture, you know, a lot of the processes, because we're humans, we're not machines, we're not made of metal. And I'm seeing so much. Energy and creativity and longevity come out of the idea of a sabbatical for let's say, a pastor or someone in ministry. You know, I don't know if that idea has ever been introduced to the business world.
[00:45:16] Dr. Nate Salah
It's interesting because it's there in pastoral work, it's there in academia. Many professors take sabbaticals, but in business, Mm, nope, nope. A month to not do any work. It's unheard of. Yeah. Yet, I wonder what possibilities will open up, because you know, as well as I do when we've taken time to decompress, to reflect, sometimes our best ideas are born out of this time to take a step back, get on the balcony, whatever you wanna call it. And also, we need time to replenish. We don't get it. But look at, I mean, we're talking about God and ministry. I mean, Jesus, he retreated to the other side of the lake and he needed some time, time with a heavenly Father to pray. And yeah, it's good thing by the way, you know, it's interestingly, you know, Jesus was never late to an appointment, right?
[00:46:12]
And we was always on time because he understood the relationship with setting realistic expectations. He probably could have, you know, gotten more people on that quota for the day for healings, right? But he knew that there was time that was needed to rest. The other piece of that point I wanted to make is that sometimes life does happen and things don't always go the way we thought they would. I've got a colleague who was in my program with me who had physical ailments and all kinds of challenges and was about to drop out of the program. And through conversations and encouragement, don't drop out, get well. and then continue where you left off. Right? And I'm happy to say that he completed his exams and passed them, and now he's working on his dissertation, right?
[00:46:58]
So that's that hope piece, right? But it's also expectations, because the expectation is you will overcome these obstacles, right? With the company of hosts who are bind around you to help you to overcome them, so that you can then take the next step of the journey, which you've committed to in leadership. It's been said that the two most resonant and recurring themes in leadership are vision and focus in all the leadership approaches. And in a way, hope and expectations mirror vision and focus, right? Because vision is naturally optimistic, it's naturally hopeful, right? No one wants to go to a worse future state, right? You want better. That's what our vision of the future should be, and focus is really focusing on what are the expectations day to day to day that are needed to be met so that the outcome expectation is realized.
[00:47:52] George Roller
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of the interesting things. You know, we were talking just earlier about the kids and about this passport situation and you know, a lot of the people that were praying for us thought that we were gonna be able to bring 'em with us because we would already got a visa. They didn't understand you need a visa to travel from Guatemala to the United States in addition to the passport. And we did not achieve that. That's a corruption thing, and we gotta pay more money and wait in line and all that stuff. But after spending 10 appointments to passport office to get the kids these passport, and it was right the week before we came and left them for six weeks to come back to the United States to spend time with our family, to have my specifical, so to speak, even though I haven't arrested much, is my wife and I were talking and we were saying like, the kids seem at such peace this year.
[00:48:41]
Yeah. There was no. anxiety about us leaving. There was no like, when are you coming back? There's like, what are we gonna do? We gonna talk every night? You know, all this. And we came to the decision, or we came to the understanding that the kids had watched us fight for their passport. Mm-hmm. And they didn't understand the amount of money we spent, but they knew there was money involved and they knew that we'd spent a lot of time and we made several trips down. I mean, including one day we went to the passport office three times. In one day. There's 500 people online. So literally, you're just really just leaning into this thing. And when they finally got their passport and we came back and we kind of had, I call a small victory, a victory, but a small victory, now we gotta move on to the visa. I think the kids realized how much we loved them and how much we were taking care of them. And so their original concerns about being left or when are, when is George and Tammy coming back? Were all dismissed because their cup was full. Yeah. They realized that we had fought for them. Yeah. And that they were loved and that now things were gonna be okay. And I'm wondering if that's where someone has to move from, or that's their grounding, if you would be the roots before they move on, is they have to understand that they're gonna be okay.
[00:50:04] Dr. Nate Salah
I've talked about this. In fact, I was on one of our solo episodes and some others. I talked about the scarcity mindset and the need for safety. And so when we're struggling to feel safe, we expend tremendous amounts of energy to protect the very little that we have to be safe. And this is works. This concept is involved in a business environment. People don't feel safe at work. They're gonna, they're going to refocus energy that's usually meant for performance in an organizational environment, into feeling safe in an environment. Same thing in a home. Not only that, I mean, you can say it in a, in a community, in a nation. And so once people feel safe, then that energy expenditure can go to more productive activities. And I think in a way that's what you're talking about.
[00:50:53]
You know, once people feel loved, because love is not just an emotion, it's an action. And once people know that you care about them and that you have empathy and that you will fight for them, because that's what leadership is. In some ways, we're freedom fighters. We're liberators. And so people want to know that you'll fight for them because if they know you'll fight for them, they will then in turn connect with you in that shared struggle. And which is a perfect transition as we talk about the hospital, because vision and focus, right? hope and expectations, you know, this is becoming a reality. This was a vision. in Guatemala for you to provide medical care and you'll share more about it to those who need safety, who need you to share in their struggle, who need liberation, who need freedom fighters. And I'm holding a brochure now. Tell us more about it.
[00:51:46] George Roller
Well Nate, I don't think we got three hours, but uh, I'll do my best to be concise. So in Guatemala, you first have to ask yourself the question, you know, why a hospital, why here, why now we have a hospital in town. Okay, it's a regional hospital, but Guatemala is out of 195 countries is the fourth worst for nutrition. National stats would have that. Uh, 70% of the kids, and I would say in our area, probably 90% of the kids are lost the word there. But they cannot grow because they're actually under nutrition. They actually, you know, end up being smaller. They kids have babies between 12 and 14. So, you know, medically speaking, if a 12-year-old is pregnant and the birth canal is seven centimeters and the baby's head is nine centimeters, one of them dies.
[00:52:42]
Mm. And we lose over 200 kids in our little area a year in that fashion. And many times by multiple babies, by the same mother. You know, again, at 14 or something, there is organ harvesting going on. In the next hospital over, mother will go in for a, uh, to have a baby and come out with one less kidney. There is doctors will tie the tubes of the women without even telling 'em a 14-year-old can't have a baby anymore. And over there having babies is really the gift to the husband. So if you can't have any more babies, you're, a lot of times you're in proposition. Yeah. A lot of times. A lot of times you're divorced at that point, you know, and our areas made up of indigenous. By that I mean the Kichai Indians, which are about 85%. The people we minister to in our area of Hoyova, if you would be our county of Hoyova. And there's about 160,000 of them. And most of them will not come to the hospital because of all the things that I've mentioned along with more. And in this brochure we've done several case studies because we have a ministry called Ray of Hope where we minister to 72 special needs kids. And the kids are just left, literally, some of 'em are putting in chicken cages. It's just unhuman what they do to the special needs kids, the parents do to the special needs kids.
[00:53:59]
And this whole thing just screams that, that there needs to be better healthcare. But like I tell our donors, and I tell the people involved in this project is, is it's not the building. The building will be nice. The building will be state of the art. , Lord willing. But it's about the approach to the indigenous, it's about the love. As an example, if someone needs to have their appendix taken out, you need to sit down with 20 people in a room and tell the whole family of why this person has to go under the knife , and why they have to go to sleep and why they are gonna have to act a certain way when they come out to repair their bodies and not work for a couple weeks or whatever. Mm-hmm. And so there's a lot of communication. So there's gonna be three unique, if you would be value propositions for the hospital. One, it's gonna be a mission-based hospital. And what we mean by that, to keep operating costs down, we're gonna be inviting in medical doctors from all around the world, including the United States, Canada, Europe, and even Central America, maybe even within Guatemala, to come and serve maybe for week, 10 day stints, to do operations, to do dental, to do.
[00:55:12]
Psychiatric care that's gonna offset our operating costs. So we may not have surgeons on site, you know, a hundred percent of the time, but we may do 60 surgeries, you know, every five weeks when a team arrives. The second thing is it's gonna be an outpatient because of the expertise with surgery. And because we don't wanna have, you know, 24 hour staff and stuff like that, we're gonna run an outpatient surgery center so that people would have their surgery and then leave and, and then go home. And then the third aspect, and it's the reason why we've really got enough inertia here with the project, is gonna be a training hospital. So as an example, there are what we call in the United States, it translates midwives and sometimes it's midwives slash witch doctors over there that are in these communities and they are the doctor.
[00:56:00]
That's the outpatient place that you go to and is. This lady shows up with the roots that she boils in hot waters and sip this and does this. And that's all the medical care. That's 500 years of what they've been used to. And so one of the things that we are going to be doing is as a ministry, but also as health and wellness, we're going to be inviting them in and training the midwives to be. Even to have a higher level of expertise. We're not gonna come in and say, oh, you're a midwife. You've never been to medical school. You don't know what you're doing. Get outta my way. Like some ministries do. We're gonna come in and we're going to embrace them. Mm-hmm. And we're gonna just give them some common sense stains.
[00:56:37]
If you have a young girl that's having a baby, and then you will have a model of the birth canal and we'll say, so it could happen , that you would need to measure this. And then you would need to, you know, if you suspect there's a problem, you need to prepare the family to come in for a C-section, you know? Yeah. To save the baby. And then you get the reputation. Yeah. The midwife of doing that. So the needs Nate is just so overwhelming. I agree. It's, it's easy to just get overwhelmed with them. Yeah. But we're gonna start off with maybe servicing about 900 people the first. 2,500 to second year, and we're gonna work our ways up to about 5,000 a year that we'll be ministering to in the way of surgeries. Yeah. The two years that I've been working on this project, we've been doing case studies, tours of, we've talked to judges, lawyers, social workers, other doctors, other hospitals, and we've come up with eight specialties that we're gonna be working on. Very practical things like dental, psychiatric, nutrition, obviously a stomach doctor, a surgeon.
[00:57:41]
Yeah. You know, an internist. Those are the type of things that we're doing. And we believe that the ministry or ministry of sin me ultimately come like a tree, which is our new logo by the way. Spreading hope is gonna be like a tree. It's going to be like in all areas. So if someone comes into the hospital, maybe they need a home built. Yeah. Or maybe they need a mission trip to come to their church and help them out. Or maybe they have a special needs kid that we can help out. So it's gonna be kind of the sharp end of the stick if you would be for ministry, and so we've just completed the design. Mm-hmm, it's a really small lot. We were given the land free by the municipality of Hoyova because they loved our vision. And so we have the land free and clear. We just completed the brochure about three weeks ago, so it's just now going out to a lot of donors that have expressed some interest in IT Project's gonna be about 1,000,008 to build the hospital, about a million to put the diagnostic equipment in it and staffing furniture and those type of things. And then we'll keep the operating cost at a bare minimum in the first couple years. And then we're gonna build a, a ministry endowment so that we become self-sufficient. Mm-hmm. in the way of the interest pain for the doctors. Yeah. So that's the CliffNotes version of the hospital in Hoyova.
[00:59:01] Dr. Nate Salah
Well, I mean, it's so important, so needed in the way you describe this epidemic right now of, you know, the organ harvesting and all the different issues. I think it's important how you've brought in the possibility for the rotation of the teams and from outside of the community. Because if the issue is within the community, you're facing an uphill battle by Correct. Having the physicians all sourced from the, from the local region. Right. So that's important too. How can people partner with you?
[00:59:32] George Roller
Well, they can reach out to us. Of course. Our website is send me.org. And you can send us a note. My phone (636) 751-8899, which is, I can answer it in Guatemala or you get a message and then I, I can call back. Certainly if somebody has an interest maybe in being on a mission trip or being a donor, I'd love to talk to them more about this process. Right now, the next step for us is more corporate and licensing issues as we get soil samples together because it's an earthquake region and we're making sure that we're billed to properly structured and hospital, and so we're going down that process as well. So, Lord willing, we'll build to raise those funds and actually start pouring some cement in about a year or so.
[01:00:21] Dr. Nate Salah
I can't wait to be there. The million dollar question is, as we talk about hope and expectations, vision and focus, you know, 10 years ago did you see yourself building a hospital in Guatemala?
[01:00:31] George Roller
No, I did not. 10 years ago we were doing small mission trips, maybe twice a year doing some work over there and just seeing what God would do on a really short term basis. And I think as, as we move there just now, it's been five years, Nate, since I sat in your office and Wow. And mentioned that to you, that God has really opened up our, I guess, capacity to do something like this. And then the more we talk and the more we network and the more we express and communicate our faith, God just is moving heaven and earth. I mean, I just got off the phone with a doctor last week that's bringing a, uh, an ultrasound down with him on a mission trip and giving it to the ministry. Yeah, the newest technology that can do heart, liver, stomach, ob, G Y n knees. And so it's interesting, you know, as you express faith and I'm, my journey with having faith in God and what he wants us to do, I think two things I would just throw out there for someone that might be in a situation where God's calling him to walk by faith is hear from God.
[01:01:37]
And no matter how big or small it is, proclaim it. I think that's one of the first things you have to do. You have to buy in and you say, God, the hospital was not my idea. God gave me that. And one of the things, Nate, I'm doing, I, you probably would say maybe, I don't know, I'm arrogant or whatever, but I took this idea and I'm telling everybody my work is done. Hmm. God called me to build the hospital. I did my business thing, I did case studies. I looked at other hospitals. I built a plan, I designed it. I, we were gifted to land. And I'm like, okay, God, now the printing is done. I've communicated all those ideas. I lay it down at. people's offices and I say, I'm done. God, now it's time for you to show up.
[01:02:24] Dr. Nate Salah
Mm-hmm., no, I don't think that's arrogant at all. I think that's, that's walking in faith and also taking the steps that ordained before you. I think it's, it creates hope in others because sometimes we don't know what the future holds, but if we simply just plant the seeds and take the steps forward, right? That's, sometimes that's all we need to do and, uh, path will be revealed to us. You know, it's interesting. We talk about, you know, the old scripture that says, you know, it's a lamp unto your feet, not a spotlight right? Out into 10 years from now. Yeah. That's beautiful. And I'm, we're so glad to be with you and so glad to share these snippets, if you will, in this journey and be a part of it. We'll make sure to put, uh, how people can find you in the show notes. Thank you. As you continue to do a good work in these communities and help inspire and develop and really exhibit leadership and so. , you know, I've defined leadership as discovery, influence, and achievement of shared purpose. And you know, you start with discovery, with your mission trips, exploration, and then your influence to take a deeper step and actually stop doing what you were doing in the US a successful career and full-time ministry in a third world country, in a small poverty-stricken town. And then begin to influence the community to share in achieving a better future state for them, step by step by step in a new way. And so I just wanna commend you and affirm you in that. You're doing it.
[01:03:54] George Roller
Thank you. Well, it's a part, and you got, you've been a big part of this as well, Nate, the journey even before five years ago. Yeah. And you're supporting, and your prayers and your thoughts and your exhorting and you're always there. And we talk and email a couple times. Every trip I go back. And so for me, that's a big part of filling. . Like when we have people step up with us, it for Tammy and I, it's very, I can't think of the right wording. Encouragement's more than that. It's affirming. Mm-hmm. The people like, okay, they believe in this vision. Yeah. Too. Yeah. And now we can walk together. That's right. You know? That's right. So I appreciate that as well.
[01:04:34] Dr. Nate Salah
Absolutely. So the next time we see you, we have to bring Tammy. Yes. And visit with us, and we can't wait to partner with you, join you along this journey. We plan on taking a trip and visiting with you and bringing my son down to Guatemala this year.
[01:04:49] George Roller
I think that's an excellent time for a podcast. Okay. On location.
[01:04:55] Dr. Nate Salah
I love it. On location. Let's do it. All right, my friend. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks for having me. I bless you, brother. Appreciate it. Well, my friend, I am so thrilled that you joined me on this episode of A Call to Leadership, and before you go to the next episode, especially if you're binge-listing, take a moment. I would love to get your honest review right here on your screen. Your feedback is so important. It helps the podcast, it encourages me and it helps me. It helps me to give you more and more and more value. So I can't wait to read your review. I can't wait to be with you on the next episode. I'm Dr. Nate Salah this is A Call to Leadership.