Never confuse limited resources with limited capacity…that idea continued to resonate with our team as we participated in Global Leadership Summit sites in the country of Myanmar just a few weeks ago.

It all began in Myanmar in 2009 when a team from WCA, Singapore and Evansville Indiana worked in collaboration to launch the first GLS in a Yangon church for a passionate group of 350 Burmese pastors and leaders. This year the GLS is wrapping up in 6 cities in Myanmar with over 3000 leaders in attendance. And these passionate pioneers talk of reaching 9 cities with thousands more leaders over the next few years.

I had the opportunity to personally participate in 2 of the 4 sites this past year and while I enjoyed returning to be with the GLS veterans in Yangon, I especially enjoyed our experience with site in Kalaymyo Myanmar

Kalaymyo is located in the northwest section of Myanmar and was recently recognized in the national news because a monsoon which triggered a state of emergency due to flash flooding that displaced thousands of people and caused devastation for families in the area. Makeshift rescue camps were spread across the valley and people were surviving in tents with random water and supplies from various churches and agencies. We were able to tour the flooded area and even provide some assistance, but in this city of 400,000 this was a disaster of major proportion.

With that backdrop, we arrived in this city to join the launch of their first GLS. While we anticipated that the floods added to the ongoing resource challenges of this city might be a detriment to local engagement in a leadership conference, we found just the opposite. The local GLS team was hard at work when we arrived the day before GLS.

Producers were going over the script for the day line by line. Tech people were setting up audio and video systems and testing to make sure the message would be optimum. Ladies were cleaning and hanging curtains to darken the room. The highly skilled band was rehearsing the worship set to make sure it was ready. The event teams were hanging banners and making sure program books and name tags were ready and waiting. There was an army of people preparing food and all this was being done under the power of generators to provide electricity. It was amazing to watch the level of organized effort and their passion to serve leaders in their city.

And they came.

The parking lot was full of motorcycles as they exceeded their goal and filled the church with over 260 leaders from 69 different organizations including pastors from multiple denominations, politicians, businessmen, educators, leaders from social welfare, media and beyond. Never had such a diverse group gathered in this city. The GLS provided a resource that could be leveraged to bring leaders together from every sector to learn, grow and improve their leadership.

It is always a privilege to provide help to the under resourced. Food, clothes, shelter, financial support…may God enlarge our hearts for those with physical needs. But what became evident in our brief experience in Kalaymyo Myanmar was that physical resources served some of the immediate needs, but leadership development provided long term skills to address solutions. The GLS provided skills for growth to some very capable leaders in a community where leaders don’t lack capacity, but lack opportunity. Leadership resources that can help them navigate and lead in the reality of a severely under resourced environment.

The GLS is a resource to be leveraged and in Kalaymyo they came, they listened and they learned. And experience tells us that everybody wins when a leader gets better. Churches win…. Cities win…. Countries win… everybody wins.