Happy Dessara from Olive Leaf Tech!

Updated ‘About’ Page

http://oliveleaftechnologies.wordpress.com/about/

Blessings

Celebrating Asher's first birthday

Over and over we have seen God’s blessings overflow as we follow after his vision. Over 2 years ago, God gave us a vision to start a training center and business here in India. It’s a little unconventional, we don’t know anyone who is doing something like this, yet we were confident that this is what the Lord was calling us to do. It lined up with our passions of helping people through business and also allowed us to help people that we love so dearly (the kids at the children’s home). From the time that He gave us this vision, our desire has been to build this center is prayer. At times it has been challenging, when we have faced opposition, challenges financially, and people just not “getting it.” Through all the start up, though, we continued to trust God in His vision. These past 2 months, we have seen God working in amazing and miraculous ways. There are 3 things that I want to share with you that God has done:

1. We really needed an Indian staff person to help us run the training center. Someone to help with training and someone to be in charge when we can’t be there. We prayed specifically for someone who was somewhat educated (but not TOO educated because we didn’t have much money to pay the person), someone who was a little older, someone who had some computer knowledge, and who would have a passion for our vision. It was a lot to ask for, but we prayed and asked God for these specific things. We talked to the staff at the children’s home and mentioned our need, but that was it. One of the staff at the home said she had a friend who just came to her the day before looking for a job. We met with her a few days later, and she was EXACTLY what we prayed for. Anita began working for us, and she has been a perfect fit. She is willing to learn new things and she has such a passion for the Lord and for helping people.
2. As you know, our training center is in full swing. The boys are doing great, and we’ve gotten into a great groove of things. The business, however, has been hard to start. It’s been hard to find work, and get things going with that. We desperately needed to get the business off the ground for several reasons: First, the business is going to help financially support the training center. We want the training center and business to be self-sustaining so that we are not completely reliant on support. As of now, we have expenses with Anita’s salary, a need for more computers, and utilities for the building. Secondly, we want to have the business well established so that when the boys finish training, they have the option of being hired on at the business. All that to say, a month ago, we were VERY far away from getting this business started.
   About 3 weeks ago, someone contacted Tammy (the head of the children’s home) and asked if she knew of any businesses that could do basic data entry/outsourcing work in India. He wanted a small company to do it, maybe one that was socially conscious. He also asked if she had ever considered having any of the older youth at the home do work for a business to raise money for themselves and the children’s home. Crazy, right? This is EXACTLY what we are doing. In 11 years that the children’s home has been open, Tammy has NEVER received an email like that. Coincidence? That would have to be a pretty huge coincidence…God answered our prayers incredibly. So we have been talking to this man for the past few weeks, and everything has fallen into place amazingly. He has work for us to do and wants to partner with us so that he can help with marketing state-side. That is also a huge answer to prayer because that is something Dylan and I can’t do, and a huge necessity for us to find other clients. Through this, God was able to provide 2 new computers that we needed and more work than we can handle right now! Amazing!
3. So that brings us to the third amazing thing that God has blessed us with. Considering we have so much work to do for the business, we need someone to work for the business. Right now, I (Molly) am doing the work, but it is almost impossible for me to keep up with. I have the training center and being a full-time mother already, and adding work for the business is way too much. So this past week and a half, we have been praying for a staff person to start working for the business until the boys from the children’s home finish their training. We were praying specifically for someone who had training in computers, had already worked at a BPO (outsourcing company), spoke good English (so she/he could possibly do phone calls on a night shift in the future), but wasn’t too overqualified because we only have a certain amount for a salary. Two days ago, we were walking around our neighborhood and stopped to talk to one of our neighbors. We told him about our business and training center and he was so excited about it. He was sharing how difficult it is to work for a Christian business in India with good morals and also do business. He wasn’t able to work for us, but said he would keep his ears open. Later that night, a woman came to our door (who happened to be his sister) and has the EXACT qualifications we were praying for. We will interview her on Saturday for the position. We have a really good feeling about it, though.

All of us at Olive Leaf Training

This has gotten really long, but we just wanted to share the amazing things that God has been doing in our lives. It has been NOTHING that we have done. We couldn’t have worked things out this good, even if we had wanted to. I want to encourage all of you to build your lives, your work, you ministry, EVERYTHING that you do, in prayer. It is so amazing to see God work in such miraculous ways. It is so much better to pray and see God work things out the best way, then for us to work and struggle to get things done the hard and mediocre way. I hope this will be an encouragement to all of you to see how God is working here. We are so encouraged and are so excited to see what He’s going to do next!

Attention Small Business Owners!!!

ATTENTION SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS!!!

 Are you interested in missions?   Are you interested in using your business to help benefit missions in India?

We are starting a business called Olive Leaf Technologies to employ and spiritually disciple at-risk youth.  We are looking for businesses that are willing to partner with us and provide basic data entry work for our business to do.

Vision of the business:

• Provide work for at-risk youth and give them a fair wage for the work that they do
• Give individuals a chance to have a job and avoid a life of poverty
• Spiritually disciple youth through bible study, prayer, and accountability groups
• Teach basic skills, such as computer skills, money management, etc.
• Long-term vision is to financially support indigenous Indian missionaries (specifically older youth in K-Home that want to be missionaries) in their work in villages in India.

 

Work that we can do:

We will do ANY work that can be done on a computer or the internet.  Some examples are payroll, billing, processing statistical information, bidding, and transcription.  Basically any computer work that you may not have time for, or may not want to do, we would be willing to do it.

We are willing to learn something new.  If there is some work that you would like us to do that is not listed here, we can learn it.  Please contact us with ANY WORK that you would like for us to do and we will learn how to do it.

This is a mutually beneficial business.  We can do work for you at a low-cost, and in turn, you will be using your business to further the Kingdom of God through missions.

We are looking for businesses to partner with us NOW.  We are beginning this business now and need commitments from businesses that are interested in partnering with us.

If you are interested in this, please contact us immediately.  We can give you more information and get the process started.

This is a great opportunity to use your business to further the Kingdom of God and help those in need in India.  This business is specifically to employ the older youth of K-Home (the children’s home in India that we have been working at for the past 2 years).  If you own a business and are looking for a new and unique way to support Indian missions in a mutually beneficial way, this is a great opportunity!

Please contact us immediately and we can give you more information.

-Dylan and Molly Fila

mfila@securenym.net

the start of Olive Leaf Technologies

Many of you may know that we have finished our role at the Children’s Home. We have been working there for the past 2 years and have really enjoyed our time there. We will now begin a business in India to employ and spiritually disciple at-risk youth.

We are really excited about the future of this business. God has called us to help people through business and we have seen a HUGE need for this in India.

The business that we are starting is called Olive Leaf Technologies. Our goal for our business is to provide work for young adults who may not have other employment opportunities in India. We specifically want to provide work for the older children in K-Home (the children’s home we have been working at for the past 2 years) that may not be able to go on to college and give them an opportunity to have a good job.

Vision of the business:

- Provide work for at-risk youth that need a job

- Spiritually disciple youth through bible study, prayer, and accountability groups

- Teach basic skills, such as computer skills, money management, etc.

- Long-term vision is to financially support indigenous Indian missionaries (specifically older children in K-Home that want to be missionaries) in their work in villages in India.

We are looking for businesses to partner with us in this endeavor. We will be able to provide basic data entry work for businesses that would like to outsource their data entry needs. We are willing to do any work that a business might need. We can do basic data entry work and payroll and are willing to learn any other skills that a business might need for us to learn. We are at the beginning stages of this business and would like individuals with businesses that are willing to partner with us on this vision.

Advantages to Olive Leaf Technologies:

- Furthering the Kingdom of God through business

- Giving employment opportunities to young adults in India (specifically K-Homes youth)

- Outsourcing data entry work that you may not have time/not want to do

- Fast turnaround: while you are sleeping, we are doing your work. When you wake up in the morning, we can have your work sent back to you!

- Please pray about partnering with us in this Kingdom business. God has a strong calling on our lives to help people and further the Kingdom of God through business. If God prompts your heart to join us in this, please do not hesitate to contact us.  If you know of anyone that might be interested in partnering with us, please send this information along to them.

We will be returning to India at the beginning of March to begin the business. We can start work now, though, to get the kinks worked out before we go back to India. We would be willing to meet with you in person or talk to you over the phone to work out the details. If you have any questions, please email or call us.

-Dylan and Molly Fila (staff at childrens home for the past 2 years, and continuing to serve God in India)

Contact information: mfila@securenym.net

*We are currently traveling around in America, so we do not have a consistent phone number, please email us and let us know if you would like to talk more and we can call you.

SEED

Winners of 2009 SEED Awards Announced

 

I just checked out the above article this morning about the 2009 SEED Awards announced by the UN Environment Program. These awards are given to organizations that work in developing countries to improve livelihoods, tackle poverty, etc. It is really great to see a lot of the work being done in some of India’s neighbors, but I was disappointed to see that India didn’t show up even once on the award list.

Socially Responsible Outsourcing

Thanks for the link Isaac!

Banker to the Poor

I have just finished reading Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus. It was a fabulous book and very engaging. Mr. Yunus personal life and biography was almost as interesting as the concept of micro-lending that he introduced to the rural poor in Bangladesh and the world.

I was very interested in his belief that credit and the access to credit should not be a service to those who are already rich (those who can show collateral), but in fact should be considered a human right available to all people.  In all honesty, though I was somewhat familiar with micro-lending, I have never thought about it in those terms.

Mr. Yunus’ argument is that the poor do not need training as much as they need access to credit in order to raise themselves out of the cycle of intense labor and very low wages. Most of the people who have received his type of small “good faith” loans are people who already have a skill and can work but are being extorted by people who pay them next to nothing for the work they do. The small amount of capital they receive is able to give them the necessary boost to purchase their own raw materials and work for themselves.

I was very engaged and challenged by this book.
By the way, Mr. Yunus gave a nice long shout out to Arkansas in the book. Apparently, Arkansas, during the time of Bill Clinton’s governing, was the first state to show interest in and successfully attempt micro-lending in the US. Pretty cool.
Being that I also speak a bit of Bengali and the fact that Mr Yunus has spent quite a bit of time in Arkansas makes me feel like we would have a lot to talk about some day if we ever met.

Anyway, with this book on my mind, I have been really challenged to think of rural social work in India in a different way. One of the goals in the mission statement of Olive Leaf Tech is to support mission work in India through indigenous missionaries. The oldest boy, Kiran, in our children’s home has a passion to return to the village he was born in to bring the gospel as well as help in some sort of economic development. They are a semi-nomadic people group called Lambani, and they speak their own language which pretty much consists of mixing several other Indian languages into one.
To give you an idea of how isolated they are… Tammy made a trip out to the village a couple of years ago and was confronted with this question: “What tribe are you from? We have never seen someone with your skin and eye color before.”

The tentative plan for Olive Leaf over the next couple of years is to work with Kiran and others to help financially support mission/humanitarian work in this village. The more I think about it, the more I love the idea of being involved in long term social projects through Olive Leaf. We will be able to provide the financial backing to development in this village while at the same time sharing the hope and life through Jesus to them.

This book by Mr. Yunus has put a few things in my head to think on. For instance, many times (though not all) people living in poverty may have skills, they just don’t have the means to use them to all of their economic potential. What better place to start helping people than in an area that they are already skilled in?

I am looking forward to reading Mr. Yunus’ new book soon!

Business as Mission

Thanks to all of you who have connected with me over email or Facebook. I have received some great feedback about the business as well as networking ideas from many of you. If you want to get in touch with me directly, my email is dfila@securenym.net. Drop me an email!

It is actually surprising to me to see the kinds of resources out there for businesses with a purpose. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a trend, but it is not as novel of a concept as you might think.  I came across a great resource on a Business as Mission website ( thanks for the link Isaac).  The most recent post on this website is about raising capital for startup cost which happens to be a very interesting subject to me at the moment. The website gives some links to venture capital firms which invest in Christian and/or missional focused businesses. Pretty cool.

A “Had to be There” kinda thing

There are certain things that are exciting to me, but it is hard for me to tell if other people would be excited about it too.

Bird watching is one of those things. For those of you who know me well, I love birding (which is the “bird watching” name for “bird watching”). Last month, I got really excited when I spotted a green bee eater, which is a bird that I have never seen in India before. This whole scenario was pretty amusing to Molly and Tammy who for SOME reason think birding isn’t cool. Well it is cool, and I was excited to spot that bird migrating through Bangalore.

The reason I bring this up is because I relate this to a conversation that Molly had yesterday with her old boss in Arkansas who gave us some great new training ideas for our business. Her old boss had some great thoughts and affirmed the direction of our business. All in all, it was not a big deal, and it may have not looked like anything to get excited about from an outside perspective, but it was really cool to have a business woman talk about our idea with excitement. It was my bee eater sighting for the day.

Indian Green Bee Eater