S2 Ep4 - The Pace of Good Partnership

I think that for American organization it's hard because they have money, they have no time. I don't think that anyone likes to be patronized. Partnership can go horribly wrong and it can go fabulously well. Partnership with our relationship. I have no enough time for that. And it feels very good. It feels really cool to have that power hand. What would it be like if we truly considered every believer as co-equal? But maybe back together you was just like, beloved from sight. God, Lord, I have never liked Jonathan and David. I'm Kareeta Chen and this is Mission Shift, a podcast where we explore the changing face of global missions. Join me and my co-host, Josh Irby, as we explore this new era of global missions and what part each of us might play. As we heard from Tipali Volvian episode three, we can often wear a power hat that leads us to trying to control outcomes, strive for the wrong results and forget what really matters. Today we want to talk about a shift in posture from wearing the power hat to grabbing hold of something far more profound relationship. So here's the thought we are going to explore. What if we prioritize relationships over results? What if we cherish the connections we form with one another, recognizing that these bonds are what truly enrich our lives and the mission? In a world that often measures success by numbers and benchmarks, it's easy to forget the significance of human connection. What does mission look like at the pace of relationship? Let's hear again from Milan Makako. One organization came, this was a few years back before COVID I guess. And they came with the idea of united Christians and the Domination and Churches in Czech Republic. And this was a great idea. I love it basically. That's something that I believe that we need unity. We have no so much. We have a lot of churches and things like this. They came and they were very nice people and we had time. And I shared with them both I shared with you. I said, "Okay, this is great that you are here and that you are coming every second month or something like that." And they said, "Yeah, we love the Morabian brothers movement. We love you again, give us some contacts." And I said, "But I shared with them, hey guys, that's long term. It's not that after one month, that's really finished." And after that, they started some meetings for churches. And this was a little bit like a little bit like a aggressive, I would say, from my perspective you know, like very pushy. And after two years, I saw the post on Facebook somewhere. We finished the United Church in Czech Republic. Truly in that time I am starting to be aggressive. And they said, "Oh God, now calling us to Africa, you know, but I said that's abusing, you know, that's not true. There's not true. Hey, who is paying you?" Because the supporters, they need to know that that's not true. That's fake. Well you can hear it in Milan's voice. He was a bit upset there at the end of this recount of the story and you can imagine what it must have been like when it first happened. But here's something that started with the potential of partnership and ended with frustration. Yes. I think I know, Kriya, you've, you've lived overseas and I've lived overseas. There's a different kind of pace to the world outside of the West than what we have. I think in the West, you know, we operate at the pace of getting things done. Getting things done, yep. And the rest of the world operates at the pace of coffee maybe. Although here in the States, have you seen the meme where it's, you know, 30 people getting coffee in Europe and it's a nice, you know, umbrella cover tables out in the front with flowers and things people drink coffee in this picture of 30 people getting coffee in America and it's a long line of Starbucks. Yeah. All that to say, we operate at a different pace and when those paces come together, there's some conflict sometimes. For sure. And unfortunately, how I've seen it play out, if we think back to what we just talked about in last episode, it plays out more in the West because of our power and that power had we come in with is we just do it our way. We continue at our pace because that's what we're used to doing. So you think about these people who came in wanting to unite the churches in Czech Republic and, you know, great people. I'm sure they're godly people who love Jesus who are listening to Jesus and feel called to do something really important to bring unity to the churches in Czech Republic and maybe there needs to be an outside partner to do something like that. So they come and they raise money for it and they come over and they have lunch with Milan, which was a great choice to connect with him and some things begin. But all of a sudden, the pace at which they're operating just, you know, stuck in the gears of the pace at which Milan was thinking about. So much of what we schedule our lives around is what am I going to get done today? I know I have a list. You know, we always talk about like planning, blocking out our days for various purposes. So we can at the end of the day say I did this. I finished this. And so I think a lot of what we do and how we exercise power is in that getting things done. Whereas I know when I was living in East Asia, it's all about relationships. It's all about who you know. Granted, that's true here in America too. But literally there are phrases that are constantly used about relationships is what matters most. You don't hear about like, okay, what kind of, you know, planning project management, you know, task lists you use. It's, who do you know? How did you get to know that person? How can I get to know that person? What can we do together? It's all like that. So I don't know is that similar to your experience or what you've seen? Yeah, we have a word in Bosnian, polaco. You can't have to say it slow, you know, it's polaco. It means they take it easy, take it slow, you know. And so we come in with our spreadsheets and project management software and everything of what we're going to accomplish and their response is polaco. Let's grab a coffee, polaco. Yeah. And in Chinese, they say it's like, well, what's the guanxi? It's like the relationship. If you don't have any of that, I don't care what kind of plans you have. You know, so yeah. So let's go back to Milan. He has more to say on this. Well, yeah. First, I think that time is so important because if this, this, sometimes I think that for American organization, it's hard because they have money. They have no time. That's, that's looks like, I don't know, maybe there's not like true every time, but I understand from the business point of view, I understand that they need like see the progress. And if you want to see the progress, you have not so lot of time, you know, and you jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, and Google sheet and pick that's done. I had the meeting, you know. But I think that if you want to find like quality partners, you have to invest time and you have to count with that, that it's not about one lunch. Oh, Milan. Speaking of truth to us here, Crita. I know. I love it. I did this whole Google sheet and then the meeting's done. I mean, I have one, two, three, four, five, six Google sheets open on my computer right now. I have you beat. So there you go. Milan and this little phrase really captures what drives a lot of us as American organizations. He said, because we have money, we don't have time. Because we have money, we feel we need results in progress and that means you don't have time. But if you want to find quality partners, it takes time. Yeah. I mean, I think about even just when we're scheduling, I mean, I say this because he's using that lunch, one lunch example. But I think about, you know, when we meet with people here, and we're scheduling appointments to have meals, it's like, okay, we've got start and stop time. And I know for a fact that when we're living overseas, you didn't have that. Like you're like, okay, if I'm going to like have a meal with someone, I know I'm going to meet with them and we're just going to see what happens. And sometimes it could be short, something has to be long, but it's because of the relationship or what or the desire to want to build into that relationship. And so already we can see, you know, we have to begin to reject the jump, jump, jump, jump, jump. Yes. And that's so hard. But it's so hard. I want to be a quality partner. Yep. This idea that we heard from Milan was echoed by almost everyone we interviewed. We want to play you three short clips from Julie Mosaic and Beatrice Say, who are with Send, and Andy McCullough, the author of Global Humility, people you've heard from in earlier episodes. I think that if churches and Christians want to have a global impact, they have to play the long game and be willing to spend years and months and we hate learning. It takes time. It takes time. When we talk about effectiveness, we might want very quick results, but it takes time. If we are in a whole country, it takes time to build relationships. It takes time to understand the culture, years by years, going deeper and deeper. It takes time to understand what the gospel means to that culture. I think potentially even the phrase "partnership" can have a task orientation to it. It's not necessarily a family term. Where do you see the new testament arguing for family? You're talking about a horizontal space rather than a vertical relationship. Where partnership works well is where it's genuinely relational. For things to be genuinely relational, that takes time and it takes stuff to happen that's off task and off mission. It takes spending a lot of time in people's homes, mutually, give them take. For example, we just had a pastor in his family staying with us here for a week with his kids. Over the years they've served us. How can we serve them? How can we be hospitable? How can we show them around the UK? How can we make it a good experience? I think it's that genuine relational mutuality of time and tears cried together and journeys journey together and all of that. I don't think there were any shortcuts to genuinely building trust relationally. So I think if the foundation of the partnership is some kind of mission or output task orientation project base, then it's starting on the wrong relationship. I think the foundation has to be relational, no-agenda, love, full acceptance. I don't think there were shortcuts to those things. So my father was a basketball coach who coached most of my teams growing up and he had this phrase, "Be quick but don't hurry." And it was this idea that you want to be quick, but if you're going too fast, you're going to trip over yourself. And I'm hearing some of these things in what we heard from Andy and Beatrice and Julie that it's okay to be quick and to move forward. I mean, this is God's mission as momentum, but we cannot hurry. And when results cause us to hurry, our over-focus on results causes to hurry. Unwillingness to take the time for multiple meals causes us to hurry. Too much of a focus on task and project makes us hurry. Your dad was a wise man, Josh. He was a wise man. I think a lot of times before people even go overseas, we have the idea that we've studied the culture, we've learned about the culture, we even take effort. But until you actually step in to the actual location, the place and the people, there's a lot that we can realize that we don't really know. And if this kind of Beatrice said, if we don't step back and really go, do I really know this culture? How can I get to know it deeper? Then we're just going to continue to assume we know enough. But it firsthand experience, it takes a lot of time. And it requires asking questions. It requires sitting with people. It requires sometimes even just days on end of just walking around observing. And for a lot of us who are more mission, like we're wanting to check things off, that can feel like we're not doing a whole lot. But that is what is required for us to truly know the people, know the culture, and then to know what is it that God wants us to do here. How can we accomplish this mission, even though it has tasks in there, like Andy mentioned, but how do we do that in a way that blends in the mission, the people, and be able to reach that goal that we're hoping together to reach? Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the idea of transaction in the mission. That one hits me really hard. This idea of Andy talks about no agenda and being non-transactional. And I think a lot of times, because we think about the Great Commission, as a task of bringing the gospel to every person in the world, or that we have an agenda to, whether that's exposure to the gospel, or a number of people who hear the gospel. But you know, if you really look at the Great Commission, it is a relational thing. Yes. Go into all the world and make disciples. Discipleship and the makeup disciples is a relational thing. And so even we are tempted to take the relational multiplication of discipleship and turn it into a task. It's so easy to turn partnership into a task as well. Yeah. I mean, for me, one of my big training points I keep mentioning, which is the time in Bosnia and a relational culture, in a coffee culture, in a polaco culture. And one of the people that most helped me learn about partnering at the pace of relationship was my friend, Slovko. Slovko Haji, who is the pastor of the church that I went to and an evangelical leader in his country and in the region. And it was really fun, but could we have got to interview Slovko for this podcast season. And he has so many great things to say. So I really look forward to hearing from him. Slovko Haji is the associate director for Europe and the Caribbean for Langham Preaching. He lives in Sarajevo Bosnia where he has been involved in partnering on all sides of the relationship. I had the case that one man contacted me from Western world, a pastor leader. I didn't knew him personally. He came to my email address, contact through me to a friend, a pastor actually from Macedonia, who also didn't know him very well. He was his contact. And he said to me, "You know, I had a dream God spoke directly to me. I have to come to Bosnia, God wants me to get involved in Bosnia." And I said to him, "Okay, great. You've got spoke to you, but God still haven't spoke to me about that." And then he asked me, he said, "Can you organize big meetings, gather leaders, key leaders from the country? I have a word." And I said to him, "I'm sorry, I cannot. If God put you on your heart, and if you want to come, please do come to meet me. And we can have coffee, we can have meal, and before that we did spoke on WhatsApp. And I said to him, "For your first visit, you know, I can take you to few leaders. I will not organize big meetings. I will not you can meet people." One at a time, talk to them, learn about them, share with them what is on your heart. And then we will see where we will go from there. So he did come, we visited three cities, met with five, six leaders, one-on-one, over the coffee he is good brother, and what he's using him, what he's working in his life. And then he left. And now we are still in touch, and he have a few more here, contacts and friends, and he is planning to come again. So same as I said for the partner coming into the country, don't hurry up, don't promise much, don't you know? Just take, step at a time, and listen to the Lord, and see where God is leading. I would say same if you are in the country and someone else is offering partnership. That you don't know much about. Learn, take time, go one step at a time, unless you really believe that God is leading you differently. But I think that, you know, we have some common or usual part. processes and then we have sometimes quite working unexpectedly. So, you know, as a Christian, I believe that God can lead us unexpectedly. We need to be open to that, but if it is not clear that it's from the God, then go slowly, one step at a time. Don't rush. I mean, Slavko just jumped right in there and basically told us exactly what we as Westerners need to do and that is go slowly, take it one step at a time, don't rush. And that what we just said we struggle with. That's it. It's the exact thing. And I love that Slavko had the maturity and the confidence to say to this guy, "Well, I'm glad that God spoke to you. I haven't heard from you yet." But also like this story because this is actually this is relationship at work. This guy comes in much like the people we heard from Milan about. The great idea. What he wants to do. It's like, "Alright, brother, let me give you some advice. Slow down." And the guy listened and he did it and he's still in the game there. He's still involved. He's still moving forward step by step. And so I appreciate that so much. Slavko's willingness to give that kind of advice not only to this guy, but also to us. Yeah. And I he listened. It's also a big part of it, right? Yeah. Also really appreciate Slavko's example and advice here for those who might be listening who are not from the West. What a great example of someone who is willing to speak up and challenge the person coming into partner. And as someone from the West, I would say, I would welcome that. Yes. That's so helpful for me when someone has the courage and the strength to do that. Yeah. And you've heard, I mean, our audience has heard us mention multiple times how important awareness is. And so we welcome someone bringing awareness to us so that we can listen and hopefully redirect ourselves to having the posture that we ought to have. And this is not hypothetical for me. Slavko literally did that for me. Probably a hundred times during my time in Bosnia. That's great. That's why you drink lots of coffee. To get to hear more of these kind of positive feedback, helpful things that will, you know, change your lives. I mean, who does not want to know about holes they might fall in? You know, yes. Thank you, Slavko. And here's one more thought on taking time on partnership from someone else who spent time in Bosnia. Mark Byram. Mark served with the Christian Missionary Alliance in Bosnia and is now a missions pastor in Wisconsin. [Music] Trying to think how many transactional partnerships. I don't spend a lot of time on them because I don't, the relational partnership is so much richer, fuller in my eyes, biblical, and kingdom-minded. It drives us in the right direction. It really does as a church fan, but that's how, honestly, how the global and the local can come together in a great way. I didn't usually have a team come in from a church that we were the flavor of the year, you know? I didn't have time for churches that wanted a one-time team come in. I had time for churches that wanted to build a long-term relationship. As we move into relationship with others, what we've heard from Milan and Slavko so far, and also from Julie, Beatrice, and Andy, is the importance of moving at the pace of relationships, of letting go of the power hat and grabbing hold of real connection and drinking lots of coffee. So, the question then is how do we build into that long-term relationship that Mark was talking about while letting go of the power hat? We are doing people work, right? So I think communication is very important, very important. This is Beatrice Say, Director of SENS East Asia Sending Council. And if we can be very transparent in our hearts and minds and able to understand one and other, that would be the magic button. For me, because I think communication is so important that we get to know one another and not misunderstand, they know, misunderstand, they're trying to appreciate different culture, different thinking, but communication is so important. Imagine if we could communicate and actually understand each other, or actually trying to say. This was Beatrice's response to a question. If you had a magic button and you could press it and fix any problem in partnering, what would the magic button do? And she says, clear communication. And this is someone who's working across multiple countries in Asia, multiple languages of partners. And so many times you think you're communicating clearly, but you're not. If you think about it, there's so many things that make communication difficult. There's the culture differences, there's language differences. There is level of leadership, which again, in culture varies with what that looks like and how you respond. If you're allowed to respond, age plays in the communication, generation gaps, so many things. But for sure, when you're talking about admissions and in bringing teams and in partnering, there's a level of responsibility for communication that is different for leaders. Wouldn't she say? So how do you think that power distorts clear communication? I believe that power often leads to one way conversations. And one way, I mean, you can't really call that a conversation. In fact, one way communication is not a conversation. It's not a relationship. It's an announcement. Communication isn't announcing your plan. That's just not what a communication, that's not what the definition of communication is. In fact, you think about Milan and Slavko, both of them experience someone coming into their countries and announcing their plan to them. Right, right. There's some, that's not going at the pace of relationship. That's not building into that relationship through communication. As you said, Creed, I really like that idea. It's just an announcement. And so if communication is one of those ways that actually builds the kind of relationship we want in partnership and power is a disorder as a distortion effect on communication, then whatever role we're playing in that partnership, we have to think about what it looks like to let go of the power had and hold on to relationship. And that's going to be different for the person who's coming in, perhaps from a place of power with whether that's the money or representing a large organization. That's going to be different for the person who is receiving that person. That's going to be different for the leader on a team than it is for someone who's on that team. But all of us have to think about how we can let go of that power having had and grab on to relationship through communication. Yeah. And I think when you do that, you realize that it is true. Every person you're talking to might require a different approach. And how you start that conversation, how you engage in that conversation, how you phrase a question with them. I think what's most important is you want to welcome them to be in a space, to trust you, to give that kind of honest and true response. Here are Greg and Sharmae and Littleestrand. You heard from Greg in the last episode and now you'll hear from Sharmae and as well. They offer some advice on opening up lines of communication and partnerships. One of the things I've learned is that you do have to invite people to speak back. They're not going to tell you the things you mentioned. You know, this doesn't work here unless you invite them to. And I think that's an important lesson for any leader that people don't speak truth to power unless they're invited. Now imagine that the guy who showed up in Jack Republic that Milan told us about. Say that he had known Sharmae and heard this advice. How would that have changed the situation in that story? It would have changed things completely. He would have showed up at the first coffee and said, "Here's what I'm thinking about. Tell me everything that you think about this idea." And Milan would have said, "Well, I think it's a great plan that will take 10 to 20 years to accomplish." Probably. And suddenly many of these problems are avoided. If we're in a place where we're coming in, especially into someone else's culture and country and context, we have to invite feedback because we just don't know everything that we need to know. That's right. And even if we do simply by inviting that feedback and opening up that conversation, creates the opportunity for us to learn more or to be able to have them. And this is actually more important. It's for them to see that we have that posture of we don't actually know it all. We want to make sure that we're doing it right and if we're not, please let us know. And that's a vulnerable posture. That's probably why we avoid it so often. But vulnerability can go so far in building relationship and bring about the clear communication the Beatriz was talking about. Make a lot of questions and go first being vulnerable. Be real. Share your struggles in your walk with Jesus, share your struggles in your family, share my struggles as a dad and as a husband. Be raw and be real. Often times they expect it. And so when you go first and you're vulnerable and real and raw and asking them questions with a hunger to learn, those two things go along. I really like what Greg had to share just now about being vulnerable and it makes me think in our lives, when have we seen that happen? So Josh, when have you seen someone being vulnerable with you really impact or change your relationship with them? You know, as Greg was sharing that, I had a couple different situations popped to my mind. And for those conversations, it's almost like you can have a BC AC relationship before conversation after conversation, reality to your relationship. And there's a depth that comes in because you know, oh, I can talk about these things. These are a fair game now. Oh, I can share and be seen and not be afraid of being seen. Oh, we can let down these walls we've been building to try to project a sense of competence, confidence, completeness, all the things that we do in relationships. So the time that I've experienced has radically changed the way I related that person, probably forever. Mm hmm. Yeah, and I would imagine too, as part of the reason that that happens is when you're sharing vulnerable, it also offers opportunities for you to make connections with that person. Like you may not be going through that same exact struggle per se, but there may be something that you can relate with that then takes that when you're talking about depth of relationship, that's what causes that to happen is your every point of connection you make to someone else. It brings you to a deeper level of relationship with that person. And as a result, a deeper trust. And as we're talking about that is what ultimately changes relationships. Mm hmm. I can't get vulnerable for a minute. Agreed. Of course. We live in the mission space. Many people in this space raise support in order to do what they do. And therefore, they're constantly communicating vision and excitement and direction and results. And that's a kind of, that's one kind of communication. And it's good to to communicate that. But it's easy to make that the only way that you communicate. And that becomes a wall to the real person who's on the ground, struggling in the ministry, dealing with challenges they're facing. And real partnership that we're talking about, grasping over that partnership, is not one that relates at the level of vision and idea and strategy and support letter and things like that. But if the idea of real person and real person together on mission. That sounds like an amazing thing, Josh. You know, being able to deal with the real challenges needs, others are experiencing, requires vulnerability. But in order to do that, you, I mean, the way I see it is you have to have vulnerability in relationships. And so our main has something to say about that. Vulnerability changes the whole environment because that question has to make a decision. Oh, dear. Am I going to do that? [laughs] And I, in this particular situation, I watched this man make the decision to share vulnerability in return. And later, he and I were talking after this conversation where it just means we're made. And he said, I wasn't going to share that real difficulty going on in his life. He choked up as he was sharing this larger group. But I really appreciated that you shared these particular struggles we shared that were going on at the time that were really painful to us. I was actually thinking I need to resign because I'm not qualified. And when you be shared together, the things that you shared, I realized it's not qualified and it's not. And I thought, wow, that's so like the enemy alone inside his head, isolated with this little people. He's concluding, I should quit. I mean, I have to quit. I'm not working. And we have plenty of failures and struggles to talk about and share. Like the Chinese referring to this time down in Columbia at night, she actually shared, she said, man, I feel like I got a vulnerability in those communities. But we were like, but it often is not expected and we need to go first in our story. Sharon God has showed up. Yeah, well, I would affirm believers that if you can get to the place where trust is equally established, it's like slow as fast because then you can really move. So we're actually talking about efficiency and effectiveness, not just kindness and love, which is our motivation. But then, result is you accomplish more. And that's because if you take this space, it's like a one-sided plant because there's difference, it's one-sided. And that means it's missing whole dimensions. Not to mention that you're probably not in your own culture. So you're not only missing part of the plan, you're missing the most connected to the culture plan. Man, what a moment for this leader to have witnessed vulnerability that completely changed the direction of how he saw himself. It's interesting because I'm listening to the little strands and I have a relationship with them. And I remember a time that Charmaine did that for me. It was when she was talking about her and Greg's struggles to start a family. And they've openly about that. And she didn't realize that that was something that me and my husband were going through. And we were actually leading overseas. And I was feeling that I didn't have the amount of faith that I needed to lead that I probably should talk to my director and say, I can't go on campus and talk about God being someone who loves us and offers all these wonderful things when I didn't feel like that was happening to me. But when she shared that with me, it literally made me feel like, it's okay. Someone like her, who I really looked up to, they struggled and look what God did in their life and in their ministry. And here she was sharing that with me. And same thing that happened. It completely changed how I then continued to walk in the position that God had given me, but also to see what the struggle was in my life and how to continue to move forward in that. And so they are doing that. This is something that they are living out wherever they go. And think about that legacy to leave behind. Because you're being vulnerable to leave behind people who like you just said, I didn't think that I was able to do it. But now I know that I can. Yeah, absolutely. That's a great legacy. You know, and when we think about what we're all about here, the mission of God and the world and how we can partner together in that, the big complaint is I don't have time for relationship. Yeah. I don't have time to be vulnerable. I don't have time to communicate. We got to get to this mission. But you know, I mean, make such a powerful point here that slow is actually fast and relationship is actually what we're all about. And through that communication, we understand the culture better. We have a lot better plan moving forward because we're doing it together. When you're saying that just now, it brings me back to the conversation that we had with Slothco and how he talks about how you, Josh, related with him. So maybe this is actually a good place to draw this episode to a close because when we take hold of relationships, it can lead to transformational partnerships. Yes, definitely. And I remember also as you do, we didn't agree always on everything. And I remember that we even had the theological, some theological disagreements. Of course, that it was not on the big stuff. So we didn't disagree on Jesus deity or Trinity or anything like that. But some smaller things which we can disagree on. I also remember sometimes when you would come with some critique to my sermon where you would disagree with the thing or I would come to you with the disagreement of how you are doing thing in group. But I think that it was very important and it helped our friendship and partnership that we didn't have fear to share disagreements so we could be openly about it. And also I never felt personal or at the same time. by your disagreements and I hope I believe that it was the same from your side. You know, and we would talk about disagreements and I remember also that we, how to say in English, we didn't always come to agreement. You know, sometimes we would stay in disagreement. I don't think that it should be that way or you don't think that it should be this way. But we would find a way how to continue and how to go on and how to say, "Okay, this is not that important, we can disagree on that. Let's see what we agree on. It's important to talk about everything and to talk about disagreements and I now I cannot remember specific, you know, think but I'm sure that in our time and our 10-11 years of partnership and working together, you know, sometimes I would change my mind and say, "Okay, yes, you are right, I was wrong, let's do it that way or other time. You would do it and sometimes we would say, "Okay, we disagree. Let's see what we can do with it." If you are coming for the first time to some country region, I would say be open to learn and don't come with agenda. So come to observe, do not rush, do not go too quick too soon. I would say also, do not give promises which you are not sure that you can fulfill. It's good to deepen partnership gradually, start with a small and let it grow. Wait, learn, be open to here, don't come with your agenda and let Lord lead the steps. As we heard at the top of the episode, Milan said he doesn't have time for partnerships with that relationship. And why should he? Relationships, especially when marked by clear communication and vulnerability, create a setting for transformational partnerships, the kind of partnerships that make a long-term impact. It's an undeniable truth that in our fast-paced world, time is a precious commodity. We're constantly on the move, juggling countless responsibilities, racing against the clock. When we talk about missions, this is often how we feel. It often seems that there's just no time to build relationships that truly matter. But here's the paradox. While it might appear that we don't have time for it, building real relationships and forging genuine partnerships is precisely what's required for the connections that truly endure. We must remember that meaningful relationships aren't built in an instant. They take time, effort, and a willingness to invest. They require us to be present, to listen, and to understand and be vulnerable with one another. Let's slow down to understand and learn from one another. Let's bridge the gaps and truly connect. Because it's in these moments where we invest in one another that we find the true essence of relationship, the real heart of partnership. Thanks for listening. Mission Shift is brought to you by Crew City Global, hosted by Coreeda Chen and Josh Irby, produced and edited by Jeff Johnson. Music and mixing by Scott Crawl. Stay connected with us at crewcru.org/missionshift. If you enjoyed today's episode, please like and review this podcast wherever you listen. We would appreciate it if you were to share it with others who may be interested in coming on this journey with us.