[caption id="attachment_1238" align="aligncenter" width="576" caption="----Oil palm trees are different than regular palm trees----"][/caption]
As you may have read in my latest blog post (http://mattelsberry.com/its-time-to-part-ways-with-crown/), I am no longer with Crown Financial Ministries. And while my time there has been most memorable, it’s time to move on to what’s next.
I have been talking with a good friend of mine who owns a oil palm plantation in Indonesia. He has been incredibly successful in business, and is getting ready to take his private company public next month.

This may sound blase at best, but wait until you hear…the rest of the story.

Many oil palm plantations are destructive to the environment as well as to the employees they use to make a profit.

Not this one.

My friend’s company operates under a “triple bottom line”.

People. Planet. Profit.

People

When the company employs people they go well beyond the established minimums most companies are required to pay people. In fact, they build villages, complete with houses, education, health care, sanitation, clean water and a ton of other …

I was recently told that my position at Crown Financial Ministries was going to be eliminated and I would have the option of staying with the ministry and taking on the Caribbean. While this was an incredibly attractive offer (especially during this unusually long and cold winter), it would also require taking my fund-raising efforts from $35,000/year to $120,000/year.

With much prayer and consideration for our new marriage, Rocio (my fiancee) and I both felt it was time to part ways with Crown. We don’t know what God has next for us, but your prayers for this transition are coveted.

I will miss my time with this great organization. Since college, it’s been all I’ve known. I leave behind a joint effort with hundreds of personal prayer and financial supporters. Together God has used us to do great things. Here’s a quick recap of some of my favorite memories during my time at Crown:

Interning with Dave Rae – The former President of Apple Canada housed me and poured his life into mine for a couple years, and I …

[caption id="attachment_1193" align="aligncenter" width="175" caption="----My cousin Jennie----"][/caption]

So I have a dear cousin who lives in Sudan. She’s actually my mom’s cousin’s daughter.

And she’s freaking awesome.

Just last week she posted about how she helped this victim of sex-trafficking escape Sudan and make it back to her home country. The young girl’s story is unbelievable. It’s definitely worth a look, a prayer, a pass-a-long to friends, and a donation to help her do even more.

Here’s how it starts:

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Picture this.

You’re a fifteen year-old girl in a developed nation. You attend high school, practice piano, and participate in after-school sports. You’re dealing with all the drama of teenage relationships, having recently broken up with your first boyfriend, when your mother tells you she wants to take you to another country to visit some extended family…(click here to finish reading)



[caption id="attachment_1179" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="----The Burj Al Arab in Dubai----"][/caption]
I had lunch with a good friend from Dubai yesterday. We had only met in person once before briefly, but have shared countless emails and Skype conversations.
Though we wouldn’t end up meeting for another year, we were in the same room (along 600 other people) in Mumbai, India in 2004 for Crown’s Business by the Book Conference. This gentleman was a junior consultant with Ernst and Young in India and had decided to attend the conference with a friend.
Inspired by the idea of running a business by biblical financial principles, these two friends moved to Dubai to launch their company. He reminisced on the early start to the business:

Early on it was incredibly rough going, my wife and I shared a house with a single gentleman and another couple, and only my wife was able to bring in income during the difficult beginning.

But start they did.
Today they are rolling. With already over $23 million in revenue, they just landed by far their biggest client yet. The most impressive …

So if you haven’t yet heard, this past Wednesday changed my life.  Two days ago I asked my amazing girlfriend Rocio Quinones to marry me.

And she said yes.

Sweet.

Here’s how it all went down:

A little over a year ago Rocio and I had our third date at this little place in Decatur called Taqueria Del Sol. After we ate we walked down the street toward Java Monkey and I asked to hold her hand for the first time.

Wednesday was a repeat of almost everything…but this time, when I asked for her hand, I asked to have it forever.

I knelt down, told her how I genuinely believed that she was a gift from God to me, and slipped a ring on her beautiful hand.

After she’d said yes, I pulled out a letter I’d written to her years before. Before I had met her.

And here’s what it said:
Dear one,

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing today (August 18, 2007), however impatient you are in waiting for me, thanks. Thanks for waiting…thanks for being patient with my seemingly meandering path to find you. It has not been for lack of looking. I’ve traveled much …