Helping the “Least of These” with Kelly Miller

This faith and finance podcast is underwritten in part by Cross International. Among the poorest of the poor in countries like Malawi, Uganda and Zambia, the needs are enormous and children are among the most vulnerable. But when you partner with Cross International, you can make an eternal impact one child at a time. Find local in-country ministries to help kids and communities thrive. Share the love of Jesus with an impoverished child today at CrossInternational.org slash faith, or call 866-843-9500.

Hi, I'm Rob West. Millions of people around the world need the basic necessities of life, but even more importantly, they need the gospel. One organization is helping them receive both. Kelly Miller joins us today with an impact report, and then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is faith and finance, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, we're delighted to have Kelly Miller back with us. He's president and CEO of Cross International, an organization that's changing the lives of poor individuals and families around the world and an underwriter of this program. Kelly, great to have you back. Rob, always great to be with you. And of course, all of the faith and finance listeners.

Thanks so much. Well, we're excited about this partnership to tell people about this amazing work that you all are doing. Cross International is, of course, active in more than a dozen countries, and I want to share how you work closely with many partner organizations as well to carry out your mission. How important is it to use that approach?

Yeah, Rob, thank you for the question. I mean, it's foundational. It's our ministry model as an organization in partnering with Christian organizations, churches, and Christian nonprofits in the countries where we work. They know their communities, the people, much better than we do.

And what has God called them to do? How do we as an organization and our program experts walk alongside them to help them do what God's called them to do in deeper and wider ways to affect those that are just in such high need and to share the love of Jesus? It's always better to work with folks in countries, so I'm thrilled that that's a part, but it's also a beautiful picture of the body of Christ coming together. Now, I know that results are important to you, so share with our listeners a bit of an impact report on what God's doing.

Sure. Well, first and foremost, you know, is living and sharing the love of Jesus with people, right, and just being that shining light. And through that is how do we affect our lives from a physical perspective?

And just a really brief overview. You know, each year about almost 40,000 children and adults receive food support with Cross and our partners. You know, last year we did over 3 million servings of fortified rice, and over 16,000 people had access to clean and safe water, and hundreds of thousands of people received medicines and medical supplies. You know, I could go on and on and on, but at the end of the day, it is affecting the lives of people both spiritually and physically for opportunity for life and hope and a faith-filled future.

That's incredible. Obviously, a lot of impact taking place all over the globe. Now, you mentioned Haiti specifically, and I know that country, Kelly, has been ravaged by natural disasters, gangs, even political instability, so share with us what you're able to do in the midst of that.

Yeah. Well, you know, again, thank you for the question, because even in the midst of all of the chaos that we see in the news today, incredible ministry work is going on, and you just don't see it in the news, right? So Cross is involved in a school of primary education and tutoring for thousands of children around the country.

We get the privilege to provide generally the only nutritious meal of the day for these kids. We have got vocational training for nurses and IT people in the southern part of the country that help provide jobs for so many. So it really is, in spite of what we see in the news, which is very real and very, very negative, there's a lot of God's shining light that's going on in Haiti today. Well, in particular, in these African nations where AIDS has ravaged these populations, Kelly, how are you able to serve these vulnerable children who may not even have homes?

Right. Well, again, very, very challenging environments, and this is what God has called us to do as an organization with our local partners. So oftentimes, we reach children and their families through kids. So we provide a lot of education support and tutoring, again, basic meal support for children that don't get that meal at home.

And again, oftentimes, it's the only nutritious meal of the day. We're rebuilding homes for people. I mean, oftentimes, homes are made out of mud that are devastated by cyclones. We get to build cinder block and tin roof homes for long term stability for these families. Incredible. Well, we're so honored to partner with Cross International. When we come back, we'll actually hear from one of those partners. Dr. Victor will share about the work happening in Malawi to both meet physical and spiritual needs. Much more with Kelly Miller from Cross International just around the corner. Don't go anywhere.

We'll be right back. What's most important to you when it comes to choosing your financial advisor? Someone who's aligned with your biblical values?

How about someone who will take the time to explain your options? Certified Kingdom advisors are professionals who meet high standards and competence and integrity and have been trained to offer biblical financial advice. To find a certified kingdom advisor in your area, visit faithfi.com and click Find a CKA. In rural Malawi, baby Esther was taken in by her grandparents when her mother died. Resources were scarce and Esther suffered from malnutrition for years until God transformed her life. Today, through Cross International, Esther receives nutritious meals, drinks clean water, and is taught about the hope found only in Jesus.

But other children are still waiting. Make an eternal impact on a child now with a $62 gift at crossinternational.org slash faith. The sweet children of Malawi. Hi, I'm Rob West. This is Faith and Finance. I'm joined today by Kelly Miller. He's president and CEO of Cross International. A partner of ours here at Faith and Finance. And Kelly, give us some context. Tell us about these children in Malawi that we're just now hearing.

Don't you love hearing that, Rob? Well, that's in southwestern Malawi, right out in the bush. If you fly down to Blantyre and drive west out into the bush to a little village called Tanganyika, which is where we serve our children. As I mentioned before, we get the opportunity to provide that single meal of the day.

They'll walk three, four, five kilometers to come to that one village. And they get school tutoring, evangelism, worship time together, fun, games, all that kind of stuff. And it's just game changing for these kids. It really is. So you just got to hear a little bit of some of those kids and some of the joy from their voices. Oh, incredible. And for many of them, this will be the only meal they have. Is that right? It really is. Yeah, it is a challenging place there in Tanganyika and the surrounds.

Again, for most of these kids, this is the only meal of the day that they'll get. Yeah. Well, folks, each quarter we have the opportunity to shine a light on an incredible ministry. And this quarter, it's Cross International. As we talk about using money as a tool for good, being able to be a part of where God is at work, and clearly the vulnerable across the globe is on God's heart.

And so we're so thrilled to shine a light on Cross International, an organization that's changing the lives of poor individuals and families around the globe. Kelly Miller with us today. Kelly is president and CEO. And Kelly, we talked before the break about how you work so closely with partner organizations in these countries. And I know we're going to have an opportunity to hear a short testimony from one of those partners.

Set this up for us. Yeah. Well, we get the opportunity to work with one of our partners called the Mbuya Development Center in southern Malawi. And Dr. Victor Menze Kapita is our local leader there. And he's an amazing man. He and his family with Cross run this ministry. And so what you're going to hear from him is, again, just one snapshot, but a snapshot of daily life and the reality that these kids and families, communities are living in today.

Let's listen to that now. If the feeding program was not there, several things would happen. One, many of them would not go to school. And therefore, this cycle of poverty, you know, they have a mother who is not educated and uneducated as well. Number two, the girl child will be married at 11 or 12 or 13 because the mother is struggling to feed them. So if they just reach maybe puberty, the mother will say, let me find a husband so that I can leave this one go. And I will have two kids now instead of having this one as well.

So any marriages are being prevented because of what the project is doing. The children themselves, we teach them life skills. And the life skills have given them an opportunity to dream again and say, I want to become a nurse. I want to become a pilot.

I want to become this and that. And they are motivated enough to move forward. Wow. It truly is life changing as you hear that. But it's more than that, Kelly, because not only are the physical needs being met, the spiritual needs are as well, right?

Oh, indeed. And that's how we look at the whole person and sharing and living the gospel of Jesus. We really look at so many verses, but we always love 1 John 3.17. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? And we don't use that as a condemning verse at all. That's an empowering verse, right? That you're sharing the love of Jesus, the truth of a God that created each of these children, their families, and they are a child of God.

And how do we provide for them both physically and spiritually so they know that they've got opportunity to live an eternity with God forever? Well, Dr. Victor goes on to share how Cross is able to share the love of Christ through the open door there in Malawi. Listen to him. Wow. What an incredible opportunity. Kelly, we want to invite our listeners to partner with you in this incredible work. And I know you have a major initiative going on called Thriving Kids, which is aimed at orphaned, vulnerable, and disabled children, not just in Malawi, but more than a dozen other underserved countries.

Share the details. Yeah, thank you again for asking. So our, what we call our Thriving Kids Initiative, as you alluded to. You know, we look at the world, we try to look at the world through the lens of the eyes of a child. And what's it going to take to create an opportunity, not a guarantee, but an opportunity for that child to thrive? So we know if we can affect, positively affect the family, if we can positively affect the community around that child, and then establish a rooted and a growing faith life, those three things, that's what our, for all of our programmatic aspects, whether it's safe water, food and shelter, education, income generation, all of that that we do. If we can affect those three things for those children, it's a tremendous platform for these kids to be able to move forward in life. Well, Kelly, I know that many of our listeners will want to support this amazing work that you're doing at Cross International, so tell them where they can go to do that. Yeah, we would be so thankful and blessed with Faith and Finance listeners to partner with us. They can go to our website, which is crossinternational.org slash faith. And the point of it all, Rob, like you're saying, so many listeners are going, well, what can I do?

How do I help? And this is a tremendous way to kind of step over that bridge if there's a barrier there, to be able to get involved and help and share the love of Jesus with some of the most vulnerable children and families and communities on the face of the planet. About $62 a month helps provide for a child with life-saving resources, again, like nutritious meals, clean and safe drinking water, and the foundational hope found only in Jesus. Folks, we put a special page up so you can, as the Faith and Finance listening audience, get connected with this incredible work. You know, I believe with my whole heart that the reason God entrusts to us what He does is so in part we can be connected to where He is at work. And clearly, this is one of those giving opportunities that is on the heart of God, the way I read Scripture. And so you can head there right now to be a part of this. Again, it's crossinternational.org slash faith. That's crossinternational.org slash faith.

And as Kelly said, $62 a month can provide a child with life-saving resources like nutritious meals, clean drinking water, and teaching about the hope only found in Jesus. Kelly, it's an honor to be partnered with you. We'll be praying and asking our listening audience to pray, but also to support this incredible work. Thanks for stopping by, my friend.

Thanks, Rob. Appreciate you and all of Faith and Finance. That's Kelly Miller, president and CEO of Cross International, an organization that is truly transforming lives around the world and helping to lead many impoverished individuals to Christ. Crossinternational.org slash faith. We are grateful for support from Crossmark Global Investments. They are a faith-based firm with a goal of offering values-based investments to help align financial choices and faith, ensuring a portfolio that reflects what matters most. Crossmark does this through investment solutions that span the capital market spectrum from large cap to small cap strategies, including equity, fixed income, and balanced strategies. They are led by industry veteran Bob Doll, CFA, a regular guest on the Faith and Finance Program.

More information is available at crossmarkglobal.com. As the leading advocate for the Christian financial industry, Kingdom Advisors serves the public by promoting the integration of a biblical worldview across every aspect of the financial services industry. And we serve a growing network of thousands of Christian financial professionals, equipping and empowering them to carry biblical financial wisdom to their clients, peers, and community. For more information, visit kingdomadvisors.com.

That's kingdomadvisors.com. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance. We've got a few lines open, taking your calls and questions.

You can call right now, 800-525-7000. Let's head to the phones to Savannah, Georgia. Hi, Marie.

Go ahead. Hey, Rob. How are you? I'm doing great.

Thanks for calling. I have a question about rebalancing for O3B accounts. My husband and I are both retired now, and the advisor is advising to rebalance, but I don't know what are your pros and cons about it?

Yeah. Well, rebalancing is just the idea, Marie, that as the various investments that you hold gain and lose value, it changes the overall mix of the investments such that you could get out of balance. And what that means is there's an appropriate mix of investments that is right for your risk tolerance, your age, your proximity to retirement, and you don't want to be too aggressive for your goals and objectives. You also, in some cases, don't want to be too conservative because you have certain goals, and there's an appropriate level of risk to take depending on what your goals are. And as those investments move around, it gets your portfolio out of balance. And so what he's likely describing is the fact that periodically we need to rebalance the portfolio. We need to change our allocation to one type of investment because it did really well, and so now it's a much larger percentage than we want it to be, and we maybe want to dial back something else or increase it.

And that's just a risk mitigation strategy, and so that's a good thing at face value. The bigger question is just what is the right investment mix for you? How much toward bonds? How much toward stocks?

And then among those stocks, are you in growth or income stocks, international or domestic? You know, somebody can look at that and say, well, here's the right mix for you based on how many years you have till retirement. So I don't think that's a bad idea. In fact, it's a very good idea so long as it's being rebalanced to an investment mix that's right for you.

Does that make sense? Okay, so it is a good thing. Good. Yes, ma'am, it is. Absolutely. So in that 401k, if you have somebody looking over that for you, helping you get that back in line and thinking about what is the right level of risk for you so you can accomplish your goals, that's always a good thing.

And you certainly want to do that periodically as an investor. Thanks for calling today. We appreciate it.

To Georgetown, Texas. Hi, Terry. Go ahead. Hi, I just have a quick question.

Thank you for taking my call. I have a few hundred thousand dollars that I want to start investing, but I just don't know where to start. Okay, yeah, very good. So is this money just like in a savings account right now or somewhere else? So I have about 100 plus thousand just in a savings sitting there. And then I have 100,000 in a CD, 18 CD that's growing about just four and a half percent.

Good. Yeah, that's helpful. So you know, I think what you need is an advisor because this is a significant sum of money that you've amassed and it doesn't mean that it all needs to go into the market. In fact, I'd recommend if this is all you have in liquid assets that it doesn't because as a starting point, you'd probably want to keep at least three to six months expenses and you may decide you want even more than that in that high yield savings account.

So it's safe and it's liquid. It's still earning some interest. You know, you can get four to four and a half percent today with FDIC insurance. But beyond that, you probably want to take, you know, the amount that goes beyond the emergency fund and put it to work. And that's where developing a really thoughtful investment approach, you know, with stocks and bonds, perhaps even faith aligned investments. You know, there's something to be thought about there, but that's where an advisor could really help you think about, you know, what type of investments do you want that advisor could manage it for you. And I don't think you just want to put it on autopilot. And because of inflation, you probably, you know, don't want to just leave it 100% of it in bank products, because you'd probably like even though you're gonna have to add a little bit of risk to get a little better rate of return over the long haul.

So you can outpace inflation and grow this money for the future. And that's where I think an advisor could help you. So here's what I would do. I'd go to our website, faithfi.com, click find a professional, and you could look for a list of Certified Kingdom Advisors there in your area, interview two or three and find the one that's the best fit. Okay, one more question. I have a granddaughter that I want to start, you know, something for her for when she starts going to college and, you know, those types of things.

What would you say would be the best for that? Yeah, I would probably recommend a 529 college savings plan. So this money does need to be used for educational expenses, but it also allows, you know, other qualified expenses, which, you know, goes beyond the tuition and the room and board to other expenses she may have. The benefit is you put in the money, Terry, after tax money, it grows tax free, and then you can take it out for college and not pay any tax on the amount that it's grown to. What is the child's age right now? She's gonna be two this month.

Okay, yeah. So this would be great because over the next 16 years, you know, you could put this money away systematically, maybe you'll make a lump sum contribution today, you add a little bit to it each month or each year, you know, over the next 16 years, she could end up with a sizable amount, it would be in your name. So it's not doesn't affect your financial aid eligibility as much as if it was in her name. And you would get all the tax free growth as long as you use it for qualified educational expenses. If she doesn't use it all, it could be transferred to another child. And if there's not another child, then it could be rolled into a Roth IRA, and she'd have a retirement account.

So in order to find the best 529 plan for you, I'd go to a website saving for college.com. And I think that'll give you the information you need. Thanks for calling today quickly to Chicago. And tonight, I have just a minute left. Go ahead.

I just have a question. When they calculate the social security benefits, how do they base it on the last employment or the highest income you had during that time? Yes, it's more like the second one, but let me give you an explanation. So basically, it's an index to your work record, your monthly earnings where you paid social security FICA taxes, and it's based on your highest 35 years of earnings. So they look back over your entire work record where you paid into social security, and they said which of these 35 of all these years she's been working and paying in which are the 35 highest.

And then they use that to create the formula. And it's going to be somewhere between, you know, the minimum benefit for an individual is about $950 a month. The maximum benefit, you know, is a couple of thousand. I don't have the exact number in front of me.

But the bottom line is it's based on those highest 35 years of earnings. Thanks for your call today. We're so thankful for our team here. Devin, Sandy and Jim couldn't do it without them. We'll see you tomorrow. Faith and Finance is provided by Faithfi and listeners like you.