An Investigation

Walk This Way

Touch Dirt

Returning To The Dust

Welcome back. We took a little breath there so I could collect my thoughts and to give your inbox a break. We’ll continue the series soon but first we wanted to make an announcement.

We have a new logo and identity! There is so much work that went into this and we couldn’t be happier. We believe it reflects our vision and mission in a more complete way. What this means visually is we’ll have a new logo, as well as new colors and fonts. Plus a bunch of stuff no-one else cares about except us. We’re going to explain the decisions made in future emails and social media.

But what we really love is how our new logo, and mission and vision statements, reflect our heart. In April, I’ve written about identity. For Tia and I, our identity is torn between two places. It has been since 2017. Abide Well’s new vision and mission is simply a reflection of our heart for both places. This isn’t a new vision as much as it is a “reveal” - putting down in writing what we’ve already known:

Our mission is to help Americans and Swazis abide well - spiritually and physically.

We do this by building strong homes, providing access to clean water, creating community-led food systems, and offering opportunities for people to live with dignity, connection, and purpose. 

We envision a world where Swazis live in strong homes with clean water access, and children our nourished - and where Americans are inspired to abide as branches in the Vine, transformed by the stories they become a part of. 

Through long-term presence, trusted partnerships, and intentional service, we seek to bring restoration, unity and hope across cultures and continents. We believe in showing what the church can be - not through words alone, but through action, care, and faith lived out.

To be clear, all donations go towards our work in Eswatini. We even pay for things like a “rebrand” out of our own pockets. These are expenses that I don’t want to be donor-funded. This will be true of the apparel store we will work on as well. We think of some of these as our personal passion, and, to be completely honest, want the freedom this allows. My personal salary is the only exception to this, however the lion’s share of my time is still spent on Eswatini.

We have already begun the process of implementing all the fun and not-so-fun stuff (looking at you, clunky software that steals all my creative energy).

So watch this space and we’ll continue the abide series next week, as an on-going investigation.