How organizational expression and mission practices can change in an enduring mission.

Organizational Expression is the way we faithfully express our enduring identity. 

Organizational practice refers to the specific activities undertaken in carrying out an enduring mission. Unlike mission and identity, expression and practice is expected to evolve.

We began our mission practice by supporting two orphanages, one in Sierra Leone and one in Nicaragua. But eventually HCW accepted there was a better way to do orphan mission than building orphanages and sending children to live in them. We realized the benefit of having a family was not unique to our country, but consistent across the human condition. 

Children need family, community, and a sense of belonging. Without those things, chances of surviving childhood and becoming thriving adults drops measurably.

The answer to orphanhood is a family, not a building. As is common, the children we had been helping had parents and families that would love to raise and nurture them, but poverty had forced them to make a different decision.

We changed our language to recognize what we thought was an orphan crisis was actually a family separation crisis.  

The transformations in how we viewed children living in orphanages transformed our alliance with the Child Reintegration Centre, and through that transformation, our expression and practices evolved to where we became leaders in the global care reform movement