Episode 14 - Modeling Faith in Action with Michael El Daba
Michael El Daba’s career has been shaped by a clear desire to do great work.
After years of working with corporations, he felt a draw to become the funding and investments director for Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services, a Christian-based NGO that partners with people of various faiths and backgrounds to create better social structures for all people.
He joins the show to talk about the value of developing local systems that empower all people to flourish and gives an overview of the exciting work happening in the MENA region.
Episode Transcript
Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.
Jacktone: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur Africa podcast, where we spotlight the voices of entrepreneurs and innovators shaping the marketplace across the continent. This week we are featuring Michael El Daba. After years of working with corporations, Michael felt a draw to become the Funding and Investments director for the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services, an Egyptian based Christian NGO that partners with people of various faiths and backgrounds to create better social structures for all people. They have a particular focus on building up marginalized communities, and Michael has played a fundamental role in developing local systems that empower people in North Africa and in the Middle East. Over the years, he has become an advocate of the MENA region and looked for opportunities to inspire other faith driven entrepreneurs to care for their communities.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur Africa Podcast. This podcast we're together with my great partner Ndidi and Ndidi. Hello.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Hi. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Great to be here.
Henry Kaestner: Indeed. And this is a time when we get to unpack the stories of what God is doing on the continent of Africa with the hope that we might be an inspiration and encouragement to Faith driven entrepreneurs in Africa, and that some number of our listeners that come over from our traditional Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast might have a different view into what God is doing in the marketplace. They can see the dynamic marketplace and just the creativity that is going on on the continent in a new light. That's our hope. We've got a great guest today, Michael El Daba. Michael, this good night for you.
Michael El Daba: Yeah, it is. But it's just lovely to see at least sunshine on the other side.
Henry Kaestner: Yes. Now we've got some it is a little cloudy here in California, but it's going to be a great day later on. This is not a weather podcast nor a travel podcast. But I would be remiss if I didn't tell you one of the reasons I want to go to Egypt and visit you. And there are some holier reasons and I'll get to them in a second. But I remember taking my best friend and business partner, David Morgan, and I took our dads to Israel and Jordan about ten years ago, ten, 11 years ago. And I took him to Petra in Jordan and my father looked out at the majesty of it and he said, This is incredible. He said, this is the second coolest place I've ever been. The coolest place I've ever been. Is Luxor in Egypt? I am like son of a gun? I want it. I wanted this to be the greatest place. But I've got to go I've got to go to Egypt. And then since then, my voice and I have become a little bit of Egyptify, and that's probably not a word, but let's just go with it for a second and just understand the history and really just the history of commerce. Entrepreneurship of trade started in Egypt and that was a long, long, long time ago. More to the present and getting a little bit more towards a better reason, I think, to go to Egypt is that God is on the move there. I just heard back from the team that had gone to Cairo and spent time with you and others just three or four weeks ago. And just the vibrancy of the entrepreneurial climate in Cairo, the size, the scale, the scope, the passion behind it, the excellence behind it was captivating. I heard that from multiple people, and it made me jealous that I wasn't there. It made me make sure that the next time we do a conference like that, I will be there. And so one of the highlights that came away from Reuben's time in Egypt was spending time with Michael El Daba. And so, Michael, I'd love for you to tell us about what it is indeed that God is doing in Cairo. But before we do that, as we like to do with all of our podcast guests, please give us an autobiographical flyover. Who are you and how did you come to faith? How do you end up on a Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast and from a country like Egypt? And then yes, so much to talk to you about about God's got you doing in the marketplace now. But who are you? Where do you come from?
Michael El Daba: Okay. Before I start on that, I don't blame your dad. Egypt is phenomenal. And it's with all due respect to Jordan and the rest, Egypt is another class of things to see. So I second his opinion on that.
Henry Kaestner: Faith Driven Entrepreneur our field trip to Cairo and Luxor. Who's coming?
Michael El Daba: Excellent. Excellent. You're all very welcome. It's lovely and safe here. Well, I'll start with who I am. I'm originally a civil engineer. I studied engineering because that's what people do in Egypt. If you like math, you like biology, you go to medicine. The options are quite limited. I finished that, worked in construction for a while and engineering, tendering and stuff like that, and then discovered didn't like it very much. So I studied capital markets and business work and then I moved to an oil and gas company, worked there for a little while and then to a mining company. But it was then on when I had spent like 20, 25 years of my work experience and I thought it was time to do a change. I was moving from the company I was at to a different company, and then this is where the opening came up to work in the civil society in Egypt.
Henry Kaestner: So did you spend time in the States or the UK? You speak English better than I do.
Michael El Daba: Thank you. But it's just the work interface that I've been with. Everybody I've worked with is quite global, not only Egyptians, so it just the practice makes you better.
Henry Kaestner: Gotcha. Okay. Your Christian faith. Tell us about that, please.
Michael El Daba: Yes. I've been really blessed coming out of a Christian family of active members from grandfather, who has been a quite well-known pastor to my dad who is a well-known psychologist and speaker all around the different denominations of Egypt. I've been really blessed by having amazing role models that I can look at and look up to and try to be a portion of, in addition to what Jesus really showed us of who he is.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Thank you, Michael. Many people listening would not equate Christianity and Egypt, especially when we think of Egypt. We think of, you know, strong Muslim presence and population. Just give us a bit of a background. What percentage of Egypt is Christian and how has the Coptic faith emerged and what is the relationship between the Coptic faith today and the rest of us who are Christians in the North?
Michael El Daba: Sure. Egypt is by history the heavyweight in the region. If I'm talking about the MENA region, it has been a civilization 7000 years back. So it has gone up and down with the religions and with people coming in and out of invasions. But it tells you a lot about the culture and about how people are parts of the fabric. They're not coming in. They are really they've been on this land for very long. By statistics Egypt has as much Christians as all the MENA countries combined. So we have around 105 million people in the country. There are 15% of that are Christians. So it's quite a sizable number with not only number but with influence because of a lot of segregation, a lot of preferences and jobs and employment. A lot of Christians have turned to become more entrepreneurial than being employed by the government. So you find a lot of influence coming out of Christians who have businesses starting from supermarkets all the way up to the second richest person in the country. So we're quite influential and whatever happens in Egypt is diffused into the rest of the region. So we're supportive of Christians in Jordan and Iraq and in the Gulf States. We're really trying to be the beacon of moving the Christian faith in the area. It is mostly orthodox, so it is Coptic or Coptic means Egyptian. So it's more in many Coptic Orthodox, there are around maybe 85% of the Christians in Egypt. And then you have the Protestants and some of the Catholics and the other smaller denominations in the country.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Fantastic. I've been to Egypt many times and I've also lived in the Middle East. I lived in Ramallah.
Michael El Daba: Right next door. Yeah.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Exactly. And it's interesting because there is some persecution still today in the MENA region of Christians, and I'm happy to hear that in Egypt you're leading the transformation, which leads me directly to your work in civil society. You know, transitioning from the private sector, the civil society, which I have done as well, is not an easy transition. You know what motivated that transition and what role did your faith play in your decision to make that shift?
Michael El Daba: All through the private sector, you see a lot of experiences. You see the good and the bad. They do amazing stuff. But there's also a lot of pressure of human benefit versus a commercial and financial benefit. You do that for a while. You're part of the gears. You are part of the waves that happen in and out all the time. To some point in time, you get less lured by the dollar signs and you start and think, Can I do the same better? Can I do things differently? That's where my interest came in. I wanted to to start working with the civil society, with a UN organization, and I wanted someone to help me get the introduction. And then they told me, Why don't you try with this NGO that I'm currently with, I'm working for an organization called CEOSS. It's the largest faith based Christian NGO in the region. So they told me, Come and help us out for like a year and then move on. It was a really bumpy start. There's a big, big difference between working for corporates and working for NGOs. You would know more than I would, but you find that you go back on a lot of the norms that you would normally see in corporates. And if you're going back 20 to 30 years, it's exciting, but it's exhausting.
Ndidi Nwuneli: But when I think of CEOSS is actually a Coptic based organization. I've been looking at your website. We often assume that Christ is in faith in civil society organizations, but that's something you take for granted, right? You assume how do you keep the work about God and how do you keep it centered on God?
Michael El Daba: Well, has it rooted a lot of the principles that we do every day we have. Seen the best proclamation, Jesus Christ of what forgiveness is, what love is. How do you accept people that don't agree with you on your theology or on even how to pay taxes? How are you loving unconditionally? I find that the heart of the society and that's what is being expressed to the people evangelism and proclaiming openly in not in Egypt and even the whole region is something that's really difficult, frowned upon and a lot of times dangerous. But that's not the only way to reflect the true image of Jesus Christ. If you love people, if you go around the street changing lives, changing the surroundings of life, the ecosystems of people, people ask why people are touched. People they see love personified, not in theory, but in the person in front of you. So that's why I'm really happy with what the organization does, because it practices everything that we learned from the seeing of the image of Jesus Christ. We're trying to put on the ground. It's just inspiring and it's fulfilling, and you feel that you're actually getting closer to how God wants you to be.
Henry Kaestner: I want to unpack that more, and I think that Ndidi can be in a better spot to do that than I because you spent work on both of these. But one of the things I do want to do is we're, you know, setting the stage with what is going on in Egypt and some of the legacy of faith. And I think about, you know, I hear the faith of Augustine being a great Egyptian believer 1200 years before there any believers here in California. Maybe longer than that. But, you know, tell us a little bit about this energy that I alluded to that so many people saw at these events in Cairo. And you're part of that because you're serving an area of society in the marketplace. But before we go back into that and kind of like really unpack what that looks like in your work specifically. Can you speak to the work that you see God doing generally that led to this excitement and this energy and this kind of critical mass of Christ's follower getting together in Cairo?
Michael El Daba: Yeah, since the Arab Spring, the country has been on very fluid waves and waters. It has changed the fabric of the culture, the way people speak. When you taste freedom, when you taste chocolate, you can't untaste it. And this has freed up a lot of the culture where even at work, even in public speaking, in other countries besides Egypt, where people have chosen to proclaim that they disagree with the fate of the following quite openly, that vibe is everywhere. People are asking questions. People are openly seeking to know and to search. And also, people are being reluctant to completely obey what leaders are telling them, which is sometimes good on both sides. That atmosphere of knowledge seeking up, openness of ideas and combine that with a culture of religion, being in the fabric of people. Some people follow it traditionally, but some people follow it by faith and understanding. But it's still within the fabric. Combine the hunger for knowledge with the depth of religious beliefs in the fabric of people in the region flourishes. People who want to know more, who want to grow, and who want to understand more openly now.
Ndidi Nwuneli: You know, as you were talking, I was being reminded of my time in the Middle East. And I have to tell you that I got closer to God in the Middle East because I saw apostles in the marketplace facing persecution and also living out their faith every day like you've talked about, because they couldn't preach. They had to live it. And I saw people who reminded me of John and Peter and Paul on a daily basis that courage to exemplify your faith through your action is what you resonated and reminded us of here. And as I think about your current work with your organization, its 60 years old organization. How are you driving social change and social innovation and bringing some of those tenets of efficiency and effectiveness that you learned in the private sector into this dynamic organization?
Michael El Daba: One of the things I was struck by is that NGOs go with the mentality of spending money, not making money. And that mentality decreases efficiency, decreases the impact that they can leave, then actually how much they can do with the same dollar. Businesses, on the other hand, they're very much dollar related, financial return related. They are efficient that they can crush everything on the way. There is space in between. There is an area where we can increase effectiveness and efficiency at the same time produce excellent impact. This is where I found comfort. So I was trying to transition all the business norms that I have learned through different corporates into the NGO. They have responded to a lot of them. We now have a better financial system. We have better monitoring. We have better I.T. related apps that we can perform, better. We have better staff management systems, we have better proposals that we can write and better documents and social media. We have done better, but there's still a long way to go. But they're also learning now that instead of being only spenders, they need to create resources. And businesses are the only entities that create resources, whether the governments don't government collect taxes, but businesses do. So for NGOs to maintain autonomous and to have the ability to become sustainable, they have to create set up within them to create resources and combine those norms of the intersecting circles of the civil society with the business world.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Yes, I completely agree with you. And this is where we talk about social innovation and a new type of civil society organization that's sustainable. You know, you're spot on. And I've looked at your website. You know, I see that you're not only working the most vulnerable and serving, but you're also building bridges between different faith communities. Can you just talk a bit about that work and what our listeners can learn in their own environments about building bridges?
Michael El Daba: It's extremely important when you work with the people, you work for the people without any segregation, without putting them into boxes and according to gender, race or belief. And the demography of Egypt is 85% non-Christian. So 85% of who we work with are non-Christian. That provides the foundation of common understanding, a common view of things. So when we go, we work with the mosque and we work with the church, we work with the sheikh, and we work with the priest. And we set up committees within the communities where they represent the demography of the area, and by then they can actually implement the work. So we're doing work with, for example, for dialog to understand what citizenship is, what accepting the other is. If we're doing programs for the children, for the people with disabilities, they work together. So they're actually on better relations. They actually know that we're both regardless for our faith, facing the same problem, facing the same difficulties. We become better humans. We become actually more reflective of what Christ is. He did not ever want to put us into different files. He was speaking to everyone equally. I think this is where the point of strength is.
Henry Kaestner: Michael. One of the things that will help me and our audience to grasp this for all the truths you're talking about is super, super important. And I love it there's a Christ fire at the helm of an organization that is doing this work, but make it more real for us. Talk to us about some case studies, some people that you've encountered that you programs have helped, and where were they before you encountered them and where are they now?
Michael El Daba: Let me take the example of people with disabilities. We have a statistic of that 11% of the population of Egypt are people with disabilities or with different ranges. And the problem is that a lot of people have issues, mothers with their children, a lot of the fathers sometimes are not there. They can't have access to the government. The government wants to help, but they can't reach the people. And then how are we reaching the people? We work through community based organizations, Muslim and Christian. We have seen I have I have been on site visits of mothers saying that regardless of their faith, they were able to have their children have access to swimming pools that the government has set up, to sporting clubs, to hospitals, to artificial parks that they can fix through regular health checkups. I have cried my eyes out seeing mothers that were able to carry their children better because we have treated even the mothers better. We've had provide chairs that they can themselves maintain and buy local pass for. This changes lives. This is it's way, way, way satisfying beyond any businesses that I've ever encountered, beyond any project that I have ever succeeded with, beyond any M&A that I have ever done, it has changed my life.
Henry Kaestner: Can you talk about some of the other folks that were at this event and just the way that some of these entrepreneurs that are in software as a service or in their maybe their medical devices? How are some of these other entrepreneurs that are out there in the marketplace motivated by their faith getting involved in this work? Or is it just the purview of an NGO? What's a clarion call that you'd give out to Faith driven entrepreneurs that are listening to this?
Michael El Daba: In my opinion, it's an amazing time to be in Egypt. I know for sure in the Middle East to a certain extent. Aid money is decreasing. NGOs cannot live and stay and survive on aid work, especially faith based ones, because the governments do not give them a lot. So the way things should be shifted is through faith driven entrepreneurs. We have to be setting up businesses and now the investment ecosystem is much better. The fintech is booming. All the apps and services are really increasing. There's so much work that can be done that is faith driven by Faith driven entrepreneurs, where they can make this combination of setting up a business that is going to be self-sustaining and will have profits that could be reinvested. And at the same time contribute to the shared human values of humanity that reflect Christians' faiths and also are rooted in other faiths. There's much in common, and I think the solution is through faith driven investors or entrepreneurs. We can not go on the same route of either regular businesses or NGOs on their own.
Ndidi Nwuneli: If I can chime in even further, I'm a big believer that we need social entrepreneurs in the civil society as well, creating transformational businesses that solve social problems. Right. And who are motivated by a social mission. And it doesn't mean that you can't make money, but it means the money is plowed back into the entity and to the work. And as we have listeners who are like you, who are in corporate who are now saying, I want to give back on a daily basis, I can definitely set up a philanthropic arm of my business. I can have a family foundation, or I can get involved on a daily basis in running a social enterprise. What would you say to them?
Michael El Daba: I would say do more than that. I'm a bit more ambitious now. Do not do a foundation that funds. Please. If you know a business, a skill, come set up a self-sustained business that would be able to change the communities that would have social objectives at the same time be self-sustained and would grow on the knowledge that you've acquired through your career. Don't give us money, but work with us to set up organizations that would make money self-sustained and change the social spectrum that would be much more beneficial than just sending us funds.
Ndidi Nwuneli: I love that, Michael, and I'm sure that through the work you've done in 150 communities, you've seen some opportunities for social ventures. Where do you think they're the greatest opportunity? Some people talk about education, health. How can you just walk us through your work in the MENA region? Where are you seeing those opportunities for these social ventures?
Michael El Daba: There's plenty of room if you talk about financial record. We have microfinance that is booming. We have a penetration rate, our satisfaction rate of a maximum of 40% in Egypt alone in microfinance. There's plenty of room there. Combine that with micro-insurance, with micro leasing, with consumer finance. These are huge entities that are in need. Microfinance is extremely expensive in Egypt. Having a company coming in that is not accountable of profit would actually put the funding. That's what I'm personally trying to do to combine charity funds that are directly for charity, to move them into funding through a website to provide cheaper finance. Another spectrum is using up the cheap labor that we have in Egypt. We have a lot of skilled labor in carpentry, in steelmaking. We have an oil and gas services all through the spectrum. There's plenty to go there. Cement and ceramics are fields that are for bigger investment amounts. I mean, the spectrum is very, very wide. If I speak about fintech, we just had laws on fintech. The government is trying to keep up with the speed of the fintechs and startups that are coming in. I only know personally of 120 and the last report that I've seen fintechs that have come out in the last three or four years, I can't imagine how it's going to be in the next two or three years.
Ndidi Nwuneli: That's so inspiring. And I just can't imagine the impact that Christians running these organizations can have, not just by solving the social problem, but creating jobs and reflecting Christ through the work they do. It would just be great to hear are there some emerging examples of entrepreneurs who are Christians who have been birthed through your work that you can share with us.
Michael El Daba: Yeah, there's plenty. A lot of our economic development programs within the organization helps a lot of medium to smaller sized. So we provide finance for like 60,000 people per year. Some are Christian, some are not. And then we provide trainings and vocation trainings for many others. So we've seen businesses come out. But through my personal work, not only through the NGO, I have supported by being a part of the board, by being part of the thinking group and strategy group where a lot of businesses have been trying to shift. I have a lot of friends who are now interested to widen the scope, to spread the knowledge, to actually help smaller investors gain that knowledge. And then a ripple effect, because there's a lot of complementing industries that you have the bigger industries we're 110 million people. If you sell anything, it's going to work. Just work it better.
Ndidi Nwuneli: I love it. And one last question from me before we pass it on. Back to Henry. You know, when I worked in the Middle East, I was actually looking at the cost of closures on Palestinian entrepreneurs and it was devastating. Right. This is a very politically charged region that you're working in and there's quite a bit of discrimination around the region. How do you contend with that from a policy perspective and also from a spiritual perspective?
Michael El Daba: That's a difficult one, to tell you the truth, because you need to to juggle a lot of plates from a policy perspective. You need to work behind the lines by supporting people who have issues and trying to pass on that knowledge. For example, we've had issues in Egypt with church building. So through calling policy and advocacy, a law has been put in to build churches, for example. There are other forms that are being dealt with, and it's much more difficult when you get outside of the borders of Egypt. I have to say in Ramallah, when you speak, it is really difficult there. Policy is a luxury now. I think personal survival is an issue.
Henry Kaestner: Michael, I want to and you can tell me if for security reasons it can happen. But one of the things that'll be really powerful, if you could go through and say, okay, I'll give you three examples of entrepreneurs that saw a problem that needed to be solved in society. And the first guy's name is Bob. And Bob saw this and it came from this type of a background. And he was in a neighborhood that saw this. And so therefore he did this type of business. And three years on, this is kind of the result. And then here's, you know, Alice, and Alice did the same type of thing. Could you make it more tangible. You're speaking to some really important spiritual truths and some different tenets that really help make this all work. I'm worried that people can't relate the way that they might otherwise say, Oh, okay, Bob, story resonates with my experience, or I could do that. And so just a free form ref, as you just have examples of that. And even if you needed just change the names and just like for securities and you changed names, but we'll call this person and, you know, fill in the name. We call this person Michael. Right.
Michael El Daba: Okay. I can then call this person. He's a friend and he's been an entrepreneur for all of his life. For example, Person X, he saw that there's a need for psychological support within the country and psychological support that is faith based, but that is really calm, not too outspoken. And he started a startup. He was able to recruit a lot of different psychologists and psychiatrists. And they spread out in the country. And now they've gone to banks. They've had deals with different corporates where they can integrate the psychology aspect and psychology and within the normal trainings and facilities that are provided for employees. That is a phenomenal, in my opinion, outreach. Another realm of a friend of mine, Y he's a very well-known businessman with quite successful businesses. He saw that there's, we neead a cultural change in the country. So he was investing in a place where the youth can come in. So he's currently building it, a place where a lot of people can come in, they can exchange art, they can exchange ideas. It's mainly targeted for youth. So it's safe. It is safe for boys and girls to be at the same place. And people can speak freely. They can enjoy a culture, they can enjoy, sometimes a psychological sermon they can enjoy, even a human resource sermon. It is an educational and art exchange center where people can build, bridges, interact. This doesn't happen a lot in our country. We're very much either very on the ground with cafes and people on the ground. But but as good places of comfort, places of where art is displayed. To speak about what the inner person feels is not very common. So through that, he has used and these places are going to be self-sustaining. So this is going to be for a cost and for revenue, but with a different purpose.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Thank you, Michael. I wanted to shift this actually a really interesting time in our world. I'm sure that this month of April in particular, living in Egypt has been interesting. It's Ramadan, it's been Easter. It's also Passover. Three religions really celebrating together. And what I've started seeing very unique is that as Muslims fast, Christians have also decided to have fast during those periods. I'm just curious what is happening in Egypt around that? How are you seeing communities of faith respond either in support or to raise the bar around these issues?
Michael El Daba: We've always had close relations of Christians and Muslims in Egypt. We've celebrated Ramadan ever since I was in school. I would celebrate with my friend Ramadan. We've had Iftar together. We would go out in the evening, we have sahur for the next day, and we would take care not to drink and eat too much during the day just to not to offend our friends. We have been brought up to be together in common. And having all three together is really wonderful because we can relate, but also something that we found recently, especially this month. It's a very funny story where a family was going to one of the shops and then they ordered one of the local dishes. It's called koshari. It's like a mixture of pasta and seeds and stuff like that. And then the shop was told them, No, we cannot give you a food unless after iftaar they posted the problem on social media. But the hype that has been uprising on social media announcing that that was done, this family was not given. The food that they have requested has really stirred up a lot. And we have seen people saying, no, this is not us. We accept both. Until the news went all the way up to the government where they closed the shop, I don't know for some time. So it tells you that people want to protect that atmosphere of being together, because otherwise it's going to be a country that we can't live in if we choose to take sides too abruptly or too sharply. There's a lose lose everywhere.
Ndidi Nwuneli: And I think as Christians, we have to walk with wisdom and navigate some of these situations in a very interesting way. I mean, you occupy 15% of the population in Egypt. In Nigeria, Christians are 50% of the population. And so you see that a clash very evident. Right. And many African countries contend with this living alongside other religions. The US is no stranger to this. And I'm just curious, through your journey navigating this, what are some lessons and insights you share with other religious leaders or Christian leaders in other countries within Africa and across the world?
Michael El Daba: Something that I've learned to live with is being really humble, that you don't own exclusivity. You have so much to learn. Yes, we have seen the clearest reflection of who God is through Jesus Christ, but does not deny that there's so much to learn from others. There's so much to share. There's so much common value that we can enjoy together as human beings, as people who are close brothers and sisters, living in the same building and eating in the same places. We are really at the core very, very similar. Yes, we have some differences. I have differences with my wife. I mean, it's the same concept, but there's so much in common. So my advice, or at least that's if I can say something, is walk humbly with people like Jesus as you walk with your God, do justly and walk humbly with your God and with your peers that you live with.
Henry Kaestner: That's a great encouragement for a multicultural society, and so many investors that are listening is trying to understand, how do I weighed in? Can I make a faith driven investment in a country that's not majority Christian? And what does that look like? And so what you're doing is you're identifying some of the principles and some of the values that entrepreneurs need to exhibit in order to be winsome. And I think that there's elements of that that of course, apply even in a majority Christian context, where at least the United States is culturally Christian. And yet there's ways to be able to be in the world, but not of the world, and yet to walk humbly. So that's been a blessing to me, even as I sit here in the States today, as we come to a close and just so you know, where are we going to go with this? We always ask our guests about something they're hearing from guide through the Bible, believing that the Bible is alive and that God speaks to us through his word. So just so you know, we're going to go there. But just a couple of quick questions that I just want to ask you. What do you think is for somebody who's listening to this that hasn't considered investing in Egypt? Give us a word of encouragement about how to get started and maybe just even an overview as you see it. There are a lot of ecosystem players that were in Cairo and a lot of them focusing on different segments. And of course, we've got a chance to talk about CEOSS and what you all do, but just give us an overview about how somebody is listening to us and say, you know what, I think I really want to check out Egypt noT for the sights, but for what God is doing in the market.
Michael El Daba: If you're talking about investment opportunities and investment climate, if that's your questions about there's work there. Egypt has some challenges with its importation sometimes of raw material of ability of foreign currency. So that has been difficult on some parts. But the other parts where the knowledge comes into Egypt and it's very weak, for example, if you want to make investments in anything that's software related. Anything that does not require importation of raw materials is going to really fly off. We've had people that have come in with nano finance apps, with payment apps and fixtures that have networked the country. Another sector of work is electrical vehicles, stations, stuff like that. If that's the direction that you mean and there's plenty of there.
Henry Kaestner: Well, I'm glad that you hit on that, because a lot of our listeners are going to think about just investments in terms of financial return. And yet now I want to open up a little bit broader because I think that really as Christ's followers We have this opportunity to understand that investments is about storing the resources, everything that God has given us for His glory. But even within financial capital, that includes for profit investments, patient or concessionary capital, but then is and often philanthropy as well. Right. And in order to accomplish a specific goal or something that God has placed on our hearts, the best way to accomplish that goal might be through giving. So now answer that question to a broader view. If some of his listeners simply and this is an audience of people who all do the transformation happens in the marketplace and that we have an opportunity to participate with our time. Yes, but also our financial capital in that concept in Egypt. How do you get involved?
Michael El Daba: There are many others. A lot of churches, of course, need to be established and rebuilt. That's a given. But also there are a lot of training can be done for entrepreneurs, for medium sized businesses, of how they grow, how do they expand. We have a lot of conference centers that would need people to work through and provide more trainings and open doors for different faiths to be engaged. Those lines of work are endless in the country. If you establish smaller factories with disabilities, all these establishments would be faith driven. But at the same time, that would change the social map.
Henry Kaestner: And also listener to this, to understand that we have a director of international strategy, Reuben Coulter, introduced us to Michael, who puts out an ecosystem report on the many different organizations in Egypt and other places with some specific ways that people can get involved with a whole mix of different ministries that are really doing great work there. Michael, thank you. Okay, so you know it's coming. What do you hear from God in his word?
Michael El Daba: I've been studying the three servants parable. I've been reading that for the last maybe three or four days. It has shown me on how the master has treated all the three servants. The servant has had 5 talents brought in five talents. One who had two of them brought him two and one that buried his last and came back with the same one. And I have learned how to diversify from that. I have also been touched on maybe the five is not the best investment of the five. I don't mind the two and bringing only two if it's a shared value investment. So I'm not really impressed by the five who brought back the five. I'm just projecting the conclusion, of course. But I have been hearing a lot of from God. And how do you manage the different talents that has been given as an example of what the master has given and how do you distribute it in a different way? How do you choose on where to invest them and how do you ensure that there's efficiency, that the talents are going to come back and not be wasted and buried? Burying is bad. So how do you use it best.
Henry Kaestner: That's a great word. That's a great word for us all to have. And I love the fact that you called it in title The Parable of the Servants, rather than the parable of the talents, because we were all the servants. And what kind of servant are we and what kind of return are we looking for? And to see ourselves in these stories that Jesus told? Remarkably important may we all endeavor to have the type of investments that get through the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and yield 160 30 fold type of investments in places like Egypt and in the balance of Africa. Michael, thank you very much for coming on board and telling your story.
Michael El Daba: I've been really honored to be on this and I'm so looking forward for Africa to be the beacon of the world and to re export how Christ should look like to the rest of the world.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Thank you, Michael. Thank you for your good work and definitely look forward to coming to visit your organization very soon.
Michael El Daba: I would love that at any time.
