From The Field

Last week, we wrote about our newest social media platforms -- Pinterest and Instagram -- and hinted at a few cool campaigns that would be coming down the pike.

Well, here's one of them:

In lieu of our regular "Weekly Window" post, which features a photo of the week, we are posting one piece of a new photo puzzle, featuring a shot from Uganda by the photographer Thomas White. The remaining seven puzzle pieces are on our Pinterest and Instagram accounts.

Collect all eight and re-pin (or post) them to your own Pinterest or Instagram account by the end of the week and we will send you an exclusive set of postcards featuring Five Talents photography.

We're using the photo puzzle, in part, to promote the ongoing Giving of Life campaign. Voting ends in just seven days!

If you haven't voted, please click here. It only takes a few seconds.

If you've already voted, register with Giving of Life and receive two more votes!

This is the final post in a three-part series by Joseph Paulini, a businessman and entrepreneur based in northern Virginia who recently co-led a Business as Mission trip to the Philippines, where Five Talents is seeking to deepen its work with proven micro-entrepreneurs. Click here to read parts one and two.

Two hundred and seventy-five miles to the north of Manila, after a 13-hour trip by automobile through the high mountain provinces, we had the pleasure of returning to the village of Besao.

Five Talents' former President and CEO Craig Cole and I first visited there in 2002 to witness the funding of another cooperative. It was a beautiful remote village tucked between two mountains sloping downwards into a valley filled with terraced rice paddies tended to exactly as they have been for millennia. The townspeople would gather to stand knee deep in cold water all day planting the rice seedlings. The only communication outside the village was with a short-wave radio.

Roosters and chickens roamed at will and every home had a piggery under it. We stayed in their homes, ate chicken, rice and vegetables with our hands off plates and washed up in the morning outside in the mountain air from a cold-water spigot. Surely, I thought, this would be a tremendous stretch to make anything happen here.

Oh, me of little faith.

Every week, we do our best to tell you the story of Five Talents, its mission, and the communities where we work.

Much of what you'll find here in the blog and on the Website are summaries of what we do and stories about those who have benefitted from our programs.

However, Web users are increasingly looking for visual storytelling as well.

Perhaps you've already discovered that you can spend hours on a site like Pinterest. Maybe you've downloaded the Instagram app to your smart phone. Both of these exploding platforms are hubs for people who love to share photos – and view them.

That's why, in recent months, Five Talents has made an effort to establish itself on each of these networks. On Instagram, for example, you can find exclusive shots from our program in Uganda by photographer Thomas White. On Pinterest, we have created "pin boards" featuring our favorite books, quotes from the field, and more.

If photography and visual story-telling is your thing, we hope you'll follow us and share our content.

Click here to view our Pinterest boards. If something catches your eye, you can support Five Talents by "liking" and re-pinning the photo on one of your own boards.

If you have a smart phone with iOS or Android, you can download the Instagram application, or "app". Once you've set up your account, you can follow Five Talents and "like" our photos by double-tapping on them.

In the coming months, we plan to leverage these unique platforms for some very cool campaigns – including art contests, virtual puzzles, and more.

In this photo, Five Talents client Máxima sits near her vegetable stall with her son David in Tarija, Bolivia.

Her eldest son, Miguel (not pictured), was recently hospitalized because of malnutrition. Thankfully, Máxima had built up some savings from her business and was able to pay for all of her son's medical bills. He is now doing much better. Read more of their story here.

Click here to make a Mother's Day donation in honor of a special woman in your life. You can even request a set of Mother's Day postcards to send to your mother, aunt or grandmother by send an e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

This essay was first published on Executive Director Sonia Patterson's new Tumblr blog. Please be sure to follow Sonia on Tumblr as she shares personal stories and photos about the work of Five Talents.

About ten years ago during a Mission Trip I took Ecuador, I bought this clock as a gift for my father, a Presbyterian Church USA minister. He loved it and decided that it belonged in his church office. When I visited him over at the office, it was great to see its hands drawing circles around those women in their hats and braids, and above those snow-capped mountains and the setting sun. The clock would remind me about my Mission Trip to Ecuador, and the calling on my life.

Well, now my father has happily retired (although he hasn't exactly slowed down, as those of you who know him can attest to). We've recently been going through things, and we came across this clock. My father passed it back to me, as I've got a new office right now that needs a clock.

The hands are still hovering over those tiny women in their big hats. The sun is still tucked behind those beautiful mountains. And God's calling still rings loud and clear. Some things don't change even though time moves forward.

I'm here at Five Talents in obedience to God's calling.

The clock is a second-by-second reminder of what I'm here to do: Empower the poor so that they can know and pursue God's calling in their own lives.

If you're at all like me, you will go home tonight to find a door on your house, a meal in your fridge and a warm blanket over your bed. You might even take a hot shower or even a bath. These are luxuries we barely think about day to day, but they are luxuries nonetheless.

Five Talents aims to win a $10,000 grant from the Giving of Life Foundation. We're currently in second place in our category, and we've got a real shot. But we won't be able to secure this grant without fans and supporters like you.

Here's how you can help:

1. Over the next few days, please share the above video on your Facebook page, on Twitter, on Google+, over e-mail -- via whatever means strikes your fancy. Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8jJ1-ytBXE
2. Ask friends who have never heard of Five Talents to click on the following link (which you can cut and paste into your own posts and e-mails) and vote for Five Talents: http://givingoflife.com/profile/five-talents-international/
3. We also need you to do one more important thing: Register with Giving of Life so that you can receive two additional votes. All it takes is 30 seconds to enter your e-mail address and create a password. To get two more votes (for a grand total of 5), enter your Twitter handle (if you have one) and your Facebook URL.

A child says "ahhh" at a free health clinic held in April by Five Talents' partner in Indonesia GERHATI. The organization's "Kids Day" promotion encouraged parents in an impoverished Jakarta community to bring their children and young adults in for check-ups and medical consultations.

Five Talents helped to found GERHATI in 2005. The local organization works with authorities and a national NGO named Perkantas in the slums of Jakarta to provide healthcare (among other services) to people in the predominantly Muslim community.

This is just one example of Five Talents' holistic approach to empowering the poor. Besides providing loan capital, Five Talents and its local partners set up savings and loan groups, provide business skills training and spiritual mentorship, and -- in some cases -- offer other non-financial services, such as financial literacy in Burundi, and health clinics in Indonesia.

I have worked at Five Talents for seven years but have never travelled to one of our overseas programs because I didn't want to leave my family for that long. But this past week I met Euphemie Karerewa (R), who recently gave her four children and her husband a hug goodbye as she travelled to the United States for the first time.

Euphemie is a literacy trainer with Mothers' Union in Burundi, a small African country the size of Maryland that is poor, rural, and still recovering from years of civil war. Through partnership with Five Talents, she teaches business skills to women who have no access to jobs or education. With this training they can start businesses using savings and credit groups.

Last week, Euphemie shared stories about her work at our Spring Gala, a charity event held to salute women fighting global poverty.

During her visit, I had offered to host her one night and so she came to my home where she marveled at a dishwasher, giggled that we allowed our animals inside our house (she thought our dog, Max, looked like a small cow!), and was in awe of our blooming azaleas.

We ate at Church Street Pizza and went to Madison High School to watch baseball and softball - a typical night for most suburban moms. But my favorite moment was a few days later when she and I had coffee at Cafe Amouri.

At last Friday's Spring Gala, guests had many opportunities to contribute to Five Talents' mission to empower micro-entrepreneurs in the developing world. Some took part in a live auction and bid for a round of golf at Congressional Country Club, which hosted the Gala. Others purchased flower arrangements or participated in a silent auction for items ranging from a guitar autographed by musician Paul McCartney to a framed photo of NFL quarterback Tim Tebow.

But some of the hottest items were chicken and cow decorations hand-crafted by Sarah Pichardo. Purchasing a "chicken" for $100, for example, would allow a micro-entrepreneur in Kenya to set up a business producing eggs for sale in the community. By the end of the evening, the "chickens" had sold out -- and scores of jobs had been created.

Visit our Facebook page to see lots more photos from the event.

If you missed the Spring Gala, don't worry: You can still "create a job" buy making a purchase through our online gift catalog.

The Five Talents Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Sonia Patterson has been hired as the Executive Director of the growing Christian microenterprise development organization.

She will be following Craig Cole, the founding chief executive, who is stepping down from the organization after more than 12 years of service. He was honored at the 2012 Spring Gala held recently at a private country club in Bethesda, MD.

"We are so very grateful to Craig for his passion, his integrity and his service to the poor," said Dr. April Young, Chair of Five Talents' US Board. "He built Five Talents into an international organization from the very ground up and has helped tens of thousands of the poor. This is his legacy."

Patterson, who grew up in Chambersburg, PA, and currently lives in Reston, VA, was first introduced as the new Executive Director at the Spring Gala. She brings 15 years of entrepreneurial experience in developing business, non-governmental and community relations in the United States, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

"Sonia's wealth of experience will help Five Talents' programs reach new heights," said Dr. Young. "We are so happy that she is joining us."

Fluent in English and Spanish, Patterson holds a B.A. from Wittenberg University and an M.B.A. from Thunderbird School of Global Management, where she concentrated on global entrepreneurship.

Patterson has developed businesses in Latin America and in the Caribbean, and she has had outstanding success in building and maintaining relationships with key corporate and government decision-makers, both domestically and internationally. She has held leadership positions in both for-profit companies and non-profit organizations, the most recent of which was as Financial Services Director for World Vision United States.

"I am excited to start this new chapter with Five Talents, building on the organization's dynamic legacy of empowering micro-entrepreneurs in the developing world," said Patterson. "I'm looking forward to working alongside supporters and partners to fight poverty and transform lives."