Rob and Jane have been involved in pastoral and teaching ministry for more than 35 years. When not pastoring a local church, Rob has worked for some 30 years as a chartered civil engineer. Jane worked for a large international charity, Christians Against Poverty, as a specialist counsellor to those in serious personal debt. At first they used their vacations to travel regularly to Nepal to further the work of 5000Plus.

However in 2007 they both resigned from their secular jobs to be more available to expand the work. They are now spending large parts of each year overseas envisioning, teaching and training communities to break out of their cycle of poverty.

A part of Rob and Jane’s vision is to equip other ‘Grey Nomads’ like themselves who still have a desire even in their later years to make a difference in the world around them. Tim is a fruit of the UK seminars - they run for this purpose. After attending he wrote “I found the day stimulating, challenging, uplifting, provocative, and at times pretty scary, but immensely valuable, and an important step forward for me.”

In his former business life Tim was a director of a whole foods importing company and has now put those skills to use by joining with 5000Plus as a volunteer. Over several years he regularly visited Kenya and Tanzania to support the work there. Today he and his wife Sara are valued Trustees of the 5000Plus Charity.

Hari Khati is a Nepali pastor who started his first church in 1990. Since that time his ministry has expanded and he now leads Grace Ministries which has a network of many churches throughout Nepal.

After embracing the vision of 5000Plus in 1998, he established a non-government organisation (NGO) registered with the Nepali government which has been very effective in impacting for good the lives of the poor in their local communities. Hari has received both national and international recognition for the work of the NGO (Grace Community Development Foundation).

In addition to caring for many orphan children a wide range of income generation projects have been successfully carried out, many being started on the NGO’s own initiative.

Kennedy was the pastor of a small rural church. In 2007 returning from a 5000Plus vision seminar, he gathered his village community together and they started a tree nursery income generation project. Six months later and with no financial help from outside the village there were 18,000 small saplings ready for sale.

From this beginning a Kenyan registered non-government organisation (Grace Development Foundation) has been successfully formed with Kennedy as the Chief Executive Officer. It is now recognised by the Kenyan Goverment as the most effective NGO in addressing poverty in their country because we do not give money to the poor.

Today there are over 255,000 livelihood projects running, with 4,200 community volunteers who are trained to mentor and encourage others in how to choose, plan and successfully run an income generation project. There are also nearly 2,600 small savings and loan community groups.

These income generation schemes include animal husbandry, horticulture, agriculture, forestry, market stalls and shops, fish trading, beauty salons, dressmaking, hardware, brick making and many, many more. Truly this is communities being empowered to break the chains of poverty.

One of the most recent developments in Kenya is that Grace Development Foundation has begun a programme of taking the 5000Plus training to prisoners within the penal system.

David Nyamita is a Bishop, overseeing a number of churches, and he invited 5000Plus to bring their teaching to Tanzania.

With their help and encouragement not only has he started his own income generation projects but has helped to initiate many others among poor communities in the north west corner of his country. These are making a real difference to their ability to provide for the welfare of their families.