The Finish Line Podcast Dave Schwartz, Founder of Agape Empowerment Center, on Finding Calling Over Comfort (Ep. 169)
Dave Schwartz had all the signs of worldly success. He was a high-level officer with a Fortune 500 company in the insurance and financial services industry for 25 years before starting a breakaway firm with a friend which grew to a hundred employees in three different states. Life was good. But after some deep, personal valleys—including two open-heart surgeries—God got Dave’s attention in a powerful way and helped him to see that a check-the-box religion wasn’t cutting it and something needed to change. Inspired by his now-wife’s deep contentment and relationship with God, Dave also began to pursue a deeper relationship himself.
Selling interest in the company he helped start, Dave transitioned to the nonprofit sector where he vetted partners and handled donor funds. He then was invited to lead the missions programs at their church. Little did Dave know that this was laying the foundations for a God-sized vision on the other side of the world.
Dave and his wife became close with a Liberian family from their church, and in 2021, they had an opportunity to travel to Liberia, the eighth poorest country in the world. Experiencing the extreme poverty at an orphanage there planted a strong desire to do something to uplift the children of Liberia without just giving out hand-me-downs.
Now, after a few years of divine connections and miraculous generosity, ground will soon be broken for the Agape Empowerment Center, a 15-acre campus designed to raise Christ-centered Liberian leaders through housing, education, and holistic care. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to build a vision from scratch, this episode is for you.
Major Topics Include:
- Becoming envious of contentment
- How the God-sized vision came together
- Governance, structure, and transparency
- Giving a hand up without creating a cycle of dependency
- Building a culture one grade at a time
- Involving locals in the mission
- A hopeful view of the next 5 to 10 years
- How this experience has deepened Dave’s faith
- The vision for agricultural and manufacturing enterprise zones
- Building community through collaboration
- Examining the ROI of philanthropic dollars
- “Laying in the hospital in 2012, recovering from my second open-heart surgery, I realized it was time to make a change.”
- “What is a true relationship with our Savior versus a religious ‘check-the-box’?”
- “As I started to change from religion to a relationship with Jesus, contentment started to creep into my life and I had never really experienced that before.”
- “Liberia is the eighth poorest country in the world. Per person income on an annual basis is $530 USD.”
- “I made the very Western throw-away comment of ‘Gosh, Honey, someone’s gotta do something about this.’ Without missing a beat, my wife says, ‘What about us?’ And that’s how the Agape Empowerment Center got started.”
- “If we want them to become the best and to be Christ-centered children, well-educated, then let’s start treating them like the best and stop just giving them our hand-me-downs.”
- “In five or ten years, I see children with joy and hope in their lives.”
- “I have learned that I absolutely have no control. I think I do, but I don’t. And at the end of the day, this is God’s plan or it’s not. I just hope to be able to help implement it.”
- “I’m not going to retire, I’m going to re-fire.”
- Agape Empowerment Center
- When Helping Hurts (see our interview with coauthor Brian Fikkert)
- Convoy of Hope
- The Finish Line Community Facebook Group
- The Finish Line Community LinkedIn Group
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