From its outset, this Foundation has been carefully designed to, first, be about you and what good stewardship in your unique situation looks like.  It is also, however, about something very much deeper, and that is your unique life story and experience!   

Assisting you in your stewardship aims, and helping you record your life experiences for the inspiration they contain, is what we have sensed from the Lord He would have us do and be as a Foundation from the very beginning.  It was this same sense that motivated us to move to an operationally independent state when it seemed good and right to do - while still being strategically related to LeTourneau University.  As such, we can now even more freely conduct ourselves as the Fiduciaries we are - with a clear level of objectivity, and an even greater latitude to be the trusted source of advice and counsel to you, our University family. 

In my reading of late, I came across a book that resonates with this very theme of “everyone having a story”.  While written largely to those in (my) space (financial planners and those in general assisting folks in their stewardship of what the Lord has entrusted to them), its premise is nonetheless far reaching.  That simple premise is this: each unique life story must become the foundation to any effective (what the author refers to as) “financial life plan”... because it isn’t about simply “assets under management” – it’s about “stories under management.”  

The key to all of this as the author’s cite, is the need for those who would serve you as trusted advisers to assure we are “asking the right questions”... such as,  “what are some of your values and goals that assets at hand might be applied to” - “what ministries have been the most impactful for you, and your family, and how might you best serve them” – and maybe one last, as part of your broader estate distributions (or what could be giving yet during life), “what role could you play in assuring the perpetuation of ministries, that are part of your story”?

Bottom line, it is our responsibility as one who would come alongside you, to first, help you discover and express your story - and then build a financial plan around that story. For us, as Advisers then, being a successful participant in this new era of “life-centered financial planning” hinges on “nothing less than our showing up as the best person we can possibly be, and for nothing more than a desire to serve your best interests.”

So ... I ask myself as I serve in this role, what can we do in the LeTourneau University Foundation to serve you in your unique financial life planning, and your broader desires aimed at ministry perpetuation. To follow, here are some ideas (some design options if you will), that could help you empower your story, and transform your thinking about way in which you might deploy what you have been blessed with – to form a pathway to obedience to those who follow! 

Serving you, as we together serve Him,

Tom Bevan, President