We evaluate our program three years and five years after starting the program in a community.  We do not have a baseline, as the act of doing a baseline can change the perspective of the community before we even get started. The core focus of this program is to teach people to walk in obedience to God.  We hope the Acts of Love are done out of obedience to God—not to please us.  A baseline can sway this understanding. It communicates to the community that you—the outsider—are keeping track of what happens and have specific desires.

In some countries, it is possible to get baseline information through secondary data from government offices and other organizations.  Such information can be valuable in ensuring communities are, indeed, changing. In our experience, the change in communities has been so radical that we haven’t needed detailed indicators to measure change.  We only need to hear what the community members report. Then we confirm it with our own eyes.