Investing in What Matters Most: Our Team

Since we started Cadaniño 10 years ago, one of the greatest lessons we’ve seen firsthand is this:

When you train a leader, you don’t just impact one life, you impact every life they touch.

2 Timothy 2:2 tells us, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”

Building a Strong Foundation

That belief has led us into a three-year journey of intentional training and development for the Cadaniño staff, equipping them to serve with clarity, conviction, and purpose.

Along the way, we have taken a thoughtful and structured approach to strengthening our team through spiritual formation, character development, leadership, and professional skills.

And through this process, we’ve seen something clearly: that the strength of our impact is directly tied to the strength of our team.

1. Discipleship: A Clear Foundation

Our first and most important priority was establishing a strong spiritual foundation across our entire team.

While our staff comes from different churches and backgrounds, we recognized the importance of creating a shared understanding of what it means to truly follow Christ, not just personally, but in the way we teach, lead, and serve others.

This was about bringing the clarity and unity necessary to ensure that every team member truly understands what it means to be a disciple or follower of Christ, how to grow in a personal relationship with God, and how to faithfully teach and model these truths to the students and families we serve.

Because discipleship is not a program. It’s a way of thinking and living that should be woven into everything we do.

We see every class, every interaction, and every moment with a student as an opportunity to reflect Christ.

As this foundation has strengthened, we have seen greater confidence, clarity, and consistency in how our team teaches and connects with students and families, creating a deeper and more unified impact across our programs.

2. Core Values Training: Building Character from Within

Next was a focus on core values. While many excellent training resources exist, we found that they are often developed in very different cultural and social contexts than the communities in which we serve, which led us to work in partnership with a Guatemalan pastor to develop a contextualized series of courses that focused on key values essential to our work: diligence, order, service, teamwork, and responsibility.

While these values are deeply rooted in Scripture, they can also be particularly lacking in communities shaped by poverty, instability, and limited opportunity, so we wanted to approach them not just as ideas, but as practical, lived realities.

Each course was intentionally designed to integrate both Biblical teaching and real-life application, including a clear introduction, spiritual foundation, contextual teaching, practical case studies, and guided discussion.

What stood out most was this:

The most impactful part was not just the teaching, it was the discussion.

Our staff shared that it was in those moments, processing real situations, sharing personal perspectives, and applying principles together, that the material truly took root.

This reinforced something important for us as leaders.

While we have a role in setting vision, defining values, and creating tools, true transformation happens when those values are understood, owned, and lived out.

By combining Biblical truth with culturally relevant application, we are seeing these values move beyond concepts and become part of how our team thinks, leads, and serves every day.

3. Child Protection Training

In 2026, all team members completed the CAFO (Christian Alliance for Orphans) Child Protection Course to give them a deeper understanding of child protection standards, enabling them to better identify potential risks and concerns in the lives of our students, respond appropriately to sensitive situations, and create safe, structured environments for every child.

Keeping children safe is not just a requirement; it is foundational to how we faithfully serve, as it strengthens trust, protects those in our care, and ensures that our community centers remain places of safety, dignity, and respect.

4. Leadership Development and Multiplication

As our team has grown in both skill and character, the next step has been clear.

We must develop leaders who can develop others.

Sustainable impact requires more than strong individuals. It requires a culture of multiplication, where each person is equipped to invest in those around them.

To support this, key members of our team participated in the Franklin Covey leadership development course on Multiplication, which focuses on how to train, empower, and develop others effectively.

This helped shift the mindset from simply doing the work to building others who can carry the work forward.

In addition, our coordinators participated in Christian leadership training sessions led by an experienced facilitator over several months, where they learned about the key elements of Christian leadership and were equipped to lead not just with competence but with character.

What we are seeing is the strengthening of something deeper than programs. The development of a leadership culture where growth is intentional, responsibility is shared, and each team member understands their role not just as a worker, but as someone who can influence and develop others.

5. Learning Alongside Others: ACH Summit 2025

In addition to our internal training, we strive to learn from experts in the field.

In 2025, our coordinators and youth leaders attended the national summit hosted by the Alianza Cristiana para los Huérfanos (ACH) in Guatemala.

Over two days, they participated in workshops and learned from experienced leaders working on the front lines of serving vulnerable children.

While it was a meaningful time of growth that strengthened their ability to serve with excellence, wisdom, and care, it also allowed them to connect with others who share the same heart and mission, reinforcing that what we are doing at Cadaniño is part of something much bigger than ourselves.

As we look back over these past three years, one thing is clear.

The investment we have made in our people has had a direct impact on our ability to serve well and has played a big role in the amazing fruit we are seeing.

Training our team strengthens every classroom, every interaction, and every child we serve, but it does not stop there.

As our team members grow, they invest in their students. As those students grow, they begin to invest in others. We see this every day in our youth missions’ clubs, where 41 Cadaniño students go out every month and teach Bible classes to over 130 students in their communities, and our STEM clubs, where our student leaders guide new students in learning robotics.

That is how impact multiplies.

When training moves beyond programs and becomes something living and ongoing, carried forward through people whose lives have been shaped and strengthened, the sky is the limit.

This is why we remain deeply committed not only to continuing to train and develop our own team, but also to sharing these training tools with other organizations across Guatemala and beyond.

Because what you build in people does not stay in one place. It grows. It spreads. It multiplies.

And in the end, that kind of investment will always outlast anything we could build on our own.

Sincerely,

Timothy and Sharie Martiny

Partner with Cadaniño today and impact lives for eternity!

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