Hi, I'm Chris Marlow

At four in the morning on a road in Zimbabwe, a boy of about eight took Chris Marlow's hand and asked for work. Not food — work. He hadn't eaten in days and he still wouldn't beg.

Chris couldn't give him work. He was a pastor from Austin, passing through, and the need in front of him was overwhelming.

Pastor John was not passing through. He'd been caring for those children for years.

That's the thing Chris has spent the last two decades trying to say plainly: the people closest to the problem are usually already solving it. They don't need saviors. They need partners with resources and staying power.

He founded Help One Now to be that partner. Today it backs local leaders who were already doing the work in eight of the hardest places on earth. He wrote Doing Good Is Simple to hand others the map.

He believes God made us for each other, and that a life spent on your neighbor is not the cost of the good life. It's the shape of it.

He was once arrested in Zimbabwe on suspicion of espionage, largely because he was wearing a camouflage hat. The charges cost him twenty dollars. When he's not traveling he's on a bike or somewhere with his family, rooting for the Lakers, the Red Sox, and the Longhorns — a combination that makes geographic sense to no one, including him.

Chris lives in Bentonville, Arkansas with his wife, Necole. They have two adult daughters.