A Journey of a Lifetime

In 1996, Rev. Canon Charles P. Gibbs was asked to lead URI as its Founding Executive Director. Retiring now after 17 years, Charles leaves behind a lasting legacy of servant leadership and an ever-growing global foundation for building cultures of peace, justice and healing.

During his 17-year tenure with URI, Charles has traveled over one and a half million miles. The people he met around the world impacted Charles’ approach to leading URI. On one of his early trips to Kenya during URI’s formative years, he was introduced to Jose Chaipenda, the head of the local African churches. Chaipenda posed a question to Charles, and that question stayed with him throughout his career:

“What would URI’s work do for the three kinds of people I work with – those born to die(born into starvation, illness, nothing to keep life alive); those born to survive (born into world with stronger flame of life, but will struggle throughout life to survive [struggling for resources, health, etc.]); and those born to really live (the privileged people, born into material comfort, privilege of security, education, wealth)?”

At the time, Charles was stumped. He didn’t know how to answer Chaipenda’s question, but promised that he would keep that important question close to heart as long as he was doing this work with URI.

Fifteen years later, Charles reflects on Jose Chaipenda’s question:

“A satisfactory answer must involve the efforts of the entire human community. I believe URI is playing its part every time a Cooperation Circle opens the path toward a fuller life for children and adults of oppressed religious minorities in Pakistan, or provides micro-loans to support small-scale livelihood projects in Kenya or Panama, or helps restore the broken lives of child soldiers in Uganda, or provides a pathway for those blessed with great material prosperity to share those blessings with others half-a-world away who are vulnerable, marginalized or struggling to survive the scourges of extreme poverty and violent conflict. URI and humanity have a long way to grow to answer these questions fully. But I believe in my heart that URI is growing in the right direction.”

Charles is an exemplar of servant leadership. He leaves URI a “rich” man: blessed with over 500,000 friends within the URI global community. Former US President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, "Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time." URI will forever be grateful that Charles was among those who took that first courageous step, inspiring all of us to follow.