World Hope International Hosts Jedd Medefind

World Hope International (WHI) welcomed Jedd Medefind, author and Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, as keynote speaker at the organization’s board of directors dinner the evening of September 21.

Mr. Medefind has traveled extensively and has worked closely in his professional life with many faith-based organizations to improve communities around the world. He addressed the challenges facing organizations like WHI which seek to work in the most difficult and dangerous regions and praised those organizations for succeeding in ways governmental efforts frequently cannot. Reciting Robert Frost’s “Out, Out—”, he challenged WHI to continue to move in the areas of suffering toward being a light in dark places.

Jedd Medefind

Biographical Information

Jedd Medefind serves as Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Prior to his current role, he served as Director for the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the US Department of Labor.

Previously, he filled a range of posts in the California State Legislature, most recently as Chief of Staff to Assemblyman Tim Leslie.

From 2000 to 2004, Medefind also created and helped to lead the California Community Renewal Project, which provides resources and training to organizations that build up California’s struggling urban neighborhoods.

Medefind has spent time in more than twenty-five countries and has served with Christian organizations in Guatemala, Bangladesh, the Kingdom of Lesotho and other countries. He also worked for Price-Waterhouse in Moscow.

The book Four Souls, which he wrote with three close friends, explores questions of faith, poverty, and community amidst a journey around the globe. His most recent book, The Revolutionary Communicator, examines the grace and greatness of Jesus’ approach to communication and leadership.

Jedd and his wife Rachel live in Washington, DC with their two daughters, Siena and Marin.