Our Leadership Team

In 1976, God placed a burden on Dr. Wahba’s heart to invest deeper in the lives of those around him. A dentist by profession, Dr. Wahid resigned from his dental practice in Cairo, Egypt, to pursue full-time Christian ministry.

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Since he answered God’s call more than forty years ago, Dr. Wahid has trained and equipped millions of Christian leaders worldwide. In 2000, he launched the Middle East Leadership Training Institute (MELTI), which reaches 45,000 people in twenty-five Middle Eastern and North African countries every year.

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Dr. Wahid has worked with many Christian ministries, including the Bible Society of Egypt, Walk Thru the Bible, Purpose Driven, and the Haggai Institute, to help them advance the work of God throughout the Middle East, Africa, Asia, CIS, and Europe.

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The Wahbas operate the largest Christian publishing house in the Middle East, translating the best discipleship and leadership resources from the West into Arabic so that persecuted  Christians in the Middle East can have access to transformative content.

Dr. Laila Risgallah Wahba is an Egyptian Christian who loves God. She is a Christ-honoring international speaker, lecturer, trainer, and expert on issues of the sexual abuse of children, teens, and adults.

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She has a master’s degree in pediatrics and a Ph.D. in childhood studies. She firmly believes prevention is better than cure. Her motto is, “It is never the victim's fault that sexual abuse happened.” Thus, the name of her non-profit: Not Guilty.

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Laila is also the admin and communications officer at For the Global Glory of God. God called Laila to leave her medical practice and go into full-time ministry. She started a Christian youth TV show that addresses issues such as boundaries of dating, why not sex before marriage, why not pornography, and many other teen issues. The show has been viewed by millions of Arabic speakers all over the Middle East and North Africa, as well as the USA and Canada.

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Wahid and Laila have been married for nearly four decades and have two sons and a growing family. They reside in the Atlanta, Georgia area.

Head of Dental Department, of Military Hospital in Egypt; currently Farmers Insurance Agency Owner in Irvine, CA.

Jim worked for 37 years at Eastman Chemical in various leadership roles in their Global Supply Chain. Jim has held management positions at their Longview site, the Latin America regional office in Miami, the corporate office in Kingsport and the EMEA regional office in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Jim continues to stay engaged in the global supply chain challenges by serving as a senior supply chain advisor for SMC-Global, a leading US chemical distributor.

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He is a graduate of the University of Tennessee, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Logistics. He received his MBA from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. Jim is a member of the Association of Supply Chain Management where he has a certification in Transportation and Logistics (CTL).

Jim and his wife, Teresa, have attended Highlands Fellowship for 15 years and have served in various volunteer roles. After much prayer and several conversations with Pastor Allen and other leaders, Jim joined Highlands Fellowship in September 2015 as the Missions Director and was named the Executive Pastor in December of 2016. He is passionate about church health and a strategic focus that enables the church body to reach our local and global communities for Christ fulfilling the Great Commandment and Great Commission.

Jim and Teresa live in Johnson City, Tennessee. Teresa is a Licensed Professional Counselor at GracePointe Counseling in Johnson City, Tennessee. They have a son, daughter-in-law, and 2 grandchildren in Davis, California, and a son, daughter-in-law, and 2 grandchildren in Lake Forest, California. Jim is an avid golfer, runner, and hiker.

Holly Moore is an accomplished senior executive with more than twenty years of diverse leadership experience in a publicly traded for-profit company as well as both large and start-up non-profit organizations.

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She is the President of Hollis Strategies where she collaborates with individuals and organizations to help them unlock the full potential of their teams and increase their capacity. She is also the first alumna and female to become the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Oral Roberts University.

Holly is a sought-after speaker and leadership coach who uses her expertise as a Certified Myers Briggs Practitioner and a Certified 5 Voices Coach to discuss personality-based communication patterns and how they apply to relationships and team performance.

She also collaborates with Dee Ann Turner, former Vice President of Corporate Talent for Chick-fil-A, to provide workshops on talent selection and retention.  Holly has spoken to audiences throughout the United States as well as in Egypt, Brazil, Zambia, Mexico, Costa Rica and Singapore.

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Holly has over 14 years of executive experience with non-profit organizations including serving as the Vice President of Advancement for Mercy Ships.  During her tenure with that global non-profit, she spearheaded development and marketing efforts in the United States to launch the world’s largest privately funded hospital ship providing free medical care in some of the poorest nations on earth.

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Previously, she worked in the corporate health care industry sector for a decade in senior leadership positions. Her most recent executive position was as a divisional Vice President a publicly traded pharmacy services company. In that role, she had full P&L responsibility for a division of 250 team members in seven locations across the US.

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In addition, she serves on the Board of Directors for three non-profit organizations including Street Grace, a nationally recognized organization fighting human trafficking.