Dear Friends,

As we pray and meditate during this season of advent, we keep returning to the purpose of Jesus’ coming in the midst of us. Regardless of His mission, given by God, all of us have our own ideas as to the purpose of His coming, and we value the work based on our own personal needs. As we await the birth of the baby, we reflect on our mission here in Congo. We struggled before God to stay true to His commands, not to our own emotions. After much prayer, we decided to share our struggles with you.

We say to each other that Jesus must have felt like "chucking it all and go home" often, but he stayed true to his mission and obeyed God. In a small way, we have experienced the pain of differing expectations ourselves. When we came here, we came with the idea that the best gift we can bring is ourselves. We came to be with the people and share what God has given us so that they can become better stewards of resources and minister to the sick and the weak. We wanted to help them experience the joy of hard work and growing, from care-receivers to care-givers. Now we believe we are sent here to learn the realities of ministry in the trenches and help you back home to share in our experience. We know that we could have learned these lessons in the States without coming all the way here, but it would have been so easy to just "go home" when the going got tough. Here in Congo, we have to wrestle before God and wait patiently.

Shortly after our "tourist" period, the realities of urgent need hit us hard. Perhaps because of the suffering, perhaps because of the past practices, or perhaps due to basic human nature, people asked us for immediate materialistic help. In some ways, we were no different, for we sought to receive positive praises from the people rather than walk by faith and wait for His time. As we heard and saw the difficulties people faced, we felt guilty for having so much material wealth compared to them, and we could also see clearly how much difference a small gift can make for the poor. Many of you generously supported us in our efforts to help the needy. Some Congolese—quite a few in fact—told us that it is our Christian duty to help them since we are all in one family of Christ and family members should share what they have. Who can argue with that? We had to question their motives though, when we saw that higher-paid workers had no compassion for the poorer workers, and the richer IMCK (Christian Medical Institute of Kasai) seldom help other poorer hospitals in the family of Presbyterian Church of Congo. We began to wonder whether our mission was to become a conduit for channeling money to people and the institutions.

Another difference was that we saw the workers, at least the leaders, to be our "partners" in the ministry to care for the sick and the poor. We feel at times that our "partners" see themselves as the primary recipients of care. These differing perceptions created resentment and awkward working relationships. As a sad consequence of this, the patients are not receiving the best quality care made possible by generous gifts of the friends back home. When the goals of two partners differ, at times conflict, we have difficult choices to make. When one's own words are different from one’s actions, it is even more difficult.

We came as managers of resources, not our own resources, but those given to our partners for their ministry, in this case the Christian Medical Institute of Kasai. One conflict we saw immediately was that while our primary interest was in minimizing waste and misuse, others were more interested in increasing the flow of resources to the institution. The greater the inflow, however, the greater the leakage and waste (or greater benefits, depending on the point of view). We thought our mission was to help them repair the hole on the bottom through which resources were leaking, but others looked at us as the hose that connects North America to Central Africa. Must we wait until the tank drains completely before plugging the hole? Must we always learn the lesson the hard way? How do we witness Jesus Christ abiding in us through our daily lives while struggling in tense relationships? We know that hypocrisy, when deeds do not match the talk, is rampant in everyday life in the States as well, but God did not put us in the point position there. Can we remain faithful servants before God while being good friends in their eyes? Are they necessarily incompatible choices?

We do not mean to say that our goals are correct and honorable while the goals of others’ are not. We can only try to be faithful to the mission as we discern it. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) or its member congregations may look at missionaries as a means of delivering gifts, and perhaps the missionary presence gives a sense of legitimacy to the programs or institutions, thus the high correlation between the number of missionaries and the amount of donations. Leaders of the PC(USA) told us that the time when American missionaries went to foreign countries and created "small poor America" is over, and that we were to assist our partners in their own journey. We believe it is the right approach, and we are doing our best to stay true to the mission. Discipline is hard, and to lead by action is even more difficult. We hear from our Congolese colleagues that missionary presence is in the administration of the IMCK is necessary, since Congolese nationals are not able to withstand the pressures of their extended families and put the institution ahead of their personal interest. We do not accept that as being correct.

Simon visited an old PC(USA) mission station in Lubondayi, which was established in 1924 but hasn’t had U.S. missionaries for several decades. The hospital was closed several times due to financial difficulties (mismanagement, economic status of the country). After being closed for four years, they reopened it in January 1998. The leaders of the church decided that it was their responsibility to keep the hospital open for the people. Simon was very moved when he learned that at the end of each day, they divide up the days receipts to replace the medicines (60% of medicine sales), maintenance (5% of total), operations (5% of total) and contingencies (5% of total) before adding to the fund for their salaries. Their monthly salary comes after the expenditures to keep the hospital operating, and the amount is very uncertain. But everyone knows the score and everyone knows that their employment depends on the patient care. The day Simon was there it was a good day, and from the 150 dollars of total receipts they were able to put away about $35 for the 23 workers. Should the idea be so strange? Yes, it does happen in Congo, and it was all a Congolese idea. We came away with deep respect and the confidence that they are capable, if and when they want to be.

So, what is our mission? We believe we are here to tell the truth with love, to our Congolese brothers and to you back home as we see it. We will continue to speak for the weak, insist on responsible resource management, and encourage you to truly help our partners to help others. We urge you to insist on accountability from our partners. Hard-nosed demand for accountability is not demeaning, but can help support those who want to do it right. We pray for the courage to tell the truth and the wisdom to know what is helpful and what is not. We pray for His love to sustain us in our journey and to remain faithful to His commands. Jesus came to carry out His mission, and we can do no less as Christians. Now, we await eagerly the birth of Christ in this war torn country.

Haejung & Simon

The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.31