July 29, 2005
Dear Friends,
Since we wrote to you in May we have begun to settle in our log
cabin near Bloomington, Indiana, while continuing to be “missionaries.”
Simon traveled to Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo
to confer with the partners on ways to improve their mission projects
and to provide some management consulting to the administrative
team of the Good Shepherd Hospital in Tshikaji, where we served
from 1999 to 2002.
This year’s vacation Bible school curriculum features Nepal
in which we contributed a letter to the children from the field.
Haejung delighted the children in Terre Haute, Indiana, by showing
up in person on the day they read the letter.
It is very hot and humid here in central Indiana. We are learning
that living in the woods in Indiana has much in common with our
lives in central Africa. Living in harmony with God’s nature
requires a balance of finding beauty in the wilderness while avoiding
unnecessary risks, such as dead trees falling on the roof.
One newfound joy these days is to harvest the abundant black raspberries
growing wild all around us. We are learning to wait for the fruits
to ripen before picking. It reminds Simon of the necessity of
patience when working with partners. We often get dismayed by
the lack of good stewardship and transparent reporting on the
part of our partners. During his visit to Africa this year, Simon
became convinced that the lack of good stewardship is not necessarily
due to the lack of will. When one does not know how to carry out
certain tasks, the will to do it right does not last long. It
was a joy and celebration as Simon sat with the Congolese and
Malawian partners to develop ways for better and direct communication,
better stewardship and management, and open and honest dialog
in a “safe setting”—all the necessary ingredients
of a good partnership.
During the trip to Africa Simon read The World is Flat by Thomas
Friedman. Mr. Friedman advances many valid points, among which
is that the revolutionary development in communication during
the past decade gave power to “small players” to act
big. During the visit to Tshikaji, truly a remote village in central
Africa, Simon was able to call Haejung in the woods in central
Indiana on a cell phone, for about forty cents per minute! The
main impact of this development is that our partners in Africa
do not have to depend on us, the missionaries or the church hierarchy,
to speak for them any longer. The same is true for members of
the community who support the ministries. The communication technologies
are finally available to most of the partners with whom we share
ministries. But in many cases, the technical capabilities of communication
outpaces their ability to manage projects effectively and to communicate
the results; such things are new and foreign tasks to them.
Another major development in Africa is that large international
programs are starting up with financial resources measuring in
millions if not billions.
More aid is advocated and promised as seen in the Live 8 and
G8 summit meetings recently. At the same time, respected economists
and development experts voice their concern whether African societies
have the capacity—both the will and the ability—to
manage the funds to help the population rather than simply lining
the pockets of a few dictators. This
article is an example of an economist concerned about this.
Simon hopes to study these issues from “Christian economist”
perspective.
Our immediate and narrower interests are to assist our partners
to find more opportunities to further their own ministries. The
specific questions are: How can our partners find a seat at the
table where national-level planning is done? How can they gain
access to funds for national programs? And how can they improve
their management and communications capacities?
The PC(USA) has been a major innovator, developing pioneer programs
in comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention and care, malaria prevention,
and rural health issues. How can our partners effectively bring
the knowledge and experience to help design large-scale programs
in all aspects—management and accountability, field operations
as well as key values and priorities? On our side, how do we reshape
the mission partnerships to continue to be relevant and effective
in this time of change?
We are grateful that the church calls us to concentrate in this
area of ministry. We are to assist the partners in their own management
capacity and development efforts regardless of the geographical
boundaries. For the first two years of our assignment, we will
work from our charming log cabin in Bloomington, Indiana, and
respond to training and consulting requests from our partners
around the world. Due to our language and cultural understanding,
we expect most of the requests will come from Asian and African
partners. Since this pattern of service is quite new, in fact
we are the only “global” missionaries at the moment,
we hope to use the next two years to learn the nature and the
frequency of demands to decide where to base ourselves after the
discernment period.
We hope to use this period to retool ourselves for the type of
expertise necessary to assist our church-based partners in their
internal management and communications efforts. During my trip
to Africa, several partners requested help in starting their own
Web sites, which I know nothing about. We plan to set up our own
home page on the Internet as an opportunity to learn about the
technical aspects of Web presence and to use the site to better
communicate with friends and family. We hope to share the details
of the site in our next letter. If you have experience in Web
administration or know someone who does and is willing to help
us get started, we would be most grateful to hear from you.
Our new address is correct on our home
page. Our phone numbers are: (812) 322-7246 (Simon) and (812)
322-7354 (Haejung).
We will be continuing our mission interpretation work in between
our overseas assignments. We have plans to visit Denver (mid September),
Minneapolis-St. Paul (early October), and Detroit (late October).
Should you need “real live missionaries” to share
stories, please let us know.
Grace and peace,
Simon & Haejung
The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
118
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