Return On Investment (ROI) May 4, 2009

First, my  apologies for taking so long in between blogs.  We have had guests the last week (Dan & Tina Moyer and their family along with four other familes) which has kept me from spending time on the computer, not to mention that I had the worst time tying my random thoughts together for this blog, causing me to procrastinate (kind of like that college term paper hanging over  your head).

I ended my last blog by mentioning how rewarding the ROI on kingdom work is here in Africa, so I want to expand on that thought here. While Laurie and I don’t have plans to come back to Africa permanently after we return to the States, we know we must remain invested in the work here both monetarily and with our time remotely. When we first made the decision to come to Africa for these nine months, we knew that our minds needed some recalibration from the worldly, entitlement attitude that we’re constantly confronted with in the States. You may have seen the article in Newsweek recently which spoke about the narcissism so prevalent in America. The T-shirt in the promo picture for the article on MSN said it all: I love me. This, along with other shirts teenage girls are known to wear that say things like “It’s all about me” and “I don’t need your attitude; I’ve already got one of my own” reveal quite a scary—more accurately, an anti-biblical—view that more and more Americans are adopting. Unfortunately, this mindset has made its way into the church as evidenced by the big building projects—which often seem more like personal monuments—but shrinking missions budgets. Kennedy Simtowe, the native Tanzanian church planter who we’re working with here in Malawi, told me the other day that he’s very concerned about the next generation of American Christians after visiting America and seeing the expensive cars they’re driving and the big plasma TVs in their homes. It’s not for me to say what a person can or cannot buy, but we must all examine ourselves to make sure we’re heeding the words of Jesus when He said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Babu (Dan Moyer’s father) regrettably shared with me his experience of recently visiting a church near where he grew up in suburban Philadelphia that has now grown to a mega-church with a large building campaign, but the missions budget is exactly the same as it was when he attended the church 40-50 years ago when it had far fewer attendees.

One of my biggest fears has always been falling prey to the “frog in boiling water” phenomenon of allowing the world to slowly creep into our lives without us even realizing it is happening. Aside from our infertility, we had a pretty good life in Kirkland—a convenient house within walking distance of the lake, nice restaurants all around, impromptu dinners out with friends on the weekends and fairly good insulation from “the evil world out there.” I think God knew we needed a jolt, so He did what I didn’t have the guts to do and ended my job so I would get my focus more on His kingdom. Looking back on the circumstances surrounding how I got fired, I realize how out-of-place I was in a sales environment that rewarded self promotion more than actual productivity, and I’m very grateful now—even though it was inconvenient at the time—that I was able to escape that atmosphere even though it wasn’t my decision.

So why does the ROI on kingdom work seem to be better here in Africa? The only answer I can come up with is because our efforts here have such a greater impact than they would in America. Here are a few examples (some of which I’ve referred to in previous blogs):

For less money than it takes to fund a Roth IRA for one year ($4,500), we were able to fund a small school for a year, buy 83 outfits for children at a juvenile detention center, provide seed money for three businesses for the Sports Outreach members and will purchase a meze (corn) grinder for Grace Church in Malawi which will make life significantly easier for an entire community. While there’s no doubt the ROI is strong here, there are lingering questions in the backs of our minds of whether we’re approaching ministry the right way, including:

• Are we simply buying influence and control?
• If we’re supposed to preach Christ where He’s never been preached, why are we in Africa since most of the continent has vast exposure to the Gospel?
• Is it possible to be in Africa without creating dependence?
• Are we just an extension of colonial rule which brought development (technology, healthcare, education) but which, according to some, has left a legacy of a shorter average life span than before the outsiders came?
• Are we trying to solve Africa’s problems without even inviting its native inhabitants to participate in the solution?
• Why do we tend to focus so much on the poor? Is it because the poor are the easiest to influence since they’re the most dependent on us? Is that necessarily wrong?
• Why is our desire to help the poor often driven from guilt?
• Can you teach ambition?
• How do you handle children whose parents won’t responsibly take care of them (e.g. if you start a feeding program that provides one meal a day for children who are going hungry, then the drunkard father will know that represents even one less meal he has to worry about providing, using that money for more booze and thus creating even more dependency)?
• Is shooting for the best ROI the appropriate approach to missions? What about people like William Carey who labored for years without seeing a convert?
• How do you properly measure success in missions?
• Lastly, what is the proper biblical definition of a poor person? To me, this may be the most important question of all, because if we could probably answer this question, I think we would have much more confidence in our outreach.

It’s amazing how much less I know the longer I’m here. In talking with Dan Moyer and his friend Lyle who have a combined 75 years of experience in Africa, they said that some people who come on short term mission trips seem to have all the answers to Africa’s problems when they head back to the States, but the perspective changes with time and experience. As many questions as I have after eight months here, Lyle assured me my list of unanswered questions would get even bigger the longer I stay here.

This has been a frustrating blog to write because I don’t have answers to these questions, and my exposure here has only opened up more questions rather than helped me to identify solutions to the problems. But just because I don’t have the answers doesn’t mean they aren’t there. God promises to give wisdom liberally to those who ask, and He does have the answers to these questions; I just need to find them.

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