Thursday, December 1, 2011

A Reflective Time


Today has been a very reflective day in many ways. While we met a number of partners for ongoing discussions and looked at a couple of new opportunities, we also took the time to meet as a group and discuss some more strategic questions for the Mango Fund. Questions like: “What social impact are we trying to have and how can we measure it?” and “What is the role of faith in what we do?”. Mango Fund is still at an exploratory stage, but questions like these help us to frame our approach as we go forward.

I also look at Arua from a personal seed capital point of view, independent of Mango. God has clearly called me to build long-term relationships in this place and this is my fifth year of travelling here. I have come to see my role increasingly as a community development role, needing to look not only at business development, but also at the role of government, the church and education. For Arua to be successful it will need an adequate source of power, good roads and schools and a church that is promoting good stewardship among its flock. Along all of these dimensions, Arua has a long way to go. The community rarely has power, the road system is poor, the schools are poor driving more affluent Aruans to leave for Kampala and the church clings to old missionary doctrine that poverty is a preferred state.

There are times when I get discouraged. Am I really making a difference? We have tried to help a lot of want-to-be-entrepreneurs over the years, but most have fallen away. I have spent a day training 75 pastors on what the Bible really says about work, but are they teaching that or have they reverted to teaching that poverty is a blessed state and that business is evil? I have spent time with the politicians, but power is still scarce and the roads still atrocious.

But then God brings it all back into perspective as he did today in my last meeting of the day. Irene is a lively entrepreneur who has a custom dress shop with three tailors working full-time and an events planning business. She has been involved with my visits from the beginning. We always find time to meet and talk about her business. We are helping her with her cash flow management and helping to think through expansion plans. Her business has expanded substantially. We talked about further opportunities today. But it was at the end of the meeting that we started talking about what has happened over these 5 years. She brought great perspective to the conversation. She was very clear that the folks that had fallen away had only come with the hope of getting money. Not to build good sustainable businesses. We had been right not to work with them. Instead we have worked with about a dozen men and women that have clearly differentiable businesses that are growing and becoming more effective. This group of people have formed friendships among themselves and meet and help each other. She was clear that still more will come. Finally she said “Don’t give up, keep coming back and help us!” It was like a cup of water in the desert. The Holy Spirit knew I needed to hear affirmation like this, just at this time and he used Irene to deliver His message. That was all I needed to carry on.

Onward and upwards!

Thanks for all of your prayers.

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The Genesis of the 5810 Project

Vision

When Jesus was asked what was the most important command he answered: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your heart and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments”

As a follower of Jesus, it is challenging to obey these commands, particularly with regard to my neighbors.
How can I love my neighbors? How can I love my neighbors in a global context? How can I love my neighbors who are struggling to thrive in developing countries?

The classic response of western Christians has been to “send”. Whether we send those that have been called to vocational ministry, or send money and resources to “give to the poor”, or occasionally send ourselves on short-term missions trips. Each of these has value, but is this enough? Is it effective? Is it all that God calls us to?

The questions become more complex when you consider that no matter how much money we have spent on the “war on poverty” over decades, the problem remains as acute as ever. We are not winning the war, even here in the US. Are there other approaches?

As I struggled with these ideas, I was led to consider Isaiah Chapter 58. Here God tells us what true fasting is – to loose the chains of injustice; to set the oppressed free; to share food with the hungry; and to provide the poor with shelter. Then verse 10 says “…if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed then your light will rise in the darkness and your night will become like the noonday.”

“If you spend yourselves in behalf of others …….”

While we should send, we need to spend too.

What does it look like to spend ourselves?
For me I have been led to spend myself as follows:
• To go to a developing country, and to go repeatedly.
• To develop personal relationships with innovative leaders
• To use my own specific gifting and experience in business
• To find ways to move people out of the poverty cycle on a sustainable basis
• To invest money in parallel with my activities
• To share the love of Christ with my neighbor and to spend myself on their behalf.

5810 Project

The 5810 Project is predicated on the belief that while “teaching a man to fish” will provide him with a fish diet for a lifetime, it will not lead him out of poverty. To escape poverty people need to develop sustainable business activities. The 5810 Project’s vision is to provide an opportunity for business people from developed countries to share the love of Christ with their neighbor by “spending” themselves on behalf of others who are trying to build businesses and break the poverty cycle.

The 5810 Project is currently focused on two principal activities in Uganda.

Arua
Arua is a significant market town in the NW of Uganda, with Sudan to the north and Congo to the West. It is an agricultural market town that has grown because of government and NGO activity primarily in S. Sudan, but now increasingly in E. Congo. While the town has prospered and grown, the native Aruans have not enjoyed this economic boon.

Our efforts in Arua are centered on helping the church and Christian business people develop sustainable businesses.
We work with businesspeople to analyze the market situation in Arua, to offer training sessions, to encourage and mentor entrpreneurs and to invest in their businesses.

Kampala
Jesus Commissioned Ministries (“JCM”) is a church founded in 2000 serving three poor communities on the outskirts of Kampala. The leadership of JCM has a heart to reach the many underprivileged children in the communities it serves. Without education, there is little hope for these children to thrive. While education is available, the costs are prohibitive for most families. JCM has established Mercy Junior School (elementary) for these children. In addition to education, the children receive uniforms, food and school materials. The school currently has over 50 pupils in two Pre-K classes and Primary 1 (P1)and Primary 2 (p2) and is building classrooms for P3,4 & 5 for completion in the spring of 2011.

The 5810 Project has helped Mercy Junior School develop its rudimentary facilities and to buy a neighboring plot of land for expansion. We also advise the administrators of the school on business and education practices and have steered them through a process of becoming a fee-baseda significant drive to parent involvement and elevated educational standards and outcomes.

Opportunity
We believe that the 5810 Project offers a significant opportunity for the body of Christ:
• Grass roots opportunity to create sustainable businesses and deliver families and communities out of the oppression of poverty.
• Many business opportunities are apparent with relatively small investment levels necessary.
• Opportunities for talented business people to connect personally with emerging entrepreneurs and spend themselves on them.
• Opportunity for the body of Christ in the developed world to share the love of Christ with our neighbors in developing countries.
• Transformational impact on the “spender” and recipient alike!

If you would like to discuss this further, please contact me Andy Mills at amills@tkc.edu