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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