Returning to South Africa

Well, Robin and I will be leaving early tomorrow morning for the Seattle airport. Thirty some hours later we should arrive on the South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal South Africa. This will be a 3+ week Two Tunics working visit. We are definitely not looking forward to the long trip or to the tremendous heat and humidity that everyone in South Africa has been telling us about this summer over there. But this trip is not about the weather and hopefully will be well worth the discomfort of the trip. I plan to use this blog to provide (hopefully) regular updates and insights on the progress of our trip.

The primary purpose of the trip is a little difficult to express concisely in a sentence or two but let me try. The bottom line is that we at Two Tunics want to ensure that the ministries and programs that we are involved with in South Africa are implemented in a way that empowers and equips the communities we are serving. One key way of doing this is to ensure that we are working through local partners in effective partnerships. We want to avoid paternalism ("we know what is best for you") and not create or perpetuate dependence ("we're poor and need your money/resources to meet our community's needs").

We do feel that from the beginning we have been participatory, relational and humble in our approach. We went in as learners and identified what locals were doing that was working and then supported that. But we still have much to learn about serving poor communities in a way that helps and not hurts both the poor, their communities and our witness as followers of Jesus Christ. Our Two Tunics board has recognized certain dangers and potential pitfalls that we need to be sure we avoid in our approach. Therefore we are going back to South Africa now to begin making needed adjustments in our structure and approach.

The decision for us to go back to South Africa at this time (only 3+ months into our "furlough") was made as a result of discussion around these issues during our board meetings in January. Since then I have read a book that moved my thinking about some of these issues to a whole new level. The book is called "When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself" by Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert. I think it should be required reading for anyone doing or considering doing missions work (short or long term) in a poor community. It has really challenged me but also excited me. This is going to be a really hard road but the rewards will be great as long as we travel the hard road.

I will be commenting some more on this book in upcoming blogs but if you or your church are doing any kind of mission work in poor communities or you are supporting any organizations involved in care of children or the poor, I recommend you read this book. For now stay tuned to this blog for updates and insights on the progress of our journey these next 3-4 weeks.

Shopping Spree

This past week Robin and I spent some time in St Louis. This was at the invitation and as guests of Grace Church, a vibrant, growing, multiracial church with an attendance of 4-5000 each weekend. They have connected with the work we are doing as Two Tunics in South Africa through two short term mission teams last year. We were blown away by their hospitality during our visit (as well as that of Doug and Suzy Hufton who opened their home to us).

One amazing gift to us during our visit was a free shopping spree in their well stocked church bookstore. "When we have missionaries visit we like to send them away with some good reading material" we were told. I thought we would pick up 3 or 4 books when Debbie (Pastor Ron Tucker's wife) came in with a empty printer paper box and said "you have to fill this up and we can ship it to you at library rates". Suddenly I was like a kid in a candy store. Do you know how much I love books? We had just arrived a couples hours earlier and God was knocking my socks off already.

As I browsed around the bookstore I seemed to keep coming across books authored by people I had heard speak at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. The last 4 years in South Africa we had been fortunate to attend the video-cast Global Leadership Summit held in Durban each October. Willow Creek presents the Summit live in Chicago in August (simulcast throughout many sites in North America) and then presents video-cast Summits throughout the world over the next several months. Robin and I have been blessed to attend the Durban conference with our "home church" in South Africa, Norwegian Settler's Church and its Genesis outreach ministry staff. Each year it has been amazing and yet the following year is even better yet. If you have not attended the Leadership Summit, or watched the DVD made of it each year I would definitely recommend getting to see or at least hear the 2010 Summit. Click on the image below to get more information about the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit. (Even if you are only responsible for leadership of your own life you qualify.)


As I browsed the Grace Church bookstore I picked up "Prodigal God" by Timothy Keller. Read this book and better yet also watch the video of his talk of the same title at the 2009 Leadership Summit. If you think you know this parable, think again. I found out I didn't know what "prodigal" means (and it's not "wayward" or "lost" although you will see that there is more than one lost son in the parable).

Then I picked up " Too Small to Ignore" by Wess Stafford, the President of Compassion International. He gave the most personal and tearful as well as a very powerful talk at the 2009 Summit. His passion comes out just as strongly in the book and it is all about the priority of children, not just according to Wess but according to Jesus.

I also collected a couple books by John Ortberg. He gave an excellent message on "A Leader's Greatest Fear" to the Leadership Summit a couple years ago, Summit 2007 I believe. Funny enough I didn't pick up anything written by Bill Hybels, the Senior Pastor of Willow Creek Church and the leadership "guru" behind the success of the Leadership Summit. I do have a couple of his titles on my bookshelf at home (here or in South Africa - I'm not sure which).

Well I can't tell you all the books I was blessed with at Grace Church and anyway Robin and Debbie filled a good portion of the box with children's books and videos (go Veggietales!) for Mikah our grandson. Thanks again to Grace Church and to Willow Creek Leadership Summit for providing such great material to keep challenging me and growing me.