Volunteers-for-Hire

It's a peculiar bit of reality; an irony if ever there was one. Much of our world teaches us to fixate on wealth, that salary is a scorecard for success in life, and yet it's generally taboo to strut around showing off an impressive scorecard.

Yes, at risk of making you a little uncomfortable for a moment, I'm going to talk about money.

There are as many ways of approaching missions and international development work as there are people, but the spectrum can be roughly divided into two approaches, based on whether or not there is a salary involved.

The first approach is arguably the easiest to understand: apply for and receive a job with a salary with a well-funded organization such as one of the many United Nations agencies, World Vision or Opportunity International. Under this approach, you become an employee with a supervisor and clear expectations.

The alternative is to participate on a voluntary basis as part of a smaller organization (often a faith-based group) who are motivated to do good work but cannot afford to pay for that work. Under this approach, you become responsible both for your work assignments and for seeking donors to cover travel and living expenses.

Laura and I have landed in the latter camp, but there's no value judgment between the two -- neither is superior or inferior to the other, both having their benefits and drawbacks.

As we embark on this strange new frontier of volunteering-as-occupation, Laura and I have been making presentations to large groups and small, hosting fundraising events and writing many letters, all with the hope of capturing the imaginations of people who are willing to contribute to missions and development work with their money.

And people have been responding!

In fact, some of the people that we talk to are only too pleased to give money, seeing it as a way to relieve any obligation to actually travel to Africa themselves. It's perhaps the first time in my life that I've heard people express relief to be asked to provide financial support!

So far, about 75 per cent of our estimated budget for the year has been provided: over $30,000 from 100 different families. That's an absolutely amazing testimony of support from a very broad range of people.

And it's a wonderful encouragement from family, friends and some perfect strangers as we set off to tame the wilds of Africa.

We're Going to Mozambique!

It's official! We will be spending a year in Maputo, Mozambique starting in July.

Planning and discussions have been in the works for many months, and now our departure is just two months away.

Just two months until we set our careers on the back-burner, sell our car, rent out our home and move to Maputo to volunteer alongside a Christian church planting organization called OMS International.

We're excited, yes, and a little nervous too. We don't think of ourselves as the overly adventurous sort. Nor overly religious, though we do try to follow wherever God leads.

We're not theologians or fanatics. We're normal. Average. (Doesn't everyone think they're average, or perhaps just a tad above?)

My purpose in Mozambique will be to establish a micro-enterprise development program to help poor people create their own employment opportunities through training and small loans. A seamstress may need money for a sowing machine and some fabric; a chicken farmer may need money for his first chickens and feed. As these businesses make money, and their family’s financial situations improve, the borrowers repay the loans, which are then re-circulated to a new family.

My wife Laura will be teaching at the Christian Academy of Mozambique (CAM). This is a small Christian school of about 50 English speaking students from around the world -- generally children of missionaries, foreign diplomats and business people. The school offers an accredited American education so that the students can go to North American universities, if they so choose.

Laura, who worked in Canada as a biomedical engineer conducting laboratory research, will be teaching math and science courses to high school students.

She'll find out exactly what classes the school's director needs her to teach a couple of days before starting.

* * * * *

This won't be our first time in Africa. Two summers ago, we travelled to Mozambique as part of a team of seven Canadians from St. John United Church in Hamilton, where Laura's dad was then serving as the senior Pastor.

On that occasion, we were in Africa for about two weeks, and in Mozambique a grand total of four days. Maybe five. This coming year will be very different.

We spent much of those days in Khongolote, a suburb of Mozambique's capital city, Maputo, working alongside Mozambican nationals to build a cinder block church building.

We learned through this process that construction in Mozambique is an activity done from scratch: in order to build a wall, we had to start by mixing concrete and casting cinder blocks in a mold, lining them up under the heat of the African sun to dry before setting them in place.

The new church building in Khongolote was a much-needed improvement over the church's previous make-shift home, which was a large canvas tent prone to collapse under heavy wind or rain.

Prior to the tent, the church's first home, shortly after the community was relocated here as a result of severe flooding five years ago, was the shade of a tree on the same site.

Before leaving Maputo two years ago, we caught the smallest of glimpses of life in Mozambique, including:

• shopping in a local open-air market, where price negotiation and high-pressure sales techniques are tested to the limit

• visiting some of the local church sites and a seminary, which is a cramped and sweltering two-room building

• walking on the Indian Ocean beach -- we were advised not to walk barefoot on the beach in Maputo, advice which we took to heart once we saw its state of cleanliness!

• visiting the school where Laura will be spending a large part of her time.

This brief exposure to Maputo is helping us to be a little more excited -- and a little less nervous -- than we would otherwise have been for the coming year.

But we're also keenly aware that our view of Africa won't be the sheltered, romanticized view of constantly upward progress that we acquired on our first visit. We'll be challenged in the year ahead to live on the edge of stress and discomfort. That's where people allow God to do His best work.