First Impressions

We arrived in Mozambique yesterday afternoon after a relatively uneventful flight (South African Airways is the most service-minded airline we have ever used, almost to a fault: they served us 5 meals in the 19 hours we were with them!). Quite simply, we made it. And so did our baggage.

So what are our first impressions so far? We are having a great time, and have appreciated the warm welcome that we have received. Despite having been here before, some things are still surprising:

• Our hosts warned us that the water pressure in the shower was low. I had the first shower and, upon finishing, warned Laura to cut her already-low expectations in half. She was still surprised at the trickle that came out.

• Another interesting water fact: the city treats the water to some potable level at the plant, but because the pipes are so old and leaky, we can’t drink it from the tap. Apparently, some pipes in the city are still made of hollowed logs. To stop leakage, the city only supplies water in the mornings (so some people keep a reservoir on top of their house).

• We learned that there is no garbage collection. Instead, there are dumpsters out on the streets, which get emptied on occasion, but are often overflowing with trash (the garbage dumpster featured in the photo will be ours to use). Despite garbage being everywhere, our hosts know someone who was recently sent to jail for putting garbage in the dumpster outside of the appointed hours. We’ll have to be sure to find out what those hours are.

• There’s no mail delivery, either (there is a post office box – but we have been warned that anything of value should be shipped to an address in South Africa for us to pick up).

• In Canada, we had an alarm system on our house. In Mozambique, labour is so inexpensive that people have guards that stand out front instead. (Similarly, hiring a maid to clean your house would cost around $4 per day.)

• The exchange rate is very low. Until recently, we could exchange one Canadian dollar for 25,000 meticais. They just removed three decimals from their currency, so it is now 25 meticais to the dollar, but they are still using all of the old currency for now, so our wallets are full of 100,000 Mts bills. (Earlier this evening, I gave 1,500 Mts as offering to a local church… and only later realized that I had given about 6 cents.)

We’ll be staying with a family of four in their home for the next week or two (a lovely, comfortable home – but more about that later), then moving in with another couple before getting our own apartment on September 1. We’re glad to have such gracious hosts helping us navigate this new culture. Tomorrow morning’s adventure will be going to the government offices to apply for a resident visa so that we can stay longer than 30 days – and, perhaps more importantly, so that we can leave without risk of not being let back in the country. It’s all made more challenging since we can’t speak the language.

The "M" Word

Laura and I debated using the word “missionary” in our blog (as we did in the last entry). It’s the word that OMS International uses to describe the work that we’re doing, Laura reasoned. True, but it’s also a loaded word that has been misused in the past and is politically charged in the present – particularly in the United States, where we’ve been staying these past few weeks.

It’s difficult to be a Christian in a world that is too often dominated by conflict framed as “holy wars” between Christian and Muslim: the principle actors in these conflicts give both Christianity and Islam a bad name.

We’ve been at OMS headquarters for new recruit training where most people, unlike ourselves, are preparing to be “career missionaries.” So who are these people? What exactly is a Christian missionary? Glad you asked.

There are about 18 people here, including:

• A grandfather, who is going to Japan to serve as a maintenance worker for the missionaries in Japan. His wife is going to serve as the treasurer for the office.

• A single girl with a communications degree, who is going to write promotional material for a Christian radio station in Haiti.

• A young man with a gift for photography, who will travel the world to document the field work that OMS is doing.

• Laura will be teaching math and science to classes of high school kids in Mozambique.

• I’m going to be creating a micro-enterprise development program to help the poor feed themselves.

The word “missionary” is used to describe all of this work because these people are motivated by their Christian faith to help others around the world. Christian scriptures quote Jesus as saying, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

The attrition rate for new full-time missionaries is very high: we’ve been told that up to 40% don’t finish their first term. Some quit because of an emergency back home, an emerging health issue, or because of a lack of funding. The most frequent reason for which missionaries quit is because they couldn’t get along with the other missionaries in the field. Missionaries’ stress levels tend to be high as a result of working in a culture that is not their own, often in a language they don’t know well, all without the close support of family and friends.

Even though we’re not full-time missionaries, OMS asked us to attend a series of training workshops that they have created to better equip us for working in the missionary team where we’ll be going – that’s what we’re doing in Greenwood, Indiana. The first week was spent on a workshop called “Sharpening Your Interpersonal Skills,” which focused on refining confrontation, conflict management, stress management, and communication skills. The second week focused on issues pertinent to cross-cultural integration: health requirements, language training, and an exploration of the characteristics of different cultures.

We have gotten to know each of the other 16 participants. Most are American, with the exception of a fellow from Northern Ireland and his Brazilian wife (going to Brazil), a Belgian (going to Spain), and us Canadians. Roughly half the group is in their 20s, and the rest range in age from 30s to late 50s (two couples are proud grandparents with photos in tow). We’ve become good friends with another young couple in particular who will be teaching English and American culture at a university in Asia for the coming year.

* * * * *

The week that we travel to Mozambique has finally arrived. Our journey begins Friday morning (July 28), with the plane’s wheels lifting ground at 6:00am. We will reach our final destination – Maputo, Mozambique – at 7:55am (Ontario time) on the following day. After 26 hours in transit, we’ll most likely need a nap.

It's Cool to Collect These!

When I was ten, all the kids around me spent their paper route money on hockey cards. It was cool to have them, and cool to trade them. The rookie cards were especially valuable.

It turns out that the cool things to collect among the missionary crowd are “prayer cards.”  These are 4” x 6” postcards with a portrait, name and where they’re going, in order that the folks back home remember them while they’re gone.  The coolest one we’ve seen was even made into a large magnet to ensure prominent placement on the kitchen fridge.  

People have been handing these cards out like candy around here – everyone, that is, except us.  We had no idea that this was a requirement for entry into the “in” crowd.  

We solved that problem over the weekend with a little bit of Photoshop magic.  We’re pleased to announce that we now have our own cards.  We’ll present them to fellow missionaries this morning and, with a little luck, they’ll accept us into the fold.

(It bears noting that when we brought our cards into the photo lab at Wal-Mart to get them printed, the clerk mistook them as being professionally created, and questioned our right to make copies.  Sounds like a vote of confidence in our budding graphic design skills to me!)

An Organization of Professional Volunteers

We have been spending the past couple of weeks in Greenwood, Indiana, at the “world headquarters” of OMS International. On Tuesday, Laura and I were invited to president David Long’s house for dinner, so I took the opportunity to sharpen my understanding of the unique challenges faced by this organization.

OMS considers itself a “faith-based” organization. What they mean in plain language is that nobody draws a salary from the organization (imagine the low overhead costs!). Each employee – of which there are over 200 in several dozen countries around the world, plus another perhaps 30 or 40 at headquarters – is responsible for raising his or her own salary through donations. This applies to everyone from the president to the mailroom clerks.

Imagine your employer approaching you and asking that, in addition to all of your job responsibilities, you are also required to knock on doors asking people to donate your salary year in and year out.

I asked Mr Long how he motivates and directs employees, given that their paycheques don’t come from their employer. He told me that he and his board of directors must treat the organization’s employees as if they were volunteers.

Imagine the dilemma that Mr Long would face if he were required to dismiss an employee for underperformance, since recruiting replacements is so challenging: an employee performing half his duties is better than the position sitting vacant for the months or years required to recruit someone willing to fundraise their own salary.

An Employee’s Perspective

The night after our visit with Mr Long, we were invited to dinner with an employee, so I asked him his thoughts about needing to raise his own money.

He understood why I was questioning the strategy, but didn’t mind it himself. He came to the organization with a sales background -– he was formerly a sales executive with IBM -– so he was used to asking people for money (and used to being rejected).

A member of the Canadian board of directors likened the mentality of the employee to an investment broker: donors will purchase “shares” in the employee, who is in turn responsible for “investing” the donors’ money in the development of people’s lives overseas. In that sense, the organization’s accountability to donors is more direct than in an organization that fundraises centrally.

Most employees accept this as a way of life; as we have discovered, it is not uncommon for people to spend their entire career with OMS International. On the other hand, Laura and I know of one person who recently resigned because he was unable to find enough people to contribute towards his living expenses year in and year out.

At first glance, it would seem that such an organization would be forced to take whatever recruits walked in the door, and to some extent that’s true – but only highly-motivated people want a job so much that they are willing to fundraise their own salary.

...but does it work?

When I examine organizations, I do so with an eye towards determining what I would do if I were in charge. I draw easy parallels between OMS and World Vision: the latter being a Christian organization with remarkably similar roots, but which has grown to be a US$1.5 billion organization with over 22,000 employees worldwide, thanks in part to its strategy of central fundraising.

There are certainly both benefits and costs to OMS International’s unique approach to fundraising. For me, the jury is still out on this one.

* * * * *

The kind folks at OMS have put us up in an apartment shown in the photo to the left. It's more than adequate for our needs -- and is a short walk to the main headquarters building where we've been having our training (more on that in the next posting).

The only issue that we've needed to work around is Internet access. Since the only access is in the main headquarters building, which is locked off-hours, we had trouble accessing it for the first couple of days. We've resolved that problem by purchasing a cheap wireless card for our laptop. Now we can access the Internet whenever we want -- by sitting on the sidewalk behind the headquarters building, where I am right now. Good thing it's summer.

Baptist Church in Indianapolis

This morning, Laura and I decided that we would attend a Missionary Baptist church – we didn’t (and still don’t) know anything about that particular denomination, except that its adherents are predominantly African American. Visiting them seemed like good training for our immersion into Mozambique.

Our first option was Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church: 2349-51 Keystone Ave, Indianapolis. It took us about 30 minutes to get to approximately the right area of town, and another 30 minutes to realize that we couldn’t find this mystery church.

Those last 30 minutes of driving around opened our eyes to a lot of poverty in the United States – especially in the neighbourhoods where African American churches are located. Either we don’t know the same breadth and depth of poverty in Canada or, at least, it’s more hidden in high rise complexes of public housing.

Our second option was Greater Prince of Peace Missionary Baptist Church: 1962 Columbia Ave., Indianapolis. It was a bit easier to find – we found it about 20 minutes away from the neighbourhood where Mount Moriah wasn’t, though the two neighbourhoods were similar: very narrow paved streets without curbs; old and poorly-maintained housing with wood siding, often unpainted. Broken windows were commonplace.

We arrived five minutes after the time posted on the wooden sign on the lawn, but were still the third and fourth people to arrive. We were greeted warmly at the door by some folks assigned to do so, and again inside by “Sister Johnson”, a lovely lady with a 17-month old little girl in tow. The leaders had us singing before the pianist arrived, and reading scripture before the preacher arrived. By 30 minutes into the service, most people had walked through the door: perhaps 40 in all; all were African American.

We would have liked to take a picture inside the tiny church, but were sensitive to the worshippers whose lives we were entering: we wanted to be received as participants, not as tourists visiting a museum display.

The choir was very “Baptist” in its passion – loud and enthusiastic – though the tuning wasn’t perfect and the first soloist sharp and nasally. The last time we heard singing like that was at the Khongolote church outside of Maputo, Mozambique! It’s fascinating to see African culture in the United States – realizing that these aren’t the sons and daughters of immigrants, but of people kidnapped out of their villages for the slave trade. Some may have come from Mozambique, though my impression is that the descendants of slaves don’t typically know from what country or tribe they have come.

The congregation was much more reserved than the choir. A few people clapped; some called out in response to the preacher or choir. Most sat relatively still and listened.

The preacher’s message, though it lasted 30 minutes, was a simple, one-point thesis using heart language. He spoke of “expecting the unexpected”, and talked about how everyone has fallen on hard times at one time or another – like having the electricity cut off, or receiving an eviction notice. He said that those of us who haven’t just need to keep living, and we will. Everybody said amen.

Despite the readily-apparent poverty of the congregation, an offering was collected three times: once for “mission” (probably inner-city work), once for the general fund and a building fund, and a third time as a gift to the preacher. The men were also reminded of their $10 per month “obligation”, and the entire congregation was reminded several times of the $25 “requirement” for the Pastor’s anniversary fund. Their poverty certainly didn’t restrain their sense of generosity or duty to the work of God.

The church finally let out at 1:35pm – two and a half hours after its scheduled starting time. The congregants had to rush home for lunch: evening worship was scheduled to start at 3:30pm.

RENTED!!

We found out this morning that our townhouse in Mississauga has been rented! God has answered our prayers! (Doin' a little celebratory dance here..)

The Scars Must Be Deep

Yesterday, a group of Kashmir terrorists detonated 8 bombs on the public transit system in Mumbai, India, killing over 200 people.

This morning, Israel stepped up its offensive against its neighbours by attacking Lebanon in response to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers.

Earlier in the week, Japan was rumoured to be considering “pre-emptive strikes” against military targets in North Korea in response to the latter’s missile testing program.

The world is a violent place.

I’m too young to remember whether or not Mozambique’s 30 years of war – which ended in 1992 – ever attracted the sort of international attention paid to some of the more infamous conflicts of the past half-century. It was certainly violent enough to warrant such attention: according to a report by the UN, 900,000 Mozambicans were killed, 3,000,000 were driven from their homes, and a further 8,000,000 faced starvation or severe food shortages – not throughout the 30-year period of conflict, but just during the 8-year period prior to the release of their report.

There was nothing ordinary about the conflict. A US official once described the warfare as “one of the most brutal holocausts against ordinary human beings since World War Two.”

Perhaps the world has attention deficit disorder, only able to focus on a few conflicts at a time. Dare I suggest that Mozambique, being a poor African country with a communist government and without oil resources attracts little attention in the western media? Or maybe – hopefully – I’m too young to recollect the attention that was garnered.

Either way, no war is just another war, and no death is just another death. The tragic reality is that, like in Rwanda, neighbour killed neighbour. Mozambique may be several years ahead of Rwanda with respect to reconciliation, but the scars must be deep, and may still be raw.

I wonder what, if any, evidence of these old wounds we’ll witness when we finally arrive in Mozambique?

For An Eye, Only An Eye

Many nations appear to subscribe to the seemingly retaliatory philosophy described in the Old Testament: “eye for eye; tooth for tooth.” In a discussion about the potential for retaliatory action to the public transit bombings in India, a colleague named Eddy suggested to me that the oft-used quotation was not originally intended to justify retaliatory behaviour, but rather was intended to prevent excessive retaliation, instead limiting it to an equal, non-escalating response – i.e., for an eye, only an eye. Personally, I subscribe to a different standard: I don’t believe that a problem has ever been resolved with violence. But given the alternative, I like Eddy’s insight.

Culture Shock: Part I

Laura and I woke up on Sunday morning early enough to wake the roosters – 3:20am. Laura’s dad drove us to the airport in time to catch a 6:20am flight to Indianapolis, where we’ll spend our first couple of weeks participating in a cross-cultural training workshop at OMS International’s headquarters.

We had naively assumed that we would have a couple of weeks' reprieve before having to stare down a foreign culture. That was before lunch.

We were in the Dulles airport, Washington DC for lunch on Sunday. We ordered our favourite sandwich at the Subway fast-food restaurant: a 12-inch chipotle southwest steak and cheese. We like to order one big sandwich and split it.

As Subway's “sandwich artists” were busy preparing our subs, I commented to Laura on the dual wonders of globalization and standardization: here we were, standing in a foreign country, ordering a familiar sandwich that was being prepared by hands trained with a common set of standard operating procedures. Our sandwich would taste exactly like it would were we in Canada. Or so I thought.

“What kind of sauce would you like, Ma'am?” the Artist asked, as he was trained.

“Chipotle sauce,” Laura replied, and – wait for it – “and some sub sauce, too.”

Sub sauce. The staple sauce that is put on virtually all subs in Canada. So ubiquitous that the mysterious liquid is called just that. Sub sauce.

The Artist stopped and stared, and his colleagues followed his lead. I felt as though we had uttered some verboten phrase – like French Fries after 9/11. Apparently the United States isn’t familiar with sub sauce.

They had no idea.

Of the selections that they offered, we opted for some oil and vinegar, but it just wasn’t the same.

We’re only in the United States, and already we’ve taken baby steps away from familiarity. But culture shock is bound to get worse than this.

Displaced

The first step towards entering a new culture is taking one step out of the present one.

In anticipation of having our townhouse rented for July 1st (which hasn't happened yet), we've packed up our belongings and put them in storage in Laura's parents' basement. Packing up and storing one's belongings is a major undertaking -- and one that sobers us to the reality of just how much stuff can accumulate over time. Anyone who has moved recently can empathize with us, I'm sure.

Of course, we aren't complaining. In Mozambique, as in many parts of the world, people would welcome our problem of having sore muscles because of having to haul so many belongings. Instead, their problems are much more fundamental.

Many don't worry about whether or not their stainless steel bread basket matches the decorative theme of the kitchen. Many are too busy worrying about where to get the bread to stick in the basket.

Renting our townhouse is a critical step in our journey: since we have now both left our jobs, we are not receiving any income, but strangely enough the bank is still insisting that we continue with our mortgage payments every month.

Our empty house is a good reminder that our journey is about to begin; the fact that it's not rented yet a reminder that the road ahead will not always be smooth.

We're now homeless, and will be for the next two months -- until we finally get to move into our apartment in Maputo on September 1st. In the meantime, we'll be moving around quite a lot:

• First, we're staying at Laura's parents' house until we leave Canada on July 9;

• Then we'll be staying for two and a half weeks in Greenwood, Indiana at OMS International's headquarters participating in a cross-cultural training seminar;

• From there, we'll fly to Maputo and think that we're staying with Larry and Susan Weil for a little over a month until our apartment is available.
  

All the while, we're living out of suitcases. Already we can't find some of the things we need. I know I packed that somewhere...

What a relief it will be in September when we have a home of our own, and can unpack these bags!

Further Reading:

Our friend Dave recently sent us a link to a website at which you can enter your salary and receive an estimate of your global wealth ranking.