Mark 12:30-31

Mark 12:30-31 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.

In this text we find Jesus being asked by a teacher of the law what commandment is the most important. Of course we read that God must be first in all aspects of our lives. As we know from personal experience, this is very easy to say but sometimes quite hard to do.

The second thing that Jesus says is to love our neighbors as ourselves. In light of our trip to Africa, I want to expand upon this idea some more.

Just how do we love others as ourselves? When we think of personal relationships, it is easy to come up with ways to value other people but what about the folks on the other side of the world, our neighbors? One of the main ways we accomplish this is through giving money to various organizations and I learned some interesting things while actually seeing the "finished product" if you will.

The first thing to learn is that as Americans, we do not have all of the answers on how to best help other countries. Our ways of doing things might not match up with the local culture. For instance, in Malawi, things just take a long time to get done. All meetings start with very formal introductions, greetings and polite applause. Then you discuss all of the members of your family and how they are doing. Finally you get down to business but few people take notes and eventually you will cover the same topics several times before it actually gets done.

A member of our Presbytery has been working in Malawi for the last year and he relates a story of a worker for an NGO (Non-governmental agency - Example is the Red Cross) he met in the capital city of Malawi. This lady was very excited about the funding they had received to put computers and internet access in every classroom in Malawi. It was quickly evident that this woman had never set foot outside of the capital city. We saw several schools during our trip and there are many obstacles to overcome before the world wide web is available in classrooms in Malawi. First, they need electricity and phone lines which do not exist in most places in this country. Then they need teachers. The one school we were at had 1537 students and 6 teachers. How is a computer going to really make any impact here? Most schools are covered patios so how does one protect the computer from theft and the elements as this is a very dusty place.

As you can see, this group is going to waste a huge amount of money when those very same dollars could go towards meaningful help. The Malawians are not asking for computers. They want teachers. They need irrigation equipment so families can grow their own food.

The Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) program has done some great work in Malawi saving the lives of an estimated quarter of a million children through some very simple programs. Every family is given 5kg of seed corn which should yield a harvest of 15 50kg bags of corn. The family returns one bag (to be stored for the community leaders to hand out in times of need) and can do what they want with the other 14 bags.

This country receives its rain all in three months yet there is lots of water underground. Locals have learned that huge termite mounds mean the presence of a large water source underground. Just dig a large hole near a mound and it will fill with water. Then the PDA supplies low tech foot operated pumps which siphon the water through hoses and will allow a farmer to hand irrigate 3 or 4 acres of farm land even in the driest of times. The weather allows for 2 to 3 harvests per year. This makes much more sense than internet access.

I guess my main point is be careful how you spend your money overseas. Spend some time investigating the tactics and techniques an organization uses. Too often funds are spent unwisely, focused too much on administrative costs or just plain old stolen by those in charge. Some of the most effective tsunami relief done earlier this year was through church to church efforts. Your church partners with a church in an affected area and they see that relief gets to those who need it most.

An interesting side note. When we attended worship at our sister church, the offering was counted in the open during the service and the amount announced to the congregation for accountability purposes. Also, if not enough was given, they have everyone come back up a second time.

Blessings

Mark