Who are the best people to reach out to any group of people? Who are the people who will understand them and their culture quickly and correctly? Who will speak their language? Who will stay amongst them without eventually going home?
I grew up in Manchester. As a result of this I find myself easily able to find common ground with people I meet who are also from English cities. But put me in a rural Zambian village and, in all honesty, I'm a bit at sea! I fall at the first hurdle and can't even say hello correctly as I don't speak the right language.
My time travelling around Zambia and Kenya has taught me quite a bit. I have come to underdtand just how little I know about life here in Zambia. I have learnt to see past the typical western view of poverty and how to "solve" it.
I am convinced that those who can make a real and lasting difference in any community are those who live there. When we live alongside people we are ideally placed to reach out to them, to share the good news of Jesus both in word and in action, we are able to be "Jesus" amongst our neighbours.
Using that logic the people best placed to be "missionaries" to rural Zambian villages are in fact Zambian villagers. I believe that God has placed people in communities across rural Zambia to be his people in the very places in which they live. But so few villagers see themselves as God's plan. Many feel as if they have ended up where they are just because their parents happened to live there. They feel forgotten. They spend their lives struggling to make ends meet and hoping that help or aid will come from somewhere else. Their lives follow the pattern of the generations before them. No hope is found.
Amongst these people many go to church. Many say they are Christians and that they believe in Jesus. But, as so many of us do, they limit Jesus by their own experience of life, forgetting that he is an all powerful, sovereign God who is alive and working today.
It is in this situation that Dignity works. We don't profess to have all the answers but we are willing to give ourselves over to helping people in rural African villages see who they are called to be, to understand the purpose God has for them and the work he is placing around them. It's not always easy. Mindsets are engrained, people have habits or addictions that they don't want to give up and turn from, NGOs and outsiders are expected to come with free handouts or money...the list of challenges is long. But we carry on. We teach people what we believe it means to follow Jesus, we teach skills to help people teach others, we provide study materials and Bibles and we challenge people to look to Jesus rather than to money or sources of money.
This way of working is slow. We don't force anyone to do anything, rather we invite people to try something. We know that many people will chose not to do something and they will walk away. But for every 10 people we teach 3 or 4 will go home and do something amazing! They will begin to bring hope to their communtities, hope that can bring relief from poverty in the here and now and hope that can bring eternal life, just as Jesus met peoples physical needs but called them to follow him and have life in all its fullness.
So imagine how encouraging it was last week to meet with 10 people who have all begun to make a difference in their communtities, people who have responded to God calling them to be his children in their villages. We were meeting with potential Impact Team members, area leaders for the work we do across Zambia. Of the 10 people 3 were established Impact Team members and 7 were people who have shown potential and who may become team members. We spent time talking about the practicalities of the work we do, we explored questions around our faith and challenged ourselves to really think through what we believe, we shared our testimonies and we got to know each other more.
So what now? The existing team members have invited the new team members to join them as they visit villages to run training sessions over the next couple of months. They will get an opportunity to try on the role of Impact Team member and see if it fits. We too get a chance to see if they are serious about being involved and are willing to go the extra mile to love God and to love their neighbour. And now we wait. We wait and see what happens. As ever some will step up and do amazing things whilst others will not take up the opportunity. That is okay. Each and everyone of us has to do the work we believe God is calling us to, not the work we think will just please someone else. Hopefully, over the next few months, we will see 3 or 4 people growing in faith and responsibility as they respond to God's call for them and by the end of the year we will see an increase in the number of Impact Team members...Zambian villagers going all out to share Jesus with their fellow country men and women.
