Little Fires and Fire Extinguishers

When you think about the characteristics needed to be a successful missionary, you might think of things like a love of God, a desire to serve, and an ability to put up with the occasional possum in the kitchen. While those characteristics are necessary, they don’t tell the whole story. To be a successful missionary in a developing country, you need to know when to put out little fires and when to hand someone else a fire extinguisher. (Clever turn of phrase complements of Allen.)

Just this week, a stranger showed up to talk to Allen about a pressing need. The stranger had been to see the county commissioner, and the county commissioner had suggested he see Allen.

The stranger's “little fire” is actually quite significant. He was there because of a serious situation affecting about ten thousand people. There is a water system that feeds into ten communities. The source of water is high in the mountains. The pipe bringing that water down from the mountain crosses a stream and was lying in the stream bed - until a recent storm broke the pipe. While the water line has been patched, it's the rainy season, and another big rainfall can - and likely will - just take it out again. The pipe needs to be elevated out of the stream bed and a small bridge/aqueduct needs to be built to hold it up there.

Allen, Russell, and Trish have been trying to figure out if they can find the time to help with this particular “little fire.” While they don’t really have time to spare, due to other obligations including visiting teams, they aren’t going to leave thousands of people with no reliable source of running water. They are planning to help with a donation of some cable (for the bridge), and by supplying simplified design ideas so the communities can do the work themselves.

Allen said, “There are always fires needing to be put out in a developing country like Honduras. If you’re not careful, you'll spend all of your time dealing with the immediate problems and you will never get around to the larger problems - like helping kids get a better education. Education is a long-term solution! We have to constantly ask ourselves if a particular problem is a fire the community can put out, if we give them a fire extinguisher and an ax to fight it! We’re trying to stay focused on the big picture. We have the constant need to evaluate where we should get involved. In some cases, we can give a little help and then also encourage fire prevention, in the future.”

Trish also pointed out that many of these problem situations would not seem so overwhelming if the community was able to be more on top of things in life. It’s difficult to handle the next little fire when you’re doing all you can just to feed your family and handle the most basic of life’s needs. It's also difficult to come up with solutions to technical problems like this water project issue, when the general level of education in the community is low.

I’m not sure who said this, because Allen and Trish were sort of finishing each other’s sentences at this point, but someone said, “This is the type of problem these communities could potentially resolve for themselves; they shouldn't need to rely on the North Americans for help. Through the long-term efforts to encourage higher levels of education and general health, we’re trying to help these communities get to that place.”

The goal of Sowers4Pastors is to focus on the long-term solutions to problems, and not be constantly sucked into fighting the little fires. Sometimes it's about achieving a balance between what they can do and what the community can do.

 - posted by Christi