Faith and Beauty in the Dirt

My recent trip to Africa reminded me of two things about mission that we can learn from in the West. The first is naturally living out principles of Incarnational Mission, the second is the powerful effects of visionary social entrepreneurs.

'God made his dwelling among us' is read by ourselves each Christmas, and seen played out in the life of Jesus as he did his mission among the people, in their locations and contexts. We know it in the textbooks in the West. But in Africa they get on with it (perhaps without even knowing the term 'Incarnational Mission'!) because it is the natural thing to do - working amongst the people in their locality and context.

The projects we visited typically had a centre where people they were helping would be (by necessity of their condition) resident for a while, but that plus any outreach work in the city was the mission focus rather than a traditional church building or any kind of 'worship centre'. Instead the physical centre of worship was in the centre of their work!

Whereas we might start with a church building and then (perhaps) ask 'where might we go out from here', they instinctively go to people in need and then, if necessary, ask what physical facilities might be necessary to further this work.

The development of the projects and the facilities almost always seems to come about because there is a visionary figure who is crucial to the project. The person proves to be a social entrepreneur, willing to take risks, to enter in partnerships, to do ministry deals and so forth to overcome challenges and see genuine development. These are long term operations - one lady had been working at it for the best part of 30 years. The facilities she had were by Western standards pitiful, but in the dirt was a care for children not easily found elsewhere in that country.

Everyone who visits Africa knows that there is dust and bare dirt just about everywhere - the ground around a project building is probably yet another 'patch of dirt' ... but because these social entrepreneurs stick to their God given vision, and persist with a deep Christ rooted faith to work among the people they serve, we find that in the dirt there is not just faith but also beauty.