My Africa Story

(This is a reprint of an article I wrote for EI UK in 2009)


“Where your treasure is, there your heart will lie also”

Five years ago, I began to live. No one who met that 26 year old banker would have ever guessed that I would be called to serve the people of Africa, least of all me. I was settled into life in busy downtown Toronto, making good money as a banker on Bay Street. But I knew something was missing. As I sit here in Malawi, vacationing in my second home, I think back on a story that could only be written by Someone other than myself.

It all started with a phone call, and the words “How would you like to come to India?” I had just quit my job as a commercial banker, unsure of the next step but knowing that I wanted to find a job that gave me more than just a pay cheque. Two days later, I held my first passport and prepared for my first international flight. I didn’t know it then, but those three weeks in Calcutta, serving the poorest of the poor, were the start of a journey that is still beyond my comprehension.

A year later, another call informed me of the need for a Finance Director in Malawi for Emmanuel International. Unlike many of my colleagues, I did not have a lifelong desire to work in Africa. In fact, the idea never occurred to me before. So, I stepped out in faith, and trusted I was being led somewhere. And that somewhere was a land that I have now grown to love deeply. Someone recently asked me why I love Malawi so much. First of all, it is a beautiful country, full of stunning beauty and lovely people. The pace of life is relaxed. There is a simplistic beauty to things. It truly is the warm heart of Africa, and my heart is warmed every time I get a chance to visit again the place I called home for a year and a half.

One of my first memories of Malawi was a field visit to one of our water projects. We were helping communities by rehabilitating wells that had been installed by the government, but had been neglected. We were teaching the community how to maintain the well. I remember thinking that this was great, but if the people that we taught all died of AIDS and starvation, it wouldn’t be sustainable. This was my first lesson in the complexities of attempting sustainable development. There were many more to come in the year and a half I spent there, more than I can relate here.

After a year and a half in Malawi, I found my next calling in the form of Finance Director for FAR in Sudan. As many of you know, FAR (Fellowship for African Relief) was started almost 25 years ago with a partnership between EI and SIM as a response to the growing needs of the people of Sudan.

In north Sudan, the problems are very different from what I was used to in Malawi. Whereas in Malawi, the main problem was extreme poverty due to lack of resources (and for many years, lack of rain), the problems in North Sudan (from my limited perspective) seem much more related to the effects of generations of conflict. We are trying to help people rebuild lives, communities and families, and sometimes just to survive, all in the midst of a country that ranges from areas of tenuous peace to areas that are still involved in full scale conflict.

I find myself overwhelmed by the issues that surround me. All I can do is take refuge in prayer. I search hard for God in the midst of so much pain and suffering, and more than once I find it easy to relate to the disciples who wanted a conquering hero and not a suffering servant.

Working in relief and development can be very challenging and humbling. I must constantly remind myself that I am here to learn as much as I am here to teach. It is the most difficult yet most rewarding work that I have ever done. Somehow I get the feeling that this is how it is supposed to be when we choose to follow Him and do His work. As Paul says “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”