Our approach stems from the need to liberate the people of East Africa from an engrained mindset that makes them feel unable to succeed apart from dependence on the West, the “white man” and the colonial systems modeled for them in generations past. These systems have repeatedly dehumanized, devalued and deconstructed the self-image of our family in East Africa.
With a history of forced colonization, both outright (i.e., in history, the British) and unwitting (i.e., today’s short-term missions), East Africans have had their creative, development efforts towards independence, stunted as a people. Thus education and empowerment become crucial elements to our approach. This will likely require years of education to deconstruct such oppressive mindsets that are unhealthy and unproductive. This will require our lives, as people who want to serve them unto empowerment, to be invested.
Such a work will require great commitment, including the greatest resource that any of us could give; ourselves. This is why our team is training rigorously in the ethical principles of the Word of God. In addition, we are also a multidisciplinary group capable of addressing practical issues in East Africa in arenas of development, healthcare and education. Our African family is also engaging in a similar kind of training that will reach its greatest potential when we join them with a more permanent presence in the near future. We will soon transplant our first community of a few families from the U.S. to live in East Africa alongside the families we have been training and working with for the past decade. All families that are a part of our team will be progressively transplanted to the community in East Africa adding workers for this great task.
We will seek to embody the teachings of Jesus, which will prioritize our activity in the day to day.
- Priorities that will empower instead of enable.
- Priorities, which are initially redemptive and subsequently creative.
- Priorities that value the individual and in turn the community.
- Priorities that are non-discriminating and invite all into a partnership with God in the development of human beings who are peacemakers accurately image God.
- Priorities that liberate people from the oppressive systems that surround them, including, unfortunately, the detrimental consequences of foreign aid.
