Lusekele lost a key staff member about 6 weeks ago. ACDI's production manager took vacation time to visit his children in Kinshasa, received an offer to head up an expanding aquaculture project near the capital, and decided it was a better opportunity. The decision to leave was complicated. Like most church projects, ACDI Lusekele trusts more in God's call and assurance than in high salary, benefits and good working conditions to attract competent and dedicated people. God called Fidèle to Lusekele eleven or twelve years ago; the call imposed sacrifices on his family. They accepted the sacrifices and served faithfully. While the work is more than just a job (it is a vocation), we can't forget that all of us here (including missionaries) depend on our job to put food on the table, send kids to school, and provide some economic security for that time when we are no longer able to work. I believe God's call to a person provides for this. This new job offers Fidèle and Pauline better opportunities; we pray that God will make them a blessing in their new place.
Losing a key person forces us to confront the question: how can a church ministry that requires highly qualified and dedicated people continue to attract new talent? The reflection often centers around benefits we can offer -- the church is usually strapped. An experienced ACDI extension specialist earns less than half of what she would earn for comparable work with a project in the city. In a world where the annual cost of a college education for one child is two-thirds of one's annual salary at ACDI, family considerations can be a powerful incentive to seek a better-paying position. You can see the dilemma for ACDI working on a shoestring budget. Offering a competitive benefit package breaks the budget all to pieces. Limited resources make it difficult to attract people with extraordinary talent. Why would a highly-qualified Congolese agronomist be willing to work in a podunk agricultural station with constantly limited resources just to help traditional semi-subsistence farmers put basic food on the table and send kids to school?
In present circumstances, only God's call will bring incredibly talented and dedicated believers to Lusekele. I think we need to pray for that. Competent people with a heart for serving the Lord and people ministry and assure drive, creativity, competence, effectiveness and stability. At ACDI we can pray that God will provide us with one or two key people who have the freedom to sacrifice in order to serve the rural poor.
But I think we can also pray for two things. First, that God will bring us a flow of dedicated young people who are relatively free to share our ministry for a time. Considering that ACDI is a ministry of the Congolese church, this probably means young Congolese believers. But it might mean young people from another country too. ACDI offers people a real chance to change the world, or at least a small region of it. Poverty and hunger are scourges that can be significantly reduced with applied effort. ACDI offers long experience, patience, diligence and persistence. Most young people will go on to other work, but perhaps a few will settle at Lusekele, called by God for a longer season.
The second thing we can pray for is wisdom about how to provide an adequate support package to experienced specialists who dedicate themselves to the Lord's work here. "Adequate" is relative, for certain; but it is more than what my colleagues earn now. ACDI has four extension specialists and needs a couple of more. Fifteen years of experience, a breadth of technical knowledge and 50-60 hours per week teaching and encouraging farmers to discover God's wisdom for farming are worth more than a $1800 per year. This would be nothing for a competent state government or even a moderately successful agribusiness to raise. But the Congolese state does not serve its people and agribusiness offers no jobs. For the time being, Christians stand in the breach alone. We need the Lord's wisdom to know how to support them. It might be building profitable agribusiness enterprises that provide extension services for subsistence farmers on the side. It might be raising more money from tithes and offerings to allow a few people to dedicate themselves to this ministry.
I don't know what the answer is. But I am certain that the Lord wants to end hunger in rural Bandundu. I am certain that Christian agronomists sharing with their neighbors about God's way of farming is a witness where no one else is offering solutions. And I am certain that the answer will be a mix of God motivating talented individuals and individual Christians mobilizing the resources to support them. Lord show us how to change this world.
