There is a growing movement among business professionals as well as missionaries who want to help empower people around them, whether that be at home or abroad. It is often referred to as Business as Mission as a kind of all-encompassing term to refer to using your business as your mission as opposed to separating the two from one another as has often been the practice of church-goers in the past.
My good friend Ryan, who married a woman from Myanmar around 2.5 years ago and now lives in Yangon, Myanmar with her, has started an organization called Opportunities Now! which is devoted to providing educational classes and resources as well as micro loans to individuals who are wanting to start their own businesses. So far, I have been greatly encouraged by all that I have seen, and felt a little out of my league to say the least since my background is in education and I know little to nothing about business. I have taught myself some basics about economics since the crash in '08, but other than that I've always respected business people but never felt like I was really given a business mind or that I could help in any way.
That is all starting to change now. The past couple of days alone I have learned a tremendous amount about what is needed to start a business for young professionals or anyone for that matter. Opportunities Now! focuses on youth aged 17-25 as that is kind of a forgotten population here who aren't really expected to do a whole lot with their lives. I obviously have a long ways to go, but I am very excited as well as eager to continue down this path. As I've said before, I can see myself coming alongside someone else as their right-hand man in a venture such as this, ideally in Haiti is my idea, I'd also really love to be able to teach the classes to the youth as part of the curriculum for their first 6 weeks in the program.
Sometime this week I will be working with a Burmese woman named Sara on developing curriculum for another series of classes that they're trying to start that will be addressing businesses that have been in existence for a few years and are looking for new ways to expand and grow their business. I am super excited about this and can't wait to sink my teeth into this project. She asked me on Monday how much I knew about business, and I informed her I knew nothing. However, I assured her I could ask my dad all the questions that might pop up and he would know most of the answers or could locate them rather quickly if he didn't know them right off the top of his head.
You see, my dad is brilliant in the area of business, having spent his whole career in the field and now leading a mid-size business in the field of agriculture. I grew up knowing one thing, I didn't want to go into the business field. I had seen how much stress it put on my dad; very rarely did he take it out on my mom or us, but I did hear him cuss out some inanimate objects in the garage on a fairly regular basis. At first, I didn't really understand the reasoning behind this, but as I've grown older and dealt with stress on my own coupled with an absolute ineptness in the area of anything requiring a knack for handy man types of skills, I find myself more often than not cussing out inanimate objects myself. Like father like son I suppose. There are certainly worse things though, aren't there? I would much rather take out my stress on things as opposed to other people, although that has admittedly happened before as well, albeit minus the cussing part.
He has also handled stress by a consistent routine of exercising in the mornings. For as long as I can remember, he has ridden an exercise bike and now has added an elliptical as well as weight-lifting to his routine. This is an area where I really struggle with consistency. When I exercise, I generally feel much better physically as well as mentally, it's simply a matter of sticking with it and not falling off the wagon that I struggle with it. Not to rat her out but I'm sure she'd be okay with it, I think my mom has the same struggle I do, at least when compared to my dad but she is also probably more consistent than I am with that being said.
I may not be able to take the helm of a company or organization some day like my friend Ryan or my dad. Who knows, though, maybe that's what God is calling me to and will teach me a deeper level of faith and trust through that process. One thing is for sure, Haiti could definitely benefit from something like this organization here in Myanmar. When my team was in Haiti, we learned that the unemployment rate is around 80%, completely incomprehensible to my mind and I'm guessing most Americans' minds as well. What would be ideal in my opinion for me, would be to take a right-hand man type of position in an organization such as this one. When my other friend, also named Ryan, planted our church 4.5 years ago, I was able to help him out quite a bit and have continued to do so over the past few years when I've been home especially but even sometimes when I've been overseas.
It is my prayer for God to bless my life with meaning doing something in the field of business as mission. I truly believe that economic development and the development of a country therefore begins and is sustained by creating small businesses. That is what gets a country off the ground and running. We must empower locals to create their own work so that they can employ other locals and as a result be able to pay the school fees for their children as well as put food on the table. Part of the problem with material poverty is the mindset that comes along with it. There is little to no time to plan far into the future when you are desperately struggling to put food on the table.
Education and healthcare are vitally important too, but I really believe the first step is starting businesses. That way, you can grow your tax base and start working on infrastructure to help the other areas along as well. As I heard Tony Campolo say once in regards to education, "You know the saying, 'If you feed a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.' I would agree with that but we must go one step further and ask the next question and that is, 'What if there is no pond to fish in?'" This has always stuck with me as a paradigm shift in my thinking as well as many others.
Haiti as well as any developing country is not going to be saved by white men who have savior complexes. First, they are going to be saved by Jesus and the local church as it grows the kingdom of God within their local contexts. Second, it has to be saved by Haitians or whomever the local people of a country might be. They have to take the helm and step up to serve their own countries by starting businesses or schools or whatever else may benefit their local communities.
It is our job, as missionaries to these contexts as well as people who stay at home in the states - who I consider every bit as much of a missionary as those who are overseas by the way - to equip and empower the local church who in turn equip and empower their members to reach and disciple their nation for Christ. This cannot be done simply as a call to fire insurance to save people from hell. We must have a more holistic understanding and sharing of the gospel if we want to truly be effective and have local pastors be effective in their churches and ministries. They, in turn, equip and release their members into the marketplaces to go be love to the people around them, whether that be in the area of business, education, health care, government or whatever other field.
While it is true that change must start from within, it is vital to recognize that it cannot stay there. People often quote Gandhi and someone else whom I can't remember, as saying something along the lines of everyone wants to change the world but no one wants to change themselves. While this is obviously necessary to have an ongoing transformation that is rooted in Christ, it must not stop there. It would be the equivalent of having Bible studies and gathering a bunch of head knowledge without ever applying it to your personal life and in the workplace as well as at home. Jesus as well as many other God-inspired authors of books in the Old and New Testament alike challenge this way of thinking as nothing short of sinfulness. If you see a brother in need and do nothing to meet that need, etc is just one example I can think of off the top of my head.
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