About the Work.

Sometimes it is easy to forget that God has actually called us to Mozambique to do real work. I know that many of the posts have been about our daily life here and about the interactions we have with the people and places of Mozambique. So today I thought that I would share with you what we are doing with the "WORK".

I have spent the last several months working with two other guys, Tinashe and Steve, to put a framework together for the Agriculture and Trade program of World Relief, we are calling this new program AfricaWorks. This new effort within WR seeks to provide economic opportunity to the poorest people in the country and focusses on a triple bottom line that is spiritual, social and economic.
We have put a structure together that focusses on 3 main areas of assistance:
1. Development Programs that literally teach people who have zero skills (85% illiteracy in the country) how to do basic farming, raise chickens, buy and sell small products to provide for their basic each month.
2. Agri-Business which deals with more established opportunities in Mozambique. Here we focus on integration within a current opportunity and try to provide technical assistance, training and help a community or an individual create links with private sector opportunities to lend sustainabilty for their work. An example of this work is helping to establish a feed depot in a central community to provide food ration for chickens and to store maize, flour and other neccesity items that can then be distributed to the wider range community at a lower cost.
3. Small to Medium Investment (SME) this is the work that I thought I was coming to focus on only, (God has His plans, we have ours) this part of the model seeks out larger opportunities that need financial funding who will in turn use the new funds to create financial empowering opportunities in rural communities in Mozambique. An example of this type of work would be the chicken hatchery in Nampula that many of you have already heard about.

I also will send any of you who want it, our 2007 (which really is also for the rest of 2006) ministry plan. We have planned for 10 projects to be engaged in, that we are hoping to implement throughout the country and over the next 18 months and in total will create over 2000 new economic opportunities for the poorest of the poor. All of these projects have sustainability built in to them and the funds that we are raising will be re-used in the future to create more opportunities. Our total budget needed to complete the projects is $360,000 USD, $40,000 of which God has already raised. I share this with all of so that you can be part of this with us in thought and prayer, but if anyone feels that they would like to join in this work by financially giving to these projects we can talk about that separately.

I hope that this helps to give you a snapshot of the "WORK" and an opportunity to pray more specifically for what we are doing here.

We continue to lift you all up in prayer and trust that God is continuing to keep you well. We miss you all so much and cannot wait until we can see you again. God Bless!