Hopefully you had a great Staff Conference - I did. I was particularly challenged by Eric's messages, and we have been talking about much of what he said, looking for different ways to apply his principles. Pat McLeod and team have been working on a new kind of International Project and I wanted to post the proposal they have submitted here. Though there is still much to work through it is an excellent example of bringing feet to what we were exposed to at the Conference.


Project Overview

We would like to take a pioneering trip this Christmas (3 interns 6 students) and another this summer (~12 students, 4 staff, 4 staff kids and 2 interns). We are calling this summer project “Good News/Good Deeds South African Summer Project”

We will also be partnering with a mission agency called African Enterprise (AE) in Pretoria (AE works directly with indigenous evangelists, orphanages, medical clinics, impoverished communities, and prisoners). They have agreed to arrange our lodging, in-county transportation and service projects. One of AE’s staff members, Dana Mahan, graduated from Harvard Divinity School and worked for two years as an hourly operations leader for our Metro ministry and administrative assistant for me as a Harvard chaplain and Metro director. We have a great working relationship and friendship. He is an organizational guru, understands CCC and understands South Africa—he is married to a South African woman and lives in Pretoria.

Background of the Project

For four years God has been giving our family, several of our Boston staff and Harvard and MIT students a burden for Africa—particularly the portions of Africa that have been devastated by the AIDS epidemic. We have also been exploring more holistic approaches to evangelism that brings Good Words and Good Deeds together.

We have always marveled, since the day we first arrived in Boston, at the way in which God has made this city a magnet for some of the world’s brightest minds (students and professors). Boston, with its ¼ million college students, 43 colleges (including five of the nations top 40 Universities), has become a hub of astounding intellectual, technological, and economic resources. As a result, we have become more and more comfortable these past seven years with “feeling stupid” here in Boston. But, at the same time, we have become more and more uncomfortable with a growing trend that we have observed. We have witnessed nearly all of our graduates going from this hub to even greater hubs of skill, knowledge, power, and affluence—e.g., to graduate school, Wall Street, Washington DC, Silicon Valley, etc..

Now certainly this is one of our hopes—that the students we send will go on to lead the world and reach the world for Christ from within the strategic positions of leadership and influence God places them. But, in as much as these hubs simply maintain the status quo and represent being just one more step removed from the most needy, under-resourced, unreached, under-developed, impoverished hubs of the world, something needs to be done.

Project/Partnership Objectives

In the face of this unsettling reality we intend by the grace of God to forge a dynamic partnership that will upset this disconcerting trend by linking the enormous material, economic, intellectual and technological resources and reserves of Boston (especially Harvard & MIT) with one of the most impoverished, undeveloped, under-resourced and marginalized parts of the world (by which I mean not just the impoverished sections of South Africa but some of the central African countries in which African enterprise operates).

Objectives of this project include: 1) redirecting some of the talent, skills and resources of our graduates and these universities toward some of the most needy and least reached parts of the world, 2) transferring technology and skills to nationals so that they can empower others, 3) enlarging the radius of students that we can recruit to go on a summer mission projects—e.g., Harvard and MIT students that will not consider a mission project that involves just doing evangelism and discipleship, but one that will enable them to use their training in engineering, medicine or economics, 4) strengthening our partnership with MIT & Harvard (MIT is helping to fund each student that will be going over winter break), 5) sharing the gospel daily with words and deeds, 6) giving these student leaders a life changing experience that will forever alter the way they live their lives, share their faith, relate to others, employ their talents, and spend their money.

Specific Proposal

We would be delighted to help out in any way with what our national Impact staff are doing in and around Pretoria. For example, if the Impact ministry would welcome it, we would love to be able to do evangelism at least once a week on one of the campuses in and around Pretoria or Johannesburg. Let us know if this is something that you would like for us to do or if there is some other way that you can make use of our team.

If you would rather that we just work with AE and stay off the campuses we are fine with that, but we want to make ourselves available in whatever we can make work for you.

Sincerely,

Pat McLeod
Boston Metro Real Life Director