Sustainability

This short article is something I wrote and posted on our ministry website: www.overlandmissions.com. If you haven't checked it out, you should! There's tons of blogs and articles posted weekly by Overland missionaries on the field, and the website gives great information about the ministry in general. Let me know what you think!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As missionaries, we talk a lot about sustainability. In fact, we talk about it so much that it occasionally seems an elusive concept. What does it mean? How do we get it? To what extent do we expect it to function?

The definition of sustainability is simply this: Having the capacity to endure.

As Christians, we talk a lot about endurance. Running the good race. Enduring to the end. Fighting the good fight of faith. Enduring to see the finish. We know that we have to position ourselves before the Lord and before the Body of Christ in a way that ensures that twenty years from now we will still be declaring our faith with unabashed abandon.

At Overland, we know that we must position our ministry in the same way. The projects launched today should be positioned so that they can endure, thereby truly making a difference for the people they serve.

Sustainability could also be defined as development. Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (www.sustainabilitydictionary.com).

The LIFE Project wants to meet needs in the village. But we want to do it in a way that empowers the future generations to continue the work instead of binding them to a system. Sustainability is why we use recycled objects as toys and supplies for our schools. It’s why we ask for donations for consumable supplies. It’s why we require a small tuition from every child attending the preschools. Sustainability is why we are praying for an individual/church sponsor for every village. A small contribution toward each school on a monthly basis would allow the village schools to continue towards sustainability, and towards education, for years to come.


On a totally unrelated note, this is the "lunar rainbow" at Victoria Falls. It happens once a month during a full moon, at which time you can see a rainbow in the dark at Victoria Falls. Beautiful!