Truck Project

Truck Project
We recently began a “project” here in Kedougou. We bought a truck, hired some employees to use the truck, and turned them loose.

Why? What are the goals of this project?

There are many goals. In no particular order they are:
- To love our neighbors. More specifically to help them find employment. Poverty is really complex and is a result cultural, personal, and spiritual problems. So, rather than give money away, we chose to provide real employment for some people.
- To love our community. More specifically, to provide a service for those that don’t have it. Right now there are not many trucks that work in the area where Jalunga live. This means that many Jalunga have to ride their bicycles up to 20 kilometers to buy a 50kg sack of rice. Then they pedal back home with this load. This takes a good part of a day. The reason trucks do not go to these villages is because there is easier money to be made elsewhere. So we endeavor to go to these hard to reach places to help our neighbors.
- To show that we are here to stay. One problem we face in the Jalunga work is that we are the 8th family to come here to share the gospel with these people. The 7 previous families have all come and gone. Only one man learned the language to the degree to be able to teach. These families stayed an average of 3.5 years in the village. So naturally the Jalunga expect us to be leaving anytime now. This is not healthy for planting a church when the people you are trying to reach think that you will be leaving tomorrow. Especially when the folks that you are trying to reach may be thrown out of their homes and families if they choose to follow Christ.
- To model how Christians do business. The only example that our friends have for doing business is not a healthy one (one of the many reasons that Africa suffers with so much poverty). Already we have had many talks that go like this, “I know that is the way you always do things, but please humor me and try it this way…” As the owner of the business I can do this easily. Otherwise it is very difficult for a Jalunga to venture out and try something totally foreign.
- To fulfill the expectations that the Jalunga have for wealthy Jalunga members of their community. There are 2 options for wealthy Jalunga, of which class I would consider myself to be a part of whether I like it or not. One option is to flee the area and break ties with family and friends so they don’t have access to your wealth. This is the most commonly seen option, but not one we can consider for obvious reasons. Ironically, this is one of the reasons that the Jalunga believe caused the previous missionaries to leave. The second is to stay in the area and put the wealth to work. You are able to stay in the community b/c you are helping others and they are helping you. You are helping them in many different ways – not just employment but it could include that, they are helping you by putting your captial to work for you in a hopefully profitable way. Now typically we Jalunga missionaries have rejected the expectations of the culture and broke with culture in this HUGE area (at least it is huge to the Jalunga – their whole goal in life is to find peace with their surroundings, ie. to get ahead). We said, “We are not here to make life easier for them physically, we are here to help them spiritually.” This physical/ spiritual seperation is totally foreign to the Jalunga. For them, they go to what we would call the “spiritual” to get the physical (eg. sacrifices of many sorts, medicines, etc…). The result is that the Jalunga consider us “outsiders” – even after 30 years, they consider us stingy – b/c we are hoardng money in our US bank accounts and not putting it to use in a way that is helpful to the community.
- To increase the number of people we have contact with, or said another way, to be more a part of the community. Already we have met many people that we otherwise would not meet.
- In all these things we seek to glorify our great God who has given us so much. I believe that through this project we are in a better position to reach the Jalunga with the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ which they so deperately need and disciple them to live as followers of him.


The picture here is of the truck with the driver and some of the loaders.