Mentors Needed in Business & English

Recently I attended The Bridges training, put on by The Crescent Project. The goal of the 6 hour, 6 session workshop was to teach about Islam and prepare the attendees to better understand the culture of the Muslims who currently live here in the United States, our neighbors and co-workers. One of the slides shown during the workshop was a bar graph. On the bar graph, it showed the number of Christian workers as a percentage of the population in various regions of the world. Here in the United States, the Christian worker was huge. In most of the other areas of the world, the Christian worker was barely visible. This is extremely disturbing to me.

As a Christian worker who may have a better or different perspective on this than many, I feel compelled to share my thoughts on this. Two things are givens, and one thing is, in my opinion, the heart of God. First of all, most people who live in the regions of the world where there are very few Christian workers want at least one of these two things if not both. They want to learn or know how to speak English. Secondly, most of them would like to learn or know how to operate a business. Both of these come second nature to many of us who have the benefit of many Christian workers, who live in The United States. English is our first and probably our only language. Secondly, most of us have worked in a business or have been around business. We may not have a master’s degree in business, but we have some knowledge of budgeting and some general understanding. We know that there needs to be a profit—the income must be greater than the expenses, etc.

Just last week, a close friend of mine, accepted an early retirement package. He is still in great health. He has adequate financial resources. Actuarially, he has approximately 25 to 30 more years to live. He is not an anomaly. He is a baby boomer with lots of experience in business. He is a baby boomer with lots to share. He is a prime candidate to help satisfy one or both of these needs so desperately desired and needed in the regions of the world with few Christian workers.

I know, you say, well I have grandchildren here and cannot possibly pull my life up by the roots and move. Yes, that is very possibly your situation.

But, you want to help. You can help. We fully understand the need. We just need to determine how.

Mission Resource Ghana just acquired the title/deed to property in Ghana that we/they have always planned to be for training. It will enable for more Ghanaians to be trained in business. It will also help fulfill the mandate of Mission Resource International, in that it will allow more people to come for visits, create relationships with Ghanaians and be the “link”. The “link” of Mission Resource is human resource, experience as well as financial. So many Ghanaians would love the opportunity to meet Americans, to improve their English in a non-threatening way, and to refine their business skills. Perhaps this would allow you to spend a few weeks/months a year in a context to be a trainer and help create the links to help more Ghanaian/Africans improve in these areas.