what in the world am I doing?!

My brain hurts a lot lately.

I see this as a good thing though, because I am definitely learning a lot this year as I attempt to be a “Program Manager”. What intrigues me lately is the amount of money that countries around the world give in the name of development. Astounding amounts of money.

I say this b/c every single day I am learning more and more about being a development worker. I grew up in Iowa. I am a farm girl and proud of it. My worldview was expanded greatly when I took my very first trip overseas to Honduras as a high schooler.

It hasn’t stopped since.

After college I spent 2 years in West Africa with a mission organization. Another positive. I was not technically in the development area, and definitely not as an implementer. I had the easiest job- photographing what I saw and transfer those stories and feelings to the donors back home.

My job isn’t as easy anymore.

I’m not complaining though, because each day is a new challenge. It is a challenge to manage in a culture that is totally opposite of the one I grew up in. It is a challenge to implement projects in a society that makes nothing easy to accomplish.

What I am learning most, and is giving me some comfort, is the fact that development is not something that is already figured out.

I came into this job thinking that development had its set ways, its step by step processes that I had to follow, in order for true development to happen.

Not so much.

I am learning every day that no one has it figured out.

It’s like the 5^th grader that has a science experiment to do. He knows he has to make the volcano erupt, but doesn’t know how to do it, but that the world would be better off if the volcano would do what it is made to do. There are books that are available that tell of how thousands have tried before him, and each one makes a little change here and there in order for the eruption to happen, everyone having different outcomes. Some may have had an eruption; others may have had some other miraculous occurrence that issues it a success. But no one has it nailed down yet.

That is what development is like. No one has it nailed down. There are millions of dollars coming into NGO’s and other organizations to do this “development thing.” Yet no one knows what works. Each time a new project starts, it is tweaked, hoping and yearning for success and “true” development. Is it worth it? Definitely. Even if a handful of the community members grasp what you are trying to do, and carry it on in their own lives, it is worth it.

What is even better though, is that we offer something more than a lot of NGO’s offer.

We offer Christ.

It’s great that people are learning to read and write. It’s fantastic that they are learning to wash their hands in order to decrease sicknesses. But, are they learning about the One who gave his life for them, the One who holds all creation in His hands?

That is the real, true development we desire to see more than anything.