Written by Kylie Akins
The crowd at Midnight Oil Sept. 4 stood at the crossroads of two teams. The first is stepping down from a leadership role to transition into a helper after six years of serving a community in Mozambique. The other is preparing for a 10-year covenant of teaching and developing a village in Tanzania. Each will leave for Africa with different levels of experience, but both go with the idea of developing the family groups that make up the communities in Lichinga, Mozambique, and Mtwara, Tanzania.Midnight Oil hosted the fundraiser for one of Kibo’s many partners, Malo Ga Kujilana , a nonprofit community resource center for the Mozambican village of Nomba, near the provincial capital city of Niassa, Lichinga. MGK provides the community of 4,000 with agricultural and health resources and education to empower the native people, called the Yao, and create a sense of community among war-torn people. Representing the American families and the numerous Mozambican locals who manage MGK were Harding alumnus Rusty Caldwell and northern Mozambican native Lucky Rashid.”Our vision was always to try to empower people and utilize the resources they have available to them, whether it be agricultural, social, physical or spiritual resources,” Caldwell said. “Our neighbors began calling our home ‘Malo Ga Kujilana,’ which means ‘the place of reconciliation,’ because people were seeing the brokenness that was existing around them and Lucky’s and our hearts were trying to fix the brokenness in some way.”In 2009, MGK began a microloan program that provided locals with the ability to borrow capital in a sparse economy to be paid back with minimum interest. The microloans, often no more than $100, go toward the community members’ homes, education and small businesses. On his first trip to the U.S., Rashid is traveling with Caldwell to announce the group’s decision to give control of the program over to the Mozambicans.”Lucky is going around saying thanks for the help, it’s been great, but now it’s theirs [the Mozambicans’],” Caldwell said. “It’s a celebration.”Currently, the team is visiting the U.S. with the goal of raising $10,000, of which they have raised $2,000 so far, to give to the microloan program before they cut U.S. financial ties.”It is important because it is going to help people improve and change their lives,” Rashid said.Rashid will continue as the MGK’s community development leader and general manager for the community resource center as the missionaries fall into an advisory role. Rashid said he hopes, as a dedicated Christian, to serve the Folk Muslim community’s social, fiscal and spiritual needs, and he said he especially desires to empower the youth with education and support.”It is my prayer that as students of Harding, I wish that we could be in their prayers and if possible, have their support as youth,” Rashid said. “I would love that.”The event at Midnight Oil served as a dual event as it also marked the three-week countdown to the Makonde Team’s departure to Mtwara, Tanzania. The team includes Kibo board member and Harding Dean of the College of Bible and Religion Dr. Monte Cox’s daughter, Sarah, and son-in-law, Andrew Fraser; Ross and Heather Kellis; Travis and Lauren Trull; and Caleb and Kristina Meeks.On Sept. 25, the team will embark on a pioneer, long-term mission trip to what Ross calls an “unreached” region in southern Tanzania. The group, which includes two nurses, will dedicate at least 10 years to studying the Makonde culture, developing the local agriculture and health, and relating the Gospel to the family groups of the community.”Broadly speaking, our purpose is to see the kingdom of God spread among the Makonde,” Ross said. “We want to use our resources to engage the community and become a blessing to people, become necessary so that we can find God-seekers.”Downtown Church of Christ will host a send-off for the team on Sunday, Sept. 12, in the Benson Auditorium at 9 a.m., and all are welcome to attend.
