The Reverend Charles (“Ted”) and Susan Wright—regional liaisons for the Presbyterian Church (USA) in south central Africa—will cheerfully testify that being a missionary is not what it used to be.

Both Ted and Sue were raised in congregations that celebrated foreign missions. As children they imagined what it might be like to be missionaries. Sue recalls: “In Vacation Bible School they loved telling stories about China Inland Mission and what the missionaries did. I said, ‘Lord, I will follow wherever you want—so long as you provide running water and flush toilets.’” For Ted, the missionaries were the varsity team of Christian ministry: heroes, always challenging limits. As the minister and head of staff at a vibrant suburban Philadelphia congregation, he admired those with courage to go abroad. So today, as he and Sue coax their 4WD vehicle over the pitted roads of urban compounds and through scrubby acres of bush, he smiles at the fulfillment of God’s purpose in their lives.

Sue and Ted are missionaries, but not like the missionaries they admired in their youth. They don’t take the gospel to places that haven’t heard it. They don’t plant churches. They neither teach nor practice medicine. Instead, they bolster the efforts of indigenous Christians and foster connections with the PCUSA. “Our purpose,” says Ted, “is to build their capacity—not to do for them, but with them—to strengthen their hand.” This is the goal of today’s Christian mission: mission in partnership, where both sides give and receive.

The area they serve compares in size with America west of the Mississippi. Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, and Angola are developing countries, where cell phones, tourism, and high-tech mines compete with poverty, unemployment, and disease. Lusaka, their home, the capital of Zambia, and the fastest-growing city in central Africa, is growing beyond control. Huge sections consist of illegal structures with no electricity or running water. While for the privileged few there are modern grocery stores—the Wrights prefer ShopRite at Manda Hill—many walk daily to a local outdoor market for onions and rape leaves to flavor their cornmeal. Doctors are few and drugs extremely scarce. Sixteen percent of the population has HIV/AIDS, but few know their status. Average life expectancy is thirty-nine years. The three primary killers: malaria, tuberculosis (AIDS by another name), and diarrhea.

Despite such poverty and ever-present hardship, Christianity thrives throughout the region. Noting the rapid church growth, the Wrights say:

“Evangelism is natural—as natural as giving birth. In fact, this is how Africans do evangelism. Most congregations are pregnant most times. Churches conceive what they call ‘prayer houses’—home fellowships or outstations. Each prayer house is led by a mother-church elder, and in the normal course of things the prayer house grows. After a while it needs a building. So the people raise funds, mold blocks, and donate their labor. As growth continues, maybe the presbytery sends a lay leader, called an evangelist. Eventually the prayer house grows to the stage where it qualifies to call its own pastor. At that point it becomes an official congregation. But normally long before then it has already begun spinning off additional prayer houses!”

For all their vitality—or perhaps because of it—churches never have enough leaders. The region’s theological schools are turning out dozens of candidates for ministry annually, but demand far outstrips supply. For the ministers they do have, resources are few, compensation low. Ministers often serve several congregations, using bicycles or minibus to reach distant points. Ted urges Americans to help by investing in leadership training at all levels. “It doesn’t matter if people worship under a tree or in a building. What they need is solid leadership first. It doesn’t matter how many projects or programs they want to start, or how many schools and clinics we foreigners aim to build. Without that committed corps of well-trained local leaders, everything else will go for naught.”

Based at Justo Mwale Theological College, the region’s foremost center for Presbyterian and Reformed learning, the Wrights enjoy an opportunity to interact with leaders of tomorrow today. With the help of local workers they maintain a house and garden. “It’s a beautiful location, and we can support two families through employment.” But more than half the time they travel far away from home. During one six-week stretch in 2007 they held meetings, workshops, and presentations in three nations, interspersed with border crossings and many hours of driving. They visit churches, hospitals, offices of partners, schools, and development projects—quite a change from parish ministry (Ted) and client therapy (Sue)!

The Wrights serve as eyes and ears for both the Presbyterian Church (USA) and The Outreach Foundation, an independent mission support group with very close links to the PCUSA. They offer research on proposals for American funding and check to ensure that funds already sent are being used for agreed-upon purposes.

After serving their last church for twenty-three years, the Wrights now worship in a different place every week. Their advice: “Have a message ready in your heart,” because visitors are often invited to speak. Encouragement enables the African partners to continue with challenging tasks. Sometimes outsiders can see or name things that insiders struggle to speak. And sometimes, says Sue, “the best gift we offer is simply to show up.” Presence says plenty by itself.

Relating personally to indigenous churches is only one aspect of the job. As regional liaisons, the Wrights also connect with Americans who want to be involved. They greet and host visitors. They help congregations plan, conduct, and evaluate mission trips. They guide their own denomination at home in pursuing long-term partner relationships. They believe that partnerships ultimately work to benefit both sides, if done properly.

This requires new thinking. Americans, says Sue, are famous for “Love ’em and leave ’em.” “A group comes and goes, does its thing, takes pictures, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter how many housing units you built, how many medical cases you treated, or how many converts you won (again?) to Christ. What matters is that you encouraged local hearts, and that you did so by getting to know the people.”

Ted counsels that Americans should begin with empty hands:

“Come eager to learn. Come willing to receive. If you focus purely on whatever it is you plan to build, fix, give, teach, or do, how can you be changed? And what message do you convey? That Africans by themselves are incapable? That they don’t know how to build unless you demonstrate? Truth be told, you have plenty to learn from their methods, ingenuity, and wisdom…if you wish.”

Not surprisingly, the Wrights are sometimes viewed as conduits for American wealth. Africans dream of being paired with outside sponsors. Americans look to their missionaries for guidance when trying to make a difference for a continent of need. For many, the solution is to give at a personal level. But Ted remembers tensions from a decade ago when the mission group of which he was a part took kindness a step too far:

“As time went on, partnership changed into a series of personal friendships. Americans began responding to requests from individual Zimbabwean members. That is destructive. It can tear churches apart, once the Africans perceive that “partnership” translates into economic gain for a well-connected few. The responsible choice is to work and relate church to church, not person to person.”

The Wrights do solicit funds for projects designated as priorities by the partner churches, projects selected for their promise to build capacity and avoid dependency. They are wary of the recent trend in American mission giving where independent mission organizations use bulk mail, cable television, and the Internet to bypass denominational priorities and guidance, and appeal instead directly to individual donors, a process that does not always consult the African churches and can result in donor-driven projects and duplication of effort.

Ultimately, when asked to describe the fundamental nature of their work, the Wrights look to an African proverb: “If you want to go fast, you can always walk alone. If you want to go far, walk together.”

To this they add: “Our prayer for world mission is that American churches would choose to go far.”

Quotations are from autumn 2007 interviews, the text of a speech before the Presbytery of Philadelphia, 09/29/07, and from the Wrights online letters posted at http://www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/ profiles/wrightc.htm. You may also contact Ted and Sue directly through this web site. The Outreach Foundation web site is www.theoutreachfoundation.org.

Kenneth J. Ross is a 1985 Th.M. graduate of Princeton Seminary and interim pastor of Bensalem Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia Presbytery.

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