Stockers' Stories

I am planning to focus on community development in Malawi, but I will spend some time working with Malawians to find out what they really need, and what they are willing to work with me on, and maintain on their own.  Otherwise, something like this could happen:

"South African pastor Fourie Vandenberg tells of leading a mission trip to the north of Namibia. The first thing the team noticed in the local kraal (Village) in which they were staying was that the women had to walk every day to a well with a huge heavy bucket on their heads to fetch water..
`We immediately decided to do something about it.'
Within two weeks flashy new water pipes were delivering water to every little hut in the kraal.
Within a week after the installation of the plumbing the villagers removed all the pipes and piled them politely on the out skits of the kraal.
When Fourie asked why they had plundered the plumbing and undone all their hard work, the Namibians explained that it is customary for the women to walk to a well with other women sharing their experiences about life. Carrying heavy buckets on the head while chatting with friends:`It's not a bad thing: it's a good thing.'
When the walk to the well was taken away and life was made `never so good,' life was really made ever so difficult."

(So Beautiful. Leonard Sweet, David C. Cook Pub, 2009, pp 102)

(I found this reference at http://worldmissions101.blogspot.com/) 

-Dean