Burke Lives: Small Platoons work in Africa

Fire of Liberty
Last week, I posted an column by Marvin Olasky which focused on a church in Maryland which opted to buy a orphanage in Namibia rather buy an air conditioner for their church. Well, this week Olasky offers yet another example of Christian charity via the Damascus Wesleyan Church of Maryland which took some $287,000 in a special donation for a new sanctuary and purchase a 99 year lease on 10,000 acres of land in Zambia to provide a better life for the people by offering a 300 student elementary school, an orphanage for motherless children who are extremely ill, a three year course in The Bible and agriculture thus improving their material as well as spiritual well-being.

Once again Olasky demonstrates how programs that actually offer solutions that achieve well and lasting results are far better than the "spend more money," solutions being promoted by the UN and Live 8 celebrities. Though I hate to flog a dead horse, I'd have to say that the adage "Feed a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll eat a lifetime," seems to continue to hold true to this day. I think Olasky summed this up best in the following paragraphs from his column:

The great explorer/missionary David Livingstone wrote in 1866: "Though there is antipathy in the human heart to the gospel of Christ, yet when Christians make their good work shine, all admire them. It is when great disparity exists between profession and practice that we secure the scorn of mankind."

Good work does not stop some sneers, since the cross is a stumbling block to many, but Livingstone's analysis is often accurate. Ministry evangelism -- showing people that Christ dramatically changes lives of both those needing help and those moved to offer help -- is often more effective than words alone.

Last month, we heard calls to forgive debts owed by African dictators, but it's more important to emphasize true compassion: The word literally means suffering with those in need.

Those who give of themselves rarely regret it. Livingstone gave his life for Africa and said, "Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay?"

Jerry Beall, Damascus Wesleyan's pastor in the 1990s and now the head of the ministry it funded, noted as we scampered up a rise in Zambia that his church never built a new sanctuary. Then he looked around at land being farmed, watched some of the children playing and said, "See how much more we got."

I wished the folks at the UN and the people clamoring for "more money" and greater government intervention would take a deep breath and look at the great success that has been achieved by private or religious charities. All they have to do is consult the various people in Africa who have benefited from these small platoons of religious and private organizations. Of course, we'd have to wait six months for the UN to mull over the thought of creating a panel to study this, another six months to form the panel, six months to decide what to look at, one year to study these charities and some two more to release these results. While the fat bureaucrats at the UN go through the extensive process these private charities will have run circles around them in their good works. If you want to take a more in depth look at the deleterious nature of such big government policies that have been expressed by the UN, Live 8 and members governments of the G8, just look at this piece by Tim Worstall over at Tech Central Station.

Thank G-d our Founding Fathers were great lovers of small government and private property, we'd never have lasted these two-hundred plus years without them.