Engelsen AdVentures: Fantastic Trip to Nigeria!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Fantastic Trip to Nigeria!

Leslie/Todd: We had the tremendous privilege of traveling with five other PEER Servants associates to Nigeria from January 29 through February 14 to serve (and be served by) Good Seed Enterprise Development, our microfinance partner in the very troubled city of Jos. It was a fantastic trip for many reasons.

Nigerians Are Amazing People: Les and I were convinced long ago that Nigerians are some of the most amazing people on the planet - now we have some trip mates who are also singing that tune! The people of Nigeria have been rated by objective researchers as some of the world's happiest people. What makes them so happy? Despite having relatively little materially, they live in community and have a deep and vibrant faith. We have lots to learn from them of what it means to live in community and have to be totally dependent on God.

Nigerian Are Great Entrepreneurs: We met some amazing entrepreneurs -- not just in the businesses they have established, but more so what they are doing with the businesses they have established. You may have heard of some of them already. Comfort and Bamidele Padonu use their chicken breeding business to allow almost 100 widows each week to earn an income as they distribute the eggs. The Padonus are making great progress on building a ministry center for widows and orphans as they live very simply and pour the profits of their business into this ministry. There there is Kikielomo Oluwasegun, another chicken breeder and now fish farmer

who directs the profits of her business to make the cost of Diamond Private School affordable to 100+ school children. What a beautiful sight it was to visit this school and see all of these bright young children receiving a top notch education. There are many more stories to tell of impressive micro-entrepreneurs whom we met on this trip.

Nigeria Needs Our Prayers: Jos, the city we visited, had experienced the most recent Muslim-Christian conflict less than two weeks before our arrival. 300-500 people were killed and many homes and businesses were burned. Some of Good Seed's clients had their businesses burned to the ground. Our Christian brothers and sisters are requesting that we pray for God's wisdom as to what they should do. This is the third major crisis in the last 9 years. Muslims have been moving into this predominantly Christian area and are attempting to force conversion to Islam, using all means, including violence, to do so. Very committed Christians are asking "what would Jesus do?" There are no easy answers to questions like that, but let's pray for wisdom and protection over them.

We thank God that we can partner with Good Seed Enterprise Development as they serve the materially poor of central Nigeria in the name of Jesus. Our team was able to assist them in better marketing their program, providing training based on the successes of our microfinance partner in the Philippines, and helping GSED identify new ways to raise much needed funds to fuel their growth. God used our Nigerian brethren and the events in Jos to really strengthen us in our understanding of what it means to follow Jesus. As a result, this is a trip we will not soon forget.

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Meet the Engelsens!

We (Todd and Leslie Engelsen) lead PEER Servants — an organization of committed and gifted volunteers and staff dedicated to serving indigenous, autonomous microfinance institutions in the materially poor world. Todd is the President of PEER Servants while Leslie assumes many key responsibilities within the organization.

We met in Nigeria in 1998. Leslie had been in Nigeria for over 12 years at the time working in urban ministry — especially in helping materially poor women caught up in prostitution find new life in Jesus Christ. Todd had been working for almost 15 years at John Hancock as an actuary and senior officer and used his vacation time to come to Nigeria as a microfinance consultant to Rescue Fellowship Nigeria, PEER Servants’ new Nigerian microfinance partner. It was a match made in heaven — we married in 2002. Todd left John Hancock in 2004 to focus full-time in his responsibilities as PEER Servants President.

Living Simply

"Labor hard, consume little, give much to others and all to Christ." William Okoye, Pastor in Abuja, Nigeria

"Poverty is freedom. It is a freedom so that what I possess doesn’t own me, so that what I possess doesn’t hold me down, so that my possessions don’t keep me from sharing or giving of myself." Mother Teresa, No Greater Love, p.96

"The Lord owns the world and everything in it—the heavens, even the highest heavens are his." Moses, Deuteronomy 10:14 (NLT)

"To live a simple lifestyle means to live intentionally beneath your potential standard of living for the purpose of sharing your excess with others." Jeff and Judy Heath, Wycliffe missionaries in Chad (quoted in Simplify by P. Borthwick, p.148)

"We are not accustomed to denying ourselves in order to serve others. But Jesus insisted that discipleship is impossible without self denial. Instant gratification is at the core of modern life. Costly self-denial is at the center of Jesus’ way. We must choose." Ron Sider, Living Like Jesus, p.34

"If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it." Jesus, Mark 8:34-35 (NLT)

"The gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen. In 1960, the richest 20 percent of the world’s countries had thirty times more income than the poorest 20 percent. By 1990 the richest 20 percent had 60 times more! Since Christians own two-thirds of the world’s wealth, the majority of that top 20 percent were “Christians.” While we get richer, one billion desperately poor people live at the edge of survival. Millions starve every year. Tens of millions of these desperate people are brothers and sisters in Christ. That we tolerate their anguish is a sinful rending of Christ’s one body." Ron Sider, Living Like Jesus, p.79

"Nothing that you have not given away will ever really be yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in." CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, p.180

"But who am I, and who are my people, that we could give anything to you? Everything we have has come from you, and we give you only what you gave us first." David, 1 Chronicles 29:14 (NLT)

"My parents and their colleagues were caught up in the kingdom where God was the center. . . . This released them from self centered preoccupation with their own survival. Personal fulfillment and safety was a by product, not a goal in their vision. . . . They had a fierce joy in knowing that they were doing the right thing and that God was pleased. . . . Suffering was taking for granted and not something to avoid at all cost. . . . Simpler lifestyle was not something God had inflicted on us but something they had chosen for the sake of the kingdom." Kari Torjesen Malcolm, We Signed Away Our Lives, writing about missionaries in China in the early part of the 20th century

"Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength." Apostle Paul, Philippians 4:11-13

"With forgiveness, and the justice that flows from Christ’s compassion, the economic divisions that condemn some to deadly starvation and others to suffocating affluence can give way to wholeness for all." Ron Sider, Living Like Jesus, p.27

"Give me eagerness for your laws rather than love for money! Turn my eyes from worthless things, and give me life through your word." Psalm 119:36-37

Suggestions for Simple Living
* Cultivate contentment, desire less.
* Resist covetousness and consumerism.
* Buy things for their usefulness, not their status.
* Learn to enjoy things without owning them. Benefit from places of “common ownership” (parks, museums, libraries, rivers).
* De-accumulate. Develop the habit of giving things away.
* Offer others the use of your possessions.
* Develop a network of exchange.
* Avoid impulse buying.
* Don’t buy now pay later.
* Avoid credit cards if they are a problem.
* De-emphasize respectability.
* Simplify your wardrobe–give away excess.
* Learn how to make do with a lower income instead of needing a higher one.
* Be grateful for things large and small.
* Emphasize a joyful life.
Scott Bessenecker, The New Friars, p.182

"Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be." Jesus, Matt.6:19-21

"We must learn to give until it hurts and not hold on to our earthly possessions too tightly because we will always meet people who need our clothes, furniture, food & money more than we do. . . . We must make decisions every day about our lives and priorities, decisions not for ourselves but for others, decisions in agreement with God’s heart for the needy." Dave Andrews, Can You Hear the Heartbeat?

Engelsen AdVentures

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Fantastic Trip to Nigeria!

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