pastors' response re: OCC

Last year, I wrote a blog post concerning Operation Christmas Child in Zambia and the breakdown in expectations between box packers and what is happening on the ground. I particularly highlighted that churches are paying money to the National Team to receive their boxes. Since this post has recently re-gained traction, OCC has published an official response.

The original blog post can be read HERE, and OCC’s response can be read HERE.

As many, many people have forwarded OCC’s note and asked me to respond to it specifically, I feel morally obligated to do so. However, not wanting to speak on behalf of our region’s Pastors without their input and permission, my husband, Jeremy, and I chose to first sit and talk with the leadership of the Mansa Pastors Fellowship. What they had to say was challenging to say the least. Desperately wanting to see change, the pastors requested that their words be shared with the larger audience that continues to follow this issue.

To provide readers with the most accurate account, I’ve chosen to transcribe the conversation with our local Pastors. My words are italicized, and all plain text are direct quotes from the Pastors. The transcription has been edited slightly for readability and length, but none of the pastors words or sentiments have been changed. Bracketed text has been inserted for clarification purposes only.

---

26, October, 2018

Location: Wetuna Gardens, Mansa

In attendance: Missionaries Jeremy & Bethany Colvin, and four members of the Executive Leadership of the Mansa Pastors Fellowship.

 ---

The number one question I’m getting is, ‘has this issue been resolved,’ and I’ve been avoiding giving the answer because I don’t feel like it’s my place to give your response.

[Reading of OCC’s official statement, passing out to pastors, after which the pastors take turns speaking.]

Some more than ten years ago, the same [National] team came to Mpika with one gentlemen from America and his wife. I was just invited, I wasn’t in the management team. During the discussion, that gentlemen from America was explaining that these shoe boxes reach the beneficiary free of charge. ‘It’s free. It’s covered in the costs.’ So… when his explanation was heating up, it was perceived it was going to attract questions, like, ‘why are we paying?’ and so [National Team Member] came out and spoke in Bemba, saying, “Bane, ifya ku sosela tafyawama…” (Brothers, tattling is not a good thing, let us not report each other.) And the gentlemen from America asked, “What are you saying” and [National Team Member] said, ‘I’m just clarifying for them,’ as if we weren’t getting what he was saying. And so in a matter of ten seconds, he [National Team Member] changed everything that the gentlemen from America was saying. To shut us up. And no one could speak against that. And it has haunted me for years that none of us was bold enough to tell the truth. And that gentlemen went with that perverted version of what is happening. What’s happening now is just a repeat. When they came to Mansa they brought a pre-typed letter saying that everything has been resolved and we the leaders refused to sign it.

I was very disappointed when I read this letter from OCC because they are shooting these gentlemen [fellow pastors around table] and hiding criminals in the name of this update. The least they could have done would be send some folks who are not a part of this, and instead they send [the National Team] to come and ask us questions. But there was nothing like questions, they just came to threaten us by saying “your children will not benefit from this.” And they have carried out their threat. Last year we did not receive boxes and this year, since we have not heard anything, we conclude we still aren’t receiving. They came to shush us. It was a rebuke. As if we are doing something scandalous, trying to stop something that’s beneficial to the children, when actually the key issue is trying to expose an immorality that has been going on.

They [the National Team] are the principle suspects. They are cashing in on the program. Why should they be sent to investigate? [OCC] should have sent an independent person or group to come and hear from us. That could have given us a fair trial. But now the same group comes here… what kind of investigation is that? They’ve been in this thing for more than ten years. And they have been manipulating the system.

[National Team Member] has bought a truck, and that is the same truck he uses to deliver the boxes. We suggested here, “Can’t we send our own truck to collect the boxes” and he said, ‘no, you have to use our truck,’ because it belongs to him and he charges [for its use], and that money goes into his pocket. Is that not corruption?

When we were told how much we should pay per box, for Luapula Province, it was more than K200,000 ($20,000) and for Mansa specifically it was K40,000 ($4,000). To bring a truck from Ndola to Mansa, you can hire that [a private truck] for K3,000 to K4,000, now they’ve charged K40,000 and where has the rest of that money gone?

Before the boxes come, they [National Team] has to come and do a training, but when we look at the cost implications of the [training], we pay a flat fee per church but then each individual Sunday School teacher has to also pay and you are required to send a set number of people to the training per X number of boxes you are to receive which forces the churches to send more people to the training, each of which have to pay to attend. The [National Team] says the money goes towards their accommodation here, but what happens is they will come and see us in Mansa, Samfya, Nchelenge all in one trip without sleeping here yet still having collected all that money. And this doesn’t include the payments the children have to make.

And when they [National Team] came they said, “No, the reason why we are charging you is because there are other regions that are more vulnerable, like Shangombo,” and then when you call Shangombo, you find out that they’ve paid too, so its all a lie.

They [the boxes] are not helping in terms of building the church. If anything they are destroying the church. Our colleagues from Ndola have not been faithful. We are not against paying something, but when the money does not go for what it was said it was for, it’s going into someone’s pocket, and then they declare that God has blessed them… that’s what we should discourage. And so if the same individuals are being entrusted with the task, then I would say, its better not to have it. Unless if they [OCC] can find a fairer system to help the churches. Because like our brother said, they [the National Team] has been doing this a long time. This is something they [National Team] has gotten used to, they aren’t going to change. If they [OCC USA] is going to keep using that same channel, then I think let it not come to us.

The little I know about Americans is that they champion the spirit of openness, the free mind, freedom of expression… now when we want to express ourselves, someone comes and says ‘shut up’ and follows with an action – suspension – now are they representing the spirit of the donor? Let the American people know that when things are pointed out by the locals here, they [National Team] stop giving boxes to people who are reporting those wrong things.

We are the people on the ground. We know ourselves. We are Zambians. And these people are Pastors. How can I submit to [National Team pastor] who is cheating me? If it were just a secular person we could just say, ‘well they are sinners,’ and let them go. But these are people with collars, showing the world that ‘we are servants of the Lord.’

What has to be highlighted is that an investigation has not been done. What was done could just be termed as a cover up – an intimidation. OCC, Samaritan’s Purse from the United States has not investigated. What’s missing categorically from this process is an independent inquiry towards the actual interest of protecting the huge investment that is being put into all this. It’s no longer even what we can call a gift box. They [the donors] would be amazed to learn that the children are buying these gifts and those people are proud to sell. I remember one of them [national team during training] trying to encourage us, “even I’ve benefited a lot just from doing ministry to children.”

In this section on the official response, it specifically says that the $9 covers shipment to the countries and to the 1,100+ delivery sites within the country. I don’t know how you read it, but it makes it sound like boxes are supposed to be sent from Ndola to Mansa and then from there the distribution costs are upon you. But what I hear you saying is that you were even willing to help cover the Ndola to Mansa cost – which just shows how much grace you have in the situation. But this is what a few hundred thousand people in the US are waiting to hear, whether this issue has actually been resolved in terms of the churches still being charged to cover transportation to the distribution sites – Mansa, Solwezi, Choma, Chipata etc. That’s what people are waiting to hear.

Actually I just called Reverend [name withheld] since I know they are still receiving boxes and I asked, ‘Were you charged anything this year?’ and he said ‘Yes, we paid for the boxes as a church.’ And he explained that they were told, ‘Don’t charge the children but you as a church pay for the boxes,’ and they were given an amount to pay and he also said, ‘We know how these people are, they’ve really benefitted from these boxes so just know that the way you’ve started talking to them, you’ll not be receiving boxes,’ and I said, Exactly! We didn’t receive and the Reverend said, ‘yeah, that’s what they do.’

These things are not gifts any more. These are enterprises. Those people are no longer qualified to represent Samaritan’s Purse. We speak for Zambia. We have to do whatever it takes for the sake of the children we are representing here. We know that those people are stealing from the children – it’s not speculation. It’s not rumor. Because [states denomination/branches around the whole country] has paid money each year for the children we have registered. We have receipts. It’s everywhere. It amounts to thousands and thousands of dollars. That’s what has been covered up. And no one seems interested in that.

Are there things that you want HQ to know?

We don’t agree with the statement that the matter was resolved because those who came to investigate are the suspects and secondly, the whistle blowers have been suspended for two [cycles] so far. Was this the resolution? Or is America aware?

We have not seen the values that OCC has projected to us applied in our region. If OCC can come up with a different [National] team whilst they are carrying out a proper investigation it will really serve us.

How connected in the past have boxes been to child evangelism. Are children coming to know Christ or are the boxes just a demonstration of Christian love.

The program is not happening like its supposed to. The same kids get the boxes over and over, and it’s the ones that can pay for them. [Evangelism] has been the emphasis [of training] in the past but practically, no. When they [National Team] comes they conduct those programs and say, ‘this is a tool for evangelism, and the emphasis is that the child will know how Jesus loves him through another child sending them this.’ But this is not evangelism. A lot of people are participating thinking we can just pay ten kwacha and get a box and go home.

If we could convince them [the donors] to just send it [the funds], it would be a very good idea, because I feel that even though this is for the sake of Christmas, the things that the kids get, and we thank God that what they are getting is American standard, but still it doesn’t really meet the needs of the children. These kids get a box – they’ve never been to school! They might get a toothpaste that is of a higher American standard, but we also have toothpaste here. So it’s nice that Christmas comes once but we can use cheaper things and in that way Christmas can go on and have a more lasting impact. Maybe we can convince some to just turn that [their box] into money. Because child-centered programs are incredibly important. And there’s a lot that can be done to mitigate the challenges that the children are facing.

People have asked us if there are alternatives. What if we were to put together a list of needs within the churches (school fees, blankets, clothes etc.) and collect funds to connect people with Mansa directly to meet tangible needs?

It can really have a lot of impact. We would be more confortable if our friends in America would be able to convert their boxes into cash so that we partner with Jeremy & Bethany [choshenfarm.org] in terms of administration and accountability for those resources. As we partner with you [Colvins] it would be an opportunity for the Church to focus on what it’s supposed to do and in a way that its supposed to be done. We have to go the Biblical way with structures of accountability. It’s not about dishing out money, its about making sure that things are done Biblically and people are accountable to leadership that is set.

We didn’t know what to do about this whole thing but the sharing you did, God used it to try and help us find the way to really address an injustice. We were stuck. We thought they [the National Team] was the beginning and the end. We didn’t know there was elsewhere we could report and other contacts we were able to get through to and you were able to do that for us and I think that was a major breakthrough. And now we are hoping that we can use our voice and correct this – even if they [OCC] doesn’t support us any longer – but maybe correct it for the other regions that are receiving, that would be a major breakthrough, and God will have really helped us.

I think the transparency of this is really helpful and people are going to thank you for taking something that was previously in the dark and putting it into the light.

---

Meeting closed in prayer. 

why you should think twice about giving “gifts” to the poor

A gift! How thoughtful! Thank you!

I remember back in the day, driving to spend Christmas with certain relatives, my mother would always prep us with, “now remember, no matter what, you need to say ‘thank you’ and be grateful, ok?” Now that I have kids, I’ve taught them a similar script – A gift! Thank you! – and I’ve communicated my expectation that they not embarrass me by being ungrateful brats.

I’ve thought about this lesson a lot lately – how saying thank you is an act of both gratitude and basic decency. Furthermore, I’ve thought about it outside the context of my childhood Christmases in America. I’ve thought about all the gifts that we personally are asked to hand out on behalf of donors and even more about the thousands of OCC gift boxes being packed NOW that will pass through our region next spring. OCC is by far the largest “gift-giving ministry” working world-wide and as such they provide the most obvious examples. Among the many negative articles circulating about OCC lately (like this, and this, and this, and this) one push-back comment I keep seeing is, “Remember, these are gifts.”

I’ve written about OCC myself – more than once, in fact – so I obviously have thoughts. But it wasn’t until recently that I honed in on that repeated phrase – remember, these are gifts. Every time my eyes read that line, I’d think, yeah, so? until Jeremy and I were talking about it and we remembered to pass the phrase through our magic ‘America filter’ and it donned on us – Mom’s telling us to be grateful, regardless.

The third world and missionaries like myself who are attempting to serve here, have spent a good amount of time and energy trying to communicate a specific message to the generous peoples of the first world: random stuff from America is not helpful. But then mom reminds her kids again to be grateful… and what’s left to be said?

WELL, how about this:

The following is why I believe “But it’s a gift!” is neither relevant nor appropriate, and why you should think twice about giving “gifts” to the poor.

Let’s say a friend of yours has been struggling financially. She finally comes to you and says, “hey, I need to fill this prescription for my kid, but it costs $50 and I just don’t have that,” and you respond, “Aw, girl, you know I love you! Here’s a gift basket of stuff from Toys R Us worth $50!” And she just stares at you and doesn’t immediately say thank you and you get all feely and annoyed by her ingratitude… Your actions would have been unreasonable, right? No one could be that insensitive or crass as to not meet their friend’s stated, pressing need… Right???

Meet the need first is fairly intuitive in this case. But the reason why most Americans don’t respond as instinctively when it comes to giving unnecessary gifts to the poor overseas is that they are too far removed from third-world poverty to get it.

America has a lavish gift-giving culture; we give presents for everything!  New Baby! House Warming! New Job! But despite this generous tradition, many, if not most, of the people we are giving these gifts to aren’t simultaneously looking for solutions to life-threatening situations. Most Americans have never been confronted with the either/or dilemma of “meet a desperate need” or “give a random gift instead.” The struggle is quite literally foreign to them.

The driving proviso behind, “But it’s a gift!” is that Americans (as a generic unit) can afford to spend money on unnecessary things all day, every day – and we assume others do to. BUT, the developing world does not function this way. Luxury is appreciated when it comes, to be sure – but by luxury, I’m not talking fancy jewelry and the latest iphone. Luxury in our village is water that has spent time in a fridge, a car ride (instead of a bike ride) to town, and getting to eat the gizzard of a chicken. So let me say this: it is ignorant and tacky to pretend that frivolous luxury is a reasonable replacement for basic human needs that are not being met.

You can give any single unnecessary item from Target to your best friend and rightly expect a thank you from her because she probably has a roof over her head tonight. You can give a bag of party favors to your neighbor kid and even tell the goober to say thank you to you because chances are good that kid is getting fed tonight. If your friend didn’t have a house and your neighbor didn’t have food and you knew that but decided to use your expendable cash to buy trinkets instead, the word ‘negligent’ would be appropriately applied.

In the place where we live, families routinely go hungry, don’t have shoes and can’t send their kids to school. Our neighbors sleep in crowded huts, wear the same clothes for a week and walk miles to see a nurse. And yet, with this scene as the backdrop, the same American Church that can manage to buy millions of dollars worth of “Just because we love you!” gifts refuses to use those same dollars to alleviate human suffering.

Americans have the luxury of having skewed priorities because, by and large, their needs are already met. What would truly change the American-gift-giver’s perspective is an exit from the first-world bubble and a true desire to know what the legitimate, third-world needs are. From much experience, I can say that, once on the field, it does not take long for American bauble to look alien and offensive when the intended recipient in front of you is either hungry, sick or afraid.

In case I sound like a gift-giving curmudgeon, let me free ya’ll up: Buy the candy and the bouncy balls and the glow in the dark toothbrushes. Yes. Go ahead and buy them. And send them! But here’s the caveat: Do that AFTER you’ve made sure that each and every recipient has a home and clothes and food and everything she needs.

You see, that same mama who taught me to be grateful at Christmas also taught me how to spoil the people I love. Here in the land of Where there is no Target, we have to wait for many of our American items to come across with visitors. Because space is limited and our list is usually pretty extensive, I have to do some negotiating with my mother to make sure that the innate Grandmother urge to spoil her grandkids doesn’t usurp actual necessities. Because I know she loves me, I’m free to say, “Grandma, the kids don’t need sugar. They need vitamins and socks and school supplies. Can we prioritize that instead?” And Grandma always says, sure! Because as much as she loves – and lives – to spoil those grandbabies, she cares about them enough to make sure their needs are met first.

So she sends vitamins and socks and school supplies… and all the s’mores ingredients that the left-over luggage space can handle. Despite my joking protest, the spoiling with sweets isn’t bad. We just need the other things as first priority. If I had told Grandma our needs and she had said, “I DON’T CARE. IT MAKES ME HAPPY SO I’M SENDING MARSHMELLOWS AND NOTHING ELSE…” Well shoot, Grandma. That wouldn’t be very loving, now would it?

If your gut reaction to negative press for OCC is, “they should be thankful,” you need to recognize that it is your purchasing power speaking – not compassion towards the poor. Because yes, all humans should be grateful for gifts, no matter what. But it is not ingratitude that leads those of us working amongst the poor to make the needs known. It is necessity. And urgency. And Stress. And if that does not call you to sympathy, you are in this for the wrong reasons. 

Giving gifts to the poor aught not be a consumer activity. But when first-world donors announce that they will only pay for that which makes them feel good, this “generosity” takes on a controlling element that needs to be exorcized. A true gift is one without stipulations, including your desire to “participate” or “teach your kids the true meaning of Christmas” or to foster some artificial “connection” to a small child far away.

Leveraging financial privilege in a way that self-gratifies and puts the rich-giver ahead of the poor is not Christ’s way.

Psalm 41:1 says it right:

Blessed is the one who considers the poor.

Are you considering?

boxing up expectations: reflections on OCC and the church

It was a fairly typical Thursday in our house. My husband went to the Mansa Pastor’s Fellowship, the meeting ran late, he got home and scarfed a “used to be warm” meal and gave me the run down of news from our region’s pastors.

So the boxes came up again, he started. I paused from my counter de-greasing to hear this one. Just a few days prior at the Fellowship’s Valentine’s Day event - capping off an otherwise delightful evening of food, love and laughter - the issue of “paying for our boxes” came up in the announcements. Through the thick murmur of voices, we gathered the sound bites of boxes, pay, free, why and no. Missionaries are really good at rolling with confusion so we held onto our questions. (And it was late – the newlywed game went long because we could not stop cracking up.)

Thankfully, at the next weekly meeting of the Fellowship, the topic came up again, and this time, being a more appropriate venue and atmosphere for discussion, the voices of all were heard, one at a time, and a thorough conversation went on and on.

Livid, Jeremy told me. They are livid. These pastors are the most gentle shepherds, so I had to know more. In bullet-point format, Jeremy explained that the Operation Christmas Child boxes had reached the warehouse in Ndola and that the Mansa churches needed to come up with eight kwacha per box for 5,000 boxes to receive their shipment. That’s $4,000USD, Jeremy said, telling me what I had already calculated. He continued to share that comments from the pastors ranged from, “We don’t have this kind of money,” to, “Aren’t these boxes supposed to be free?” to, “Next year, let’s just refuse the boxes all together!”

We haven't always been at these gatherings during OCC distribution time, and so we were back-peddling a little to make sense of these statements. Wait, wait, wait…  is this how it always is? What’s the money going for? Who is responsible for it? Despite the remaining questions, two things were crystal clear: the pastors were forking over cash for OCC boxes, and they were NOT happy about it.

Truth telling and transparency are core values for me, and the details out of that Thursday’s conversation just felt like something that needed to be shared.

This went up on my facebook wall and I honest to goodness didn’t expect much interaction with it. After all, it was a fairly bland statement – I didn’t flavor it with any personal opinions or emotional judgment. I posted because I myself was wrestling with unmet expectations, and I figured a few others out there might be as well. My goal was to describe the gap and let it speak for itself.

Days later, that conversation was still going, and I started composing this post as a way of saying all that I couldn’t say in a comments section. (Speaking of which, I made that particular post public so that anyone can read the full comments … in case you wanted to catch up…)

Having taken time to both dialogue and reflect (thank you, by the way, to everyone who shared thoughts and opinions with me,) I have observed that many, if not most people who engage with Operation Christmas Child do so with three main expectations. I will describe those below along with my observations regarding how those expectations seem to be playing out in Zambia.  

a quick side note...

(Before saying anything further, I need to make the disclaimer that the following opinions are 100% my own and not necessarily representative of anyone I work with or for. Furthermore, my opinions are drawn from my experiences in Zambia alone and may not be reflective of every country in which OCC operates.)

OK back to business…

Expectation one: The $7 shipping cost gets the box TO THE CHILD

This is certainly the most flagrant of unmet expectations. In my initial quest to understand why the churches of Mansa were paying to receive their boxes, I learned from OCC USA directly that the $7 only ships the container(s) of boxes as far as the central warehouse in the country – in our case, Ndola. It is OCC policy that the National Leadership Team (volunteers, and all Zambian) be responsible for distribution and raising funds to cover in-country transportation costs. Historically in Zambia, this has meant levying a transportation fee/payment amongst the churches in each district. This fee is not optional – this is not a free will offering – and it is announced to the churches that those who do not pay will not receive.

OCC policy clearly states that boxes are not to be sold. However, the Leadership Team’s directive to “raise funds” and their decision to do so by levying a “standard transportation fee” has effectively translated to a system of selling and buying the boxes – the National Team sells and the churches buy and that money takes care of the in-country transportation cost as per OCC’s plan. Some churches have chosen to absorb the cost on behalf of their congregants; others have merely fronted the costs and will then re-sell the boxes to the families themselves.

In dialoguing with many box senders in America, it is clear to me that no one actually wants to be a burden to the recipients. A lot of discouragement was generated by the thought of the rural poor having to scrape together funds to buy presents, and I was asked if there was a better way. Well...

I spoke directly with OCC USA regarding the policy and potential solutions. We didn’t have a particularly thorough brainstorming session, as that wasn’t the point of the call, but it did stand out to me that all “solutions” mentioned still kept the burden of transportation cost on the rural communities. Again, this is OCC policy. It was explained to me that OCC strategically does NOT charge the sender $7+K8 in order to ship all the way to the children because they WANT the churches to pay something. As an organization, they do not want to create an unhealthy dependency. 

This comment about dependency leads me to my second unmet expectation:

Expectation two: The gifts are HELPFUL both in evangelistic outreach and material aid

I’ve already written a full post outlining my thoughts regarding OCC and the coupling evangelism with Christmas gifts. I’d encourage you to read that post as well as I don’t intend on going into it here, but the spoiler is that I thoroughly disagree with this methodology for moral, cultural, and theological reasons.

As for the second element – helpful material aid – when the kind OCC staffer in North Carolina told me that they insisted that the churches pay so as to “avoid dependency,” I heard in that word choice the patent use of “development worker speech.” I started to wonder, just how many people really consider the shipping of these boxes to be an effective form of relief and/or development aid? It seems like Christmas presents don’t necessarily need to be sustainable, so… are our friends packing their boxes full of socks and washcloths and toothbrushes and Band-Aids because they believe they are supplying items that the child actually, desperately needs?

It may be quite right that a child would not have gotten a new toothbrush without that box, and that makes us all feel so useful on this planet, but if material aid is the expectation, this is not good stewardship of resources. For the cost of that new (American) toothbrush, a child in Mansa could buy 10 toothbrushes in the market. This pattern holds true for many of these “necessity” items.

A cost analyses on the boxes as a whole is even more striking. Expenditure certainly varies, but if we guestimate that the average box – contents plus shipping – is worth roughly $30, then have we done a good job of counting the “alternative cost?” Have we considered what could be done with that money instead?

in rural Zambia, $30 can pay for…

60,000 liters of potable drinking water

100 kg of maize meal – feeding a family of 5 for 4 MONTHS

school fees and uniforms for 6 elementary kids for a year

2 breeding goats

6 insecticide treated mosquito nets

15 gallons of soy beans

wages for 3 weeks of farm work

           

            

The families are not consulted, of course, (further evidence of poor development practice) – meaning, no one has ever asked them directly, “would you rather have a box of assorted American goods, or would you rather send all of your kids to school this year?” Yikes. Do we even want to know the answer? Would it bust our expectations left and right? And if it did, are we courageous enough to do something else?

community based needs assessment is not an optional step

One thing I did learn from the comment thread on the original post is that there are plenty of families who do NOT share in this expectation. They fully recognize that this is maybe not the best evangelism tool, and it is without question NOT the best aid, but they do it anyway because of the benefit to their kids. I thought about that one long and hard, and to this group I say – despite all my other feelings – GOOD ON YOU, parents, GOOD ON YOU. You have taken intentional action to make your privileged children more generous, aware and missions minded, and this is so very worthwhile. I have heard your question, “is there a better option?” and I desperately want there to be. The impetus is on the local church and its sent-out-missionaries to strategize and facilitate this caliber of experience. We have not done all that we can do, and for that, I am sorry. Nevertheless, you deserve all the props for being both third world savvy and good disciplers of your kids.

As a final observation, I’ll share a third expectation:

Expectation three: A reputable organization like Samaritans Purse can be trusted to  provide oversight

The first responses to hit the wall after my post went live were filled with disbelief. What? How is that possible? There must be an explanation! Not Samaritans Purse!?!?!? Even after I shared “the rest of the story” (that OCC knows that the recipients pay and actually expects them to pay), a handful continued to defend OCC by offering a variety of positive examples from around the world. The sharers of these stories are likely believing that these gold-star results in one location are representative of results everywhere.

As I said at the outset, my perspective is 100% Zambia specific. All I know is that the disappointment over the cost of the boxes HERE is unmistakable. Every other commenter with experience in Zambia said the same thing.

What for all the yeah but… yeah but… yeah buts…stemming from those alternative examples from other countries, still, as far as I’m concerned, ^^^ this means something.

An addendum to the above expectation would be that we expect uniform results across the board. However, a basic rule of a GLOBAL aid organization, is that one-size-fits-all (and works for all,) is not a thing. The cultural climate, relationship to the west, perceptions of power/respect/authority – these all matter hugely.

OCC handles its oversight requirement largely by working with National Leadership Teams, seconding to them great authority in each state of the process. Here, the Team in Ndola – for cultural and other reasons – was not shuttling report of the discontentment across the ocean. The American representative told me that he works closely with the Ndola team and would follow up with them… I was only mildly comforted considering that this voice was 7 time zones away. “Work closely with” can mean so many things… I mean, Jeremy and I would say that we “work closely with” our local pastors; and by this we mean, we know them. Henry Mumba is a jovial leader who almost fell in our pond going down our zip line… Pastor Bwalya fasts and prays quarterly at our farm and never lords his title of Chairman of the Fellowship over anyone… Bishop Chimanga prays for provision while refusing to takes a penny from his extremely poor congregation whose roof we re-constructed this year… Reverend Mwansa is a phenomenal worship leader who is always helping others despite having nine kids of his own. These partnerships are relationally rich – and effective for that reason.

I’ve always been an advocate of supporting the little man because THIS is where accountability WORKS. No one has ever had to call us from another continent to tell us that one of our programs is not working. When something flops, we know it in about twelve seconds because the casualties of that flop usually come knocking on our door. In the same vein, if someone has a question or concern and would like an audience with the top-of-the-top of our organization, I’m pretty sure I can arrange that – dinner is at 6 and please don’t mind if my children throw peas. They lose their minds when we have visitors.

Scope and size of impact grow as an organization gets larger and larger, but quality control is almost always inversely impacted, and that is an understandable tradeoff.

Actually, so much of what we’ve observed with OCC is “understandable” and this is why I “stated the gap” without overt judgment. On some level, I get it. My point in sharing what I have is that the massive donor base of North America is not well versed at vetting, monitoring and evaluating the projects that our funding goes to. We trust the big names – sometimes too much.

At the end of the day, each donor is responsible for his or her investment, and no one else’s. Merely assuming that the stewards of your money are living up to expectation benefits no one. Asking questions and following up need not be hostile or cynical; BUT, with great (financial) power comes great responsibility.

Also, I concede that a lapse in expectation need not be a deal breaker. This too is a personal choice. For me, the unmet expectations outlined above are not palatable, and I will probably never participate with OCC for this reason, nor would I recommend others to participate either. But this is just one opinion, and my perspective is both biased and inherently imperfect. I appreciate the others who have shared their perspectives with me and expanded my understanding. You make me a better missionary, and I thank you.

*** UPDATE ***

Due to the outpouring of concern generated by this post, Operation Christmas Child has issued a formal response. Prompted by further reader concern, my response to that communication can be read: HERE. Please take the time to read the follow-up post as it is comprised of direct statements from the local pastors. I hope you'll find it as helpful as I did. 

Also, please note in the comments below how many people have shared similar examples from countries OTHER than Zambia. OCC continues to paint this as a localized problem. The testimonies below give credence to the fact that it is most certainly not.