It’s time to replace an old paradigm, mission trip, with a new paradigm, empowerment. In the old paradigm, somebody comes and does something for the Africans, which they don’t maintain, because it wasn’t their idea in the first place. In the new paradigm, true development and growth take place because the Africans were involved and manage it from the start.

This past weekend I went on another medical mission trip, this time to a place called Jidi. A doctor from Birmingham, AL and a group of medical students set up a “mobile medical clinic” and treated villagers who never see a doctor. The nearest hospital has no doctor and no medicine. My job was to take the patients’ temp by sticking a thermometer under their armpits and recording the temp. That why I said, “This trip is the pits!”

Medical mission trips are important. Malawi has a medical school and a school of nursing, but the graduates usually emigrate to the United Kingdom where they can earn a living. It’s often said there are more Malawian doctors in Manchester, England, than in Malawi. Meanwhile many women here die in childbirth. Of the babies born, 10% will die before their 1st birthday. Then another 10% will die before their 5th birthday. Malawians live with anemia, worms and other parasites, malaria, poor nutrition, and for lack of good water, dysentery, cholera, and other water-borne diseases. All that before anybody ever heard of HIV/AIDS. Life expectancy is in the 40s. Malawi remains dependent on missionary doctors.

This trip was organized by David Epperson, founder of a ministry closely allied with African Bible College called E3, meaning “Educate, Empower, Employ.” The two co-founders are Sam Kawale and Jacob Chikoya, both graduates of African Bible College. David is not your typical missionary. Raised in a fundamentalist pastor’s home, he ran away from home when he was 16 and like the Prodigal Son, came back to the Lord at age 30. Every day of the world he wears a black shirt, black baseball cap, and is tattooed all over.

But he has a great idea: instead of you telling the Africans what they need, let them tell you what they need. Don’t start with what they don’t have, start with what they do have, then show them how to build on that. Instead of doing things for the Africans and keeping them on the dependency treadmill, empower the Africans by equipping them to do more for themselves, and work yourself out of a job.

David says it’s time to replace an old paradigm, mission trip, with a new paradigm, empowerment. In the old paradigm, somebody comes and does something for the Africans, which they don’t maintain, because it wasn’t their idea in the first place. In the new paradigm, true development and growth take place because the Africans were involved and manage it from the start.

E3 has built a school and mobile medical clinic, installed a bore hole and irrigation, is building a fish farm, and is teaching villagers how to do “perma-culture,” or organic farming. Malawians usually grow one crop a year. With perma-culture, they can grow two or three crops a year on the same amount of land, thus increasing the food supply and decreasing hunger, a perennial problem in Africa. With perma-culture they don’t have to spend all their money on chemical fertilizers which ruin their environment.

I asked David, what about government corruption? The typical African government has no system of checks and balances and has been described as a “kleptocracy.” He answered that you preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and promote spiritual growth along with development projects. The idea is to be a truly holistic ministry.

I saw three churches in the area: Presbyterian, Anglican, and Jehovah’s Witness. In talking to village church elders, they will typically ask me, is it true that only 144,000 will go to heaven? I asked them how often does a village church see an ordained pastor? The answer: once a year, and that’s when communion is served. Ministries like African Bible College and E3 are producing pastors, teachers, and clinics in a land desperately short of these.

There’s something else that African Bible College is doing – Student Initiated Ministries (I call them SIMs). An ABC student founded The Chisomo Idea (“chisomo” means “grace”). It has become a national organization. It does sport ministry, children’s centers, and leadership training. It gives loans to parents so they can run small businesses and earn  money so they can pay their children’s school fees and keep them in school. And it’s entirely run by ABC students.

Another is Great Commission Ministries. Also entirely student founded and run, it focuses on outreach to secondary (high) school students. I myself have had the privilege of driving the big ABC bus to transport GCM students on outreach functions.

Years ago students organized themselves and called it Mangochi Ministries. It focused on Muslims and even built a church with their own resources in the Mangochi area. They invited me to show the Jesus film one weekend, and I showed it to a crowd of 2,500 Muslims in one evening. And so African Bible College has become a fertile breeding ground for new ministries run by, for, and to Africans, initiated by ABC students. It’s not just a classroom experience.

Larry Brown is a minister in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a member of Central South Presbytery, and serves as Professor of church history, world history, hermeneutics and missions at the African Bible College in Lilongwe, Malawi.