question from a reader:

HOW DID YOU GET INTO THIS KIND OF WORK?

The proposition that everything is created for a purpose was a huge ‘AHA’ moment for me!!
Aside from affirming the inherent worth of all creation, including myself, it called me to discover what my purpose might be. This search for meaning was also much discussed in the vibrant Young-People Group that my (now) wife Joanna and I belonged to. We had a great youth pastor who challenged us to contemplate our ‘calling’ in life.

While studying for her nursing degree Joanna had been approached by some folks in the church, encouraging her to consider using her nursing skills as a missionary nurse. It also seemed that my agricultural background and engineering education might be useful for working with the international development arm of our church’s mission agency. So, aside from our weekly dance lessons we decided to add an extra-curricular course to our date nights to learn more about international development.
         
The course, was called “Issues in Third World Development Studies.” It focused on the power dynamics between developing countries and their rich ‘benefactor’ countries’ methods of creating dependencies – decades before ‘neo-colonialism’ became a term. Our instructors showcased issues such as unfair world trade practices, the lingering effects of colonialism, disempowering foreign aid approaches, disabling policies of the World Bank, the devastating role of the arms trade, clandestine government support of dictators in the name of development aid, and how ‘tied aid’ served to boost our own economy in the name of ‘foreign development.’
         
The course shattered our naïve assumption of poverty being the result of a lack of education and the need for modern technology. It felt like a slap in the face to our false sense of innocence. Our exposure to this dark ‘underbelly’ of a society that we were part of inflamed us with a desire to do something!
         
We approached the International Development arm of our church denomination. They invited us to move to Liberia to develop a water & sanitation programme for an association of mission clinics and hospitals throughout the country who wanted to lower the high mortality rates from water- and sanitation-related diseases. Joanna focused on health education for women, teachers, and local health workers, while I worked with the men to build wells and latrines.
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We were wholly unprepared for what we got ourselves into. We found ourselves in a place where mystery, witchcraft, and violence reigned supreme – a country where cannibalism was still actively practiced, and with a government so corrupt that even the World Bank and US government were forced to stop providing aid. We also quickly found out that instead of technology and infrastructure, ’development’ is a social endeavour for which I had completely the wrong skill set!
         
I often refer to this crazy time in Liberia as a three-year-long out-of-body experience. But, at the end of that work term, we had “the bug” for International Development work. We were hooked!
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​Upon our return to Canada, I wrote myself a future job description to identify the training I needed to be better prepared for this kind of work. After applying these new skills for some time in inner-city neighbourhoods in Calgary, our young family embarked on this adventure in Niger. 

Below: Liberia, 1983-1987