Rodger Schmdit - Transformational Ventures at work series [1 of 2]

LISTEN HERE SHOW SUMMARY Hans talks with Rodger Schmidt, WorldVenture Missionary in Mozambique, about Transformational Ventures and how God is using eggs to teach leadership and business skills for missional growth. SHOW NOTES MOF_2009_09_09_Schmidts1_web_nvr.mp3

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

HANS FINZEL: Hi, this is Hans Finzel, president of World Venture, based in Littleton, Colorado. Our website is worldventure.com. Welcome to our radio program, Missions on the Frontline. World Ventures supports over a thousand mission projects and missionaries in over 65 countries. We’ve been sharing the good news of Jesus Christ around the world since 1943. This radio program is part of our new initiative to make you aware of new and exciting ways you can be involved in missions, and today I’m so excited to have in my studio here in Colorado, Rodger Schmidt who is a missionary in Mozambique, which is in east Africa. Welcome, Rodger.



RODGER SCHMIDT: Good to be here, Hans. Thanks for having me.


HANS FINZEL: And you just flew in from Africa last week. Are you still jet lagging?


RODGER SCHMIDT: No, I’m actually doing pretty good.


HANS FINZEL: You know, I went to visit Mozambique, but when I first went to Mozambique, I honestly have to admit I had no idea where Mozambique is. So let’s start by helping our listeners understand the geography. Where the heck is Mozambique?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Sure, Mozambique is in southeast Africa. If you look at the continents just north of South Africa or if you look at the island of Madagascar, directly due west you’ll find Mozambique.


HANS FINZEL: So across the water?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah.


HANS FINZEL: And I didn’t realize Mozambique was a beautiful country on the ocean.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah, we have about 1,800 miles of coastline.


HANS FINZEL: And what is that body of water called there? Is that a –


RODGER SCHMIDT: It’s the Mozambique Channel.


HANS FINZEL: The Mozambique Channel. I have also heard it’s the most shark infested waters of the world.


RODGER SCHMIDT: It is. We have lots of sharks. We have great white sharks and whale sharks. They’re actually amazing.


HANS FINZEL: ‘Cause I remember flying over it on my way to Madagascar in a little private MAF airplane and they were saying, “Now if we go down, here’s a little raft, but I want you to know, these are the most shark infested waters in the world.”


RODGER SCHMIDT: Good luck.


HANS FINZEL: That’s exciting. It’s a beautiful country, isn’t it?


RODGER SCHMIDT: It really is a beautiful place to live.


HANS FINZEL: And I wasn’t aware that Portuguese is the common language there.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah, that’s the language that we speak.


HANS FINZEL: It’s interesting because our ministry at World Venture began in Mozambique through Brazilian missionaries. Tell me about the unemployment problem. I was stunned to hear you talking about unemployment.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah, we have a major unemployment problem in Mozambique. The statistics are that we have 98 percent unemployment and what that means is that’s only two percent of the population actually has a taxable job where they’re actually making money to survive. There are lots of people who are making enough money just to eat a piece of bread or have some tea or something every day, but most of the population is without income.


HANS FINZEL: And it’s a subsistence type of farming. You said that the people, the capital, Maputo, what’s the population?


RODGER SCHMIDT: About 2.5 million people.


HANS FINZEL: And the total population of the country?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Is a little over 20 million.


HANS FINZEL: Yeah, so ten percent of the population lives in Maputo. The rest olive out on farms out in the villages. So why did you and your wife decide to become missionaries to Mozambique? How did that happen?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah, when we were really responding to what God was doing in our lives, we knew that we were interested in sub-Saharan and Africa and in that region, but we didn’t know where we wanted to go. So we began praying and reading and researching. We had two guiding principles. One was we didn’t want to go where there were lots of missionaries and we wanted to go where we felt the needs were the greatest. And as we began praying and learning about that region of Africa, it became pretty apparent, quite clearly and quickly that Mozambique was the place for us to be.


HANS FINZEL: Because of the great needs.


RODGER SCHMIDT: The needs.


HANS FINZEL: Could you describe that for our listeners, just could you run down what were the needs that really just overwhelmed you?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Sure. You know, especially because of 20 years of communism, we met people in our visit in 2000 that had one page of the Gospel of John for over 15 years. That’s all that they had. So we knew that there was a huge need to train pastors and leaders and help them minister to their own people. And matter of fact, that one pastor that we met, I asked him, “Why should we come?” And he said, “For all these years, this is all I have and now I have all of scripture and I need someone to help me communicate it well to my people.”


HANS FINZEL: And he was a pastor?


RODGER SCHMIDT: He was a pastor and so that was huge. You know, and then as I mentioned as well, such a young, young nation.


HANS FINZEL: Oh yeah, mention that to the listeners, the breakdown of the age of the population.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Seventy-five percent of our population in Mozambique is under the age of 25. There are very few men my age, mid-40s because they were all fighters I the war and they were all killed, most of them. And then 50 percent of the population is under the age of 15.


HANS FINZEL: Oh my goodness.


RODGER SCHMIDT: So this generation, young generation really holds the future of this nation in their hands.


HANS FINZEL: Now let’s get to – it’s exciting ‘cause the end game of what you’re doing, you’ve picked out eight or nine.


RODGER SCHMIDT: This year there’s nine.


HANS FINZEL: Nine young men that you’re pouring your life into and I love what I heard you say the other day when I heard you speaking. Instead of ministering to thousands or hundreds, you’ve decided to pour yourself into nine and that’s – I thought that sounds like what Jesus did. He had twelve. They weren’t all great, but I think that’s a smart strategy. But you went to seminary, right?


RODGER SCHMIDT: I did.


HANS FINZEL: You’re a seminary graduate of Denver Seminary. When you got to Mozambique and you’ve been there six years, you went through a huge learning curve, didn’t you?


RODGER SCHMIDT: I sure did.


HANS FINZEL: Did you figure out that they didn’t teach everything you needed to know in seminary?


RODGER SCHMIDT: I did and I’ve since told them that actually.


HANS FINZEL: Well, good. Well, the new president there, Mark Young, is a former World Venture missionary and he will be very receptive to any input we give him. What did you begin to learn as you started to – you know, you wanted to – by the way, first of all, how did you learn Portuguese? Did you learn Portuguese and how did you do that?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah, our first year in Mozambique, we were committed and we still are committed to communicating well not only in Portuguese, but in the other African dialects. Our first year, we were in class two hours a day five days a week for a solid year and then on top of that, we were practicing in the local communities and markets and looking for all kinds of ways to practice our skills. So – but it’s ongoing. After six years, we’re still committed to learning.


HANS FINZEL: So tell me about the learning curve that began to take place, ‘cause you went there to train leaders. That’s your passion and we believe at World Venture that we have to train others to do the work of the ministry. I know years ago, I heard William Kerry, who was a famous missionary to India, said that only Indians can reach India for Christ. So one of our philosophies at World Venture is to raise up nationals, give them great training and help them reach their country. That was your vision, but what was the learning process as you began to try to do that?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Well, that’s a big question because, you know, you go to, as new missionaries, you go to the field and you have a perspective of what you think life is going to be and what you’re going there to do and then you find out everybody doesn’t have that same vision for you when you get there. You know, because we’re also committed to working with the national church and we’re not an island to ourselves.
So the first learning curve was learning how not only to speak Portuguese and to communicate with our African brothers and sisters, but really come together on the same page that we can do something together. And to be honest with you, that was a very painful process because after learning Portuguese and my Mozambiquean partner who spoke some English, we both then could misunderstand each other in two languages.



HANS FINZEL: But I think the – I know when I visited you there several years ago, I got the impression that the national church maybe wasn’t the most mature developed group of people that it might be fun to work with.


RODGER SCHMIDT: No. It’s true. They’re wonderful people, but there is – it’s kind of like working with a 13-year-old. They’ve got skills. They’ve got ideas and they’ve got passion, but they’re a teenager and they’re not always looking for someone to come alongside. And that was a very difficult time for us because we really went to serve the church, to this day, and it was very difficult.


HANS FINZEL: One of the values we hold at World Venture is we don’t want to just go out and do our own thing and so when we go into a new country, and Mozambique is a new ministry for us, we respect what’s already there. We respect the national church and we try to bend over backwards to serve them, but that is a painful thing. Now, tell the listeners about the autocratic nature of the entire country.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah, and it really dates back to the Portuguese and definitely during the days of communism. Leadership and how the church is run is very much autocratic, which has been part of our learning curve too and how we’re doing ministry today. The pastors and those in government are put on a pedestal. They are respected and how that manifests itself is by complete authority and power and you can’t show your colors. You can’t be wrong and you can’t be questioned.


HANS FINZEL: So it’s true in the government; it’s true in business, in all aspects of life in Mozambique, autocratic top down leadership.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Absolutely.


HANS FINZEL: And that’s got to be hard because we in America are so big on servant leadership and we talk about it all the time and empowering leadership and listening and feedback and none of that was there, was it?


RODGER SCHMIDT: No.


HANS FINZEL: Wasn’t that hard? Isn’t that hard?


RODGER SCHMIDT: It was horrible, but with that said, part of the learning curve as we’re talking about is learning how to, in spite of those challenges, build relationships that are real, that are reciprocal and finding ways to influence that and to show a different way without destroying relationship. And there’s an art to that.


HANS FINZEL: That’s awesome and I applaud you for that because we don’t want to be – we do want to be servants. Now, let’s fast-forward to your nine men and how after a few years of trial and error, you decided to try a very different approach to ministry. How did you stumble into a businesses mission?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Well, it came from –


HANS FINZEL: ‘Cause I think you stumbled into it.


RODGER SCHMIDT: We totally stumbled into it. You know, we stumbled into it because we were looking to really redo and rethink how we do ministry in Mozambique and because our population is so young and we knew we needed to work with this generation, this emerging group of people. How do we do that?
And we really believe the only way to do that is to live in the community with them because we’re dealing with this area of leadership and talking about servant leadership. Well, the only way to do that is we had to pay for it. We had to come up with a way to live with these guys, which means housing and food and we thought, should we do scholarships, should we raise money as we’ve always done in the past to do ministry, and the answer was no.



HANS FINZEL: You didn’t want to continue that black hole cycle of just pouring more money into Africa?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Exactly. Absolutely.


HANS FINZEL: So you’re saying you and your family now live with these nine men?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah.


HANS FINZEL: How does that work?


RODGER SCHMIDT: It’s been the greatest, greatest thing in our life. We were terrified, what is this gonna be? We have nine Mozambiquean men who live in our home with us.


HANS FINZEL: That sounds very biblical because I was just reading the other day when Paul said, you know, I want you to do not only what you heard me say, but what you saw in me, and that can only take place life on life and that’s what you’re doing.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Absolutely, and if I can speak to that just for a minute, the biggest challenge of that is not the living part. You know, my sons now have nine older brothers and it ahs just been wonderful for them and for my wife and I too. But the challenge is, I can no longer hide who I am as their father figure, as their pastor, as their teacher and their mentor in leadership, I can no longer present a façade of perfection because they’ve seen me get angry. They’ve seen me make mistakes. They’ve seen me frustrated. They’ve seen me be unkind.
And because of our commitment to what we’re doing, it forces me to go back to them and confess that. And so that’s the hardest thing because I have to be transparent or the whole thing is a lie and so they’re beginning to see a completely different model of leadership, a different way of thinking, a different way of leading because they’re leading others throughout the whole community as well and they’re interacting with each other and it’s been wonderful, but there’s challenges because no more lies. WE are who we are.



HANS FINZEL: You’re living together.


RODGER SCHMIDT: We’re living together.


HANS FINZEL: In case you’re just joining us, this is Hans Finzel with World Venture and you’re listening to Missions on the Frontline. Our website is worldventure.com and I’m speaking today to Rodger Schmidt who is a World Venture missionary in Mozambique east Africa. Rodger, let’s move on to – well, let me ask you how you chose these nine men because you know, you mentioned how most of the population are young and how did you come upon selecting these nine?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Because we’re committed to working with the national church, we spent two years before we launched the ministry building relationships with Mozambiquean pastors and in talking about this vision and asking them to take a risk, a big risk and to send us the best of the best to invest three years of our lives into them mobilizing them into ministry.
So we spent two years building those relationships, gaining trust and helping them catch the vision and they identified these young men and they sent them to us. We interview them and make sure they’re the right fit for what we’re doing and that they have their own calling in the ministry, and then we invite them to participate.



HANS FINZEL: Okay, now let’s talk about the amazing, creative project that you began involving 4,000 chickens and actually starting a business so that these men would not only have discipleship, but would actually have sustainable jobs. How did you come up on this idea?


RODGER SCHMIDT: We were looking for a business to do ‘cause we knew that our ministry needed to be sustainable and we needed to start a business to not only employ our interns, but also sustain the whole internship. So we didn’t know what to do and we started once again researching and we found out that in the capital city of Mozambique, Maputo, we consume 800,000 eggs a day. Only 150,000 of them come from Mozambique. So there’s this huge market for eggs and it’s the perfect food. If you have no money, you can buy one egg. So it was an opportunity to not only minister to the local community and to the nation, but also create an industry and a business that could bring sustainability.


HANS FINZEL: And what is your vision today for – in fact, the name of the operation is Mozovos. What does that mean?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah, Mozovos is –


HANS FINZEL: Mozovos.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah, the first part is M-O-Z, which means – it comes from the name of our country, Mozambique. The second part is Ovos, which is Portuguese for eggs.


HANS FINZEL: Okay, so Mozambiquean eggs.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Mozambiquean eggs.


HANS FINZEL: And let’s just share the vision and what you’re trying to accomplish and then I want to go back and hear the story of how you – you know, all the pain you went through to create this.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Sure. Our vision for Mozovos is to mobilize the next generation of Christian leaders into a life of mission, and our mission is to take an active role in the transformation of the people of Mozambique economically, socially, physically and spiritually.


HANS FINZEL: Okay, so that’s the vision and you’re doing this through eggs. How many chickens do you have?


RODGER SCHMIDT: We currently have just under 4,000 birds.


HANS FINZEL: And so you decided to go into the egg business and then what were some of the learning experiences you went through?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Well, in our first year of production, we actually went out of business or didn’t go out of business, almost went out of business three times through problems with our suppliers and we had a supplier of our birds that went bankrupt with 3,000 of our birds and that was a difficult experience to survive. And our investors who were helping us start the business became very silent and I’m going, “Don’t they know we’re struggling?”
But they told me later, they said, “Had you not struggled, you would have not learned the lessons you needed to learn to be successful.” So that was really great, kind of. And then we’ve had other problems with just suppliers and bad feed and sick birds and all of that, but we’re still in business and we’re beginning to make a profit a little bit.



HANS FINZEL: And you’re a missionary. You were never trained as a businessman and this is one of the cool things that we’re so excited about. We call is businesses mission or here at World Venture we call it transformational ventures. But we are looking for business people that can help Christian business people in other nations to create sustainable jobs. And did you find that there were some business people here in the US that came around you to help you?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Absolutely. Matter of fact, Mozovos would not be in existence today without these guys.


HANS FINZEL: And that is such a great story, isn’t it?


RODGER SCHMIDT: It’s huge.


HANS FINZEL: And tell me how some of them have responded. You know, you were able to get a major $250,000.00 grant from a businessman in California to really get this thing going, but tell our listeners some of the response that these businesspeople have had as they’ve come around had helped you.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah, it’s been very encouraging to them ‘cause one of the things that all of them have told me is that finally, there’s a place in mission where they can not only give their money, but they can give their expertise and it’s been so true for us because Hans, as you said, I’m not a businessperson. I have no background. I think I am now, but I have no background in economics. I’ve never started a business in my life until we started this business in Mozambique and it was somewhat of an afterthought.
But it’s very important to what we are doing and these men are coming alongside us and they’re asking the hard questions that I don’t even know to ask. They’re mentoring me and they’re helping me mentor our guys to make sure that the work that we’re doing, which is the basis for all we’re doing, is successful. And they’ve just been really encouraged by it because it’s given them something real and concrete that they can actually participate in because they’re not theologically trained.



HANS FINZEL: Do you need more help from businesspeople?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Every day. You know, we would love to have someone who really knows business and understands the ins and outs to come either once a quarter or to actually come and live with us and become part of our team who can take on the whole business side of what not just Mozovos, but what we as a field want to do in the future.


HANS FINZEL: ‘Cause right now you have 4,000 layers, nine men, but you want to double your capacity. Don’t you?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah, we have to double our capacity.


HANS FINZEL: Why?


RODGER SCHMIDT: To bring the whole ministry into full sustainability.


HANS FINZEL: Right ‘cause you don’t have enough profit margin yet with the scale and so you’re currently here in the US on a one month tour to raise $75,000.00 to buy – what will that buy?


RODGER SCHMIDT: The $75,000.00 that we’re talking about will enable us to double our production, which means we’ll be able to purchase 4,000 more layers, purchase the cages they need to live in and we can do that without hiring any more employees, without any more overhead. Everything is in place and that brings our profit margin significantly so we can accomplish our goal of sustainability.


HANS FINZEL: Just to let our listeners know, Rodger, if they want to learn more about this, they should go to your website, right?


RODGER SCHMIDT: That’s correct.


HANS FINZEL: And what is that website?


RODGER SCHMIDT: They can go to mosovos.com.


HANS FINZEL: And that’s M-O-Z-O-V-O-S.com and there’s a beautiful brochure they can download and get some more information. You do need donations and not only donations. I mean, right now, that’s the urgent need is to get this money so that you can truly be sustainable, but also you’re looking for more businesspeople to come and consult and help you.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Absolutely.


HANS FINZEL: Just in the few minutes we have left here, let’s talk about your nine men. What has happened so far with these men as you now – you’re giving them a sustainable occupation. By the way, how long is the program that you’re gonna have these nine men?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Sure. These guys are with us for three years and while they’re working and participating in ministry with us, they’re also saving money. Every month, $40.00 of their salary goes into savings and because we’re teaching business as well and when they graduate, they will actually have done a business plan. They will take that money, it’s about equivalent to about $1,500.00 and –


HANS FINZEL: That’s a lot of money for them.


RODGER SCHMIDT: It’s a lot of money.
And the local bank is willing to match that if they can show a business plan and experience and they have a future with a low interest loan. So they could leave our internship with $3,000 to start their own small business that we believe will sustain one family, mobilizing them into a life of mission, which is our ultimate goal.



HANS FINZEL: So your goal is to have them spread out all over the country and –


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah, because then they’re –


HANS FINZEL: Be missional –


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah, their churches then can sent them anywhere in the country to do ministry as a Mozambiquean missionary to their own people.


HANS FINZEL: Wow, a tent-making missionary.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Absolutely. ____ _____.


HANS FINZEL: You know, that’s so amazing. I think if people have never visited a poor country with such amazingly high unemployment, they don’t realize how hard it is to plant a church if nobody has a job.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Right.


HANS FINZEL: Have you noticed that?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Well, no it’s a major problem. Typically what happens, church planting happens when they send someone to someplace who’s not qualified, who doesn’t want to go, to go do church and then they come back to the city to scratch out a living. So there’s very little relationship. There’s not a lot of, in my opinion, international ministry happening because it’s a form, not a relationship.


HANS FINZEL: Have you all started some churches already in your ministry?


RODGER SCHMIDT: I haven’t, but our nine interns have.


HANS FINZEL: Really?


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah. And over the last two years, these nine guys have planted two churches.


HANS FINZEL: That’s exciting.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah, it’s pretty cool.


HANS FINZEL: And just as we finish up, what’s something that you’ve seen them learn personally? I’m sure they’ve learned a lot, but what would you say is one of the greatest impacts that these nine young men have experienced?


RODGER SCHMIDT: I would think the biggest thing that they’ve experienced is that they are capable and that they’re gifted and that they’re called. One quick story, I was – and I’ve shared it before, but it’s so impactful of what God is doing, and just recently these nine young men led a funeral for our neighbor and typically in our country, that doesn’t happen and to see them lead, to care for the local community, to pastor them and to give them hope and to see the family respond that these young men are gifted, they’re called, they’re mature, and they actually are connected to the community has been amazing to see.


HANS FINZEL: And you said that the people, the family that lost the loved one came to you later and was shocked and what did they say?


RODGER SCHMIDT: They said, “We had no idea these young men could do something to that level that only the bishops and only the big guys with the big stomachs get to do, could do it with such care and maturity.”


HANS FINZEL: Wow, that’s a beautiful story.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Yeah.


HANS FINZEL: Well, thank you Rodger. Thanks for being with us today on Missions on the Frontline.


RODGER SCHMIDT: Thanks Hans, for having me.


HANS FINZEL: And keep up the good work. If you want to learn more about the Mozovos, go to mozovos.com and you can see their blog. If you’d like to donate to this ministry, go to worldventure.com under giving and you can find out how to do that. Thanks for listening today. This has been Missions on the Frontline. We’re here to expand your vision and make you aware of new and exciting ways you can be involved in missions around the world. And don’t forget to drop us a note. You can reach us at frontline@worldventure.com. This has been Hans Finzel, president of World Venture. See you next week on Missions on the Frontline.