Judy Acheson in Lubumbashi(Photo: © CMS)Honoured by the Queen in the recent birthday honours for 30 years' work with young people in Congo,
Judy Acheson MBE knows expats can make a difference. But they have to know when it's time to hand over, as she explained to John Martin
Henry Venn, the great 19th century CMS leader, believed the job of being a mission partner should never be considered permanent.
There should come a time to hand over to local people and move on.
After nearly 30 years in Congo Judy Acheson is handing over key youth work to local leaders.
“When I was first simply doing Sunday school work, I trained someone to take over," she explains. “I always felt that we were there in a country to share the experience we had and enable people to carry it on."
Her next role was pioneering youth work where “it was always my philosophy to empower the young people to do the work.” Most recently this has involved working with a team which has become the Provincial Youth Department.
"I have been working with the Rev Bisoke Balikenga since 1989. He took over from me at diocesan level. Later it became clear to the bishops he was the one who should take over at provincial level. I asked them to appoint him two years ahead of time. In Congo we often don’t do a long handover training, but I thought this very important."
Bisoke was one of the original youth team members. “You could see his leadership potential. People would listen to him and do what he asked. When we had visitors he looked after them.” Seeing his potential, CMS gave him and his wife a scholarship to study at Daystar University in Nairobi.
Judy recalls: “We tried to discern together what God was saying and how we could put it into practice. Gradually Bisoke became very much a right-hand man for me; he was never shy about saying ‘Judy, this is not a good thing to do.’”
As Judy has been working with the team that is taking ever the Provincial Youth Department, she is especially aware of the need to ensure a new leader has space to work in his own way. “This has always been hard in Congo. In the Congolese done as white people said.
“So we have always had to work that out. I'd say, ‘Bisoke, you are the administrator of the youth centre, you make the decision. He sat down with the young people who lived there. Together they made the rules about how they would live. It helped that there was superb parish vicar who was determined to empower young people.”
In the final stages the handover was conducted with Bisoke and his colleague Jean Bosco from 1,500kms away via phone and email. Their confidence is evident.
Judy says, “Sometimes they would say, ‘Judy you are an expat. There are things you think you hear that in fact it's different. We need to get right down to the grassroots, build up relationships with the bishops, and make this work truly ours'.
“I find that very exciting, because I know he's not going to say ' Ah well, we must carry on as Judy did it'."
Judy Acheson was awarded the MBE in the Queen's 2010 Birthday Honours List for services to young people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She is currently a consultant for the Anglican Church of Congo helping to develop a youthwork training centre in Mahagi in eastern DRC.