Think small

When confronting massive problems like African poverty, forget theme parks and golf courses | Joel Belz

If, whenever you ponder the immense problems of the African continent, you don't think about the role of microenterprise and microfinance, it could be that you're just not thinking small enough.

The very enormity of Africa's challenges might tempt you to reason that only enormous programs with equally enormous budgets can faze them. AIDS and poverty and tribalism and famine and endemic corruption in government are not likely to be brushed aside with lightweight efforts.

But then you should pick up the Dec. 19 issue of The Wall Street Journal and read the sad front-page story of evangelical author and leader Bruce Wilkinson. True to his quirky Prayer of Jabez philosophy of always thinking bigger, Mr. Wilkinson went to Africa over the last couple of years with a program of breathtaking scope. His plan, as reported by the Journal, included building 50,000 cottages for a million orphans of AIDS in Swaziland, and a scheme for charging Americans $500 a week to stay in those homes while getting to know and helping the children. There was a theme park and golf course for tourists, and a program for the kids to put on rodeos and serve as guides in the wild game reserves. Just the first phase of the dream was pegged at $50 million, which was going to take a lot of Jabez-type praying. Now it has all collapsed, and Mr. Wilkinson has come back to the United States disappointed and disillusioned.