Greg Harper helps create hope for tiny African village

Through ongoing Malawi mission, church group reaches out to impoverished village, and brings hope

Greg Harper, 52, has been a police officer for almost a quarter of a century, most of which has been spent with the emergency response unit (ERU, commonly known as the "SWAT" team). In a nutshell, when the public needs help they call the police, when the police need help they call the ERU. Greg is currently the unit commander for York Region, directing the handling of high risk situations. And if you were to meet him, you would feel most reassured that such a strong, calm individual with integrity to spare is directing a crack team that helps keep us all safe.

His caring nature led him to embark on a mission trip in the summer of 2006, instigated partly by his own personal faith journey which began following the death of a friend early that same year. He became a committed Christian, and joined a church. Eleven members of that church group, under the leadership of Minister David Sherbino, organized themselves to go on a mission to Kasenjere in Malawi to help the villagers finish a church that had been started over 10 years before. Greg and his wife Geri were two of the missionaries.

Greg had never really travelled before, and certainly not to a third-world country, which made the whole idea daunting to him. Until his return from Africa in September 2006, he did not realize it was to be a life changing experience. It was a humbling experience for Greg to see first hand how people struggle just to survive. It made him realize how lucky we are in Toronto, and how much many people take for granted. Predictably, he felt anger towards waste, ignorance, selfishness and complaining that prevails in parts of the westernized world.

"The biggest misconception about mission work, and I didn’t tune into it myself until the second time I went, is that it’s not about going and doing things for them – to build a school or a church for example, things they really can do for themselves," said Greg. "What is more important, more impactful for them, is the time that we spend together: the fact that we travel all the way across the world just to be with them, and that they are not forgotten."

"As soon as we’d helped them complete the church we wanted to do something to help them be more self-sufficient. Malawi suffers from droughts, and growing and storing grains to last through the really hard months (January through March) is a challenge. We asked Lewis, the pastor of Kasanjere, what they needed, and we initially keyed in on a storage facility to store maize. We purchased a manse with 75 acres of land (for $5000), and sent money ahead of our next trip, in 2007, for renovations, with a plan to build the storage facility without delay."

"Once we realized that there had to be something to put in the storage facility, we refocused the project on first establishing an infrastructure – getting water into the acreage, the ability to plant and cultivate crops of maize, harvest, store and mill the grains. This kind of work is helping the people to make a difference within their own community. Future plans include cattle, honey bees, more types of grains … anything that will help them improve their lives and nourish themselves."

Interestingly, Greg felt that he accomplished more on a personal level in his first five weeks in Africa than in 24 years of high stress policing. "Feeling the effect that your presence has on the people is the most rewarding aspect," he said. "They are truly unbelievably thankful for what you do, even though – to be brutally honest – to us what we do isn’t really that much."

Greg and his fellow church members plan to continue with the endless work that can be done in Malawi, to help. By being present, by forming personal relationships with real people, means that their plight is not something you can, in good conscience, walk away from.

As Greg said, "It’s not so much what you do there as about what you do when you come home. It’s about building awareness, educating people about the situation, and finding others who are prepared to help. The tiniest amounts of money can help in major ways. And more important than all of that, it gives them hope once they know they are not forgotten."

The work continues.

[Knowing about this story, Tempo Toronto has recently sponsored two high school age children so that they may complete their last year in school and graduate. If you wish to support Greg Harper and his church's cause, please contact us. tr@tempotoronto.ca]