Wicked Problems

 I (Tom) was at a conference earlier this month.  It was all about innovation.  How do we avoid stagnation?  How do we avoid the pitfall of merely sustaining and move toward a place of innovation and change?

Funeral procession

One of the things that stands in the way of innovation, according to the speaker, are what he called “wicked problems.”  These are problems so big, they seem almost unsolvable.  They are so big, you don’t know how to define them.  They are so big that the people involved have different opposing agendas that aren’t going to go away.  They are so big that, they don’t just have one root cause, but multiple root causes that need to be addressed together.  They are problems so big no one person or one organization can solve it.  They are problems so complex, it’s even hard to say what the final solution looks like.  

We were encouraged to brainstorm and think about the “wicked problems” for our locations.  It was not hard to come up with a long list for the islands:

• lack of infrastructure
• corruption
• high unemployment
• trash
• lack of freedom of thought, both religious and otherwise
• illiteracy
• paternalism
• community pressure to conform
• persecution for those who don’t conform
• lack of opportunity
• illegal emigration
• lack of health care

On prayer day, got distracted by the trash pile on the beach

The list could go on and on.  It is not hard to think of wicked problems.  It’s easy to get stuck by them.  The speaker’s point in having us list them seemed to be to remind us of what we are up against and to help us remember that we cannot do this alone.  He then had a set of steps to follow that would help us address these wicked problems.  I liked his steps.  They seemed helpful, but at the same time, it felt like something was missing.

We mentioned in a post some weeks ago that Megan and I recently watched a documentary series about the Civil Rights movement—talk about a wicked problem.  We mentioned how the documentary could not disguise the fact that this movement was reliant on more than good strategies and engaging speakers.  There was a spiritual nature to the movement that imbued and injected and surrounded their actions.  It was not something they themselves were accomplishing.  They had Help.

One of the verses we meditated on during the conference was Isaiah 43:19 “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” 

At a village ceremony

It is good to think about the wicked problems and contemplate those we may not see yet, and even to use the tools suggested by the speaker to examine them carefully—but I like the words of this verse.  We are not the ones doing the new thing.  He is.  It’s already springing up.  The question is do we perceive it?  Are we ready to join him?  He does solve wicked problems, and if our eyes are open, he might use us to bring about those solutions.  May it be so on the islands.  May He use you and me—all of us, to solve these wicked problems.  So we pray for open eyes—“Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The island sister that Megan helped facilitate going to mainland Africa for medical treatment, had multiple opportunities to share truth with islanders living there, and found great openness. She also had a chance to record a new song to bless the community here. We have some house guests from the big island and we have been blessed to get to know them better and to see them interact with and encourage the brothers and sisters here. Tom is feeling all better. Our son at school in mainland Africa had a good final basketball game of the season.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We had news of another death this week— a former worker on the small island (from the same organization as the man who died the week before). Both men were not old and had invested years on the small island. Pray that in their deaths the messages that they taught would be well remembered. Pray for the wives and families as they grieve back in their home countries.  There are only a couple weeks before the month of fasting begins, which means a rush of events and visitors before that starts. Pray that we’d have the energy for all these activities and also be able to thoughtfully prepare for the month of fasting as well. Our daughter is going to be participating in a 3-day choir tour this coming weekend for her school in mainland Africa— pray that they would feel well-prepared and that both those who sing and those who listen would be blessed by the experience.