Thinking Patterns - Evaluating Risks in Missions

I was travelling home with my son after shopping for groceries. These were what we bought:

1) Two 10 litre (10kg) Purified Water in plastic round containers.
2) Four cartons of milk in TetraPak.
3) A bunch of ripe bananas.

All were placed in the car boot. At each corners the water canisters were rolling around. Should have placed them on the floor where the rear seats are.

My reaction was: "Oops...the water canisters will roll onto the bananas and crush it.

My son's reaction: "I am afraid they will crush the milk cartons and mess up the boot!"

I was evaluating from my past experience while my son was looking from the perspective of risk management which he is currently pursuing in his university.

My background: I had an experience of liquid softener being split from its container and messing up my boot. But it was due to a loose cap. Probably a customer unscrewed it and then failed to fasten it tight. I could never imagined a TetraPak can be crushed by the 10kg water canister subsequently spilling out its content. I mean TetraPak is made of tough materials.

My son's background: Actuarial studies - managing risk. His thought, "What will be the worst it can happen if the water canister is rolling around?" The risk is there for it to crush the TetraPak thus releasing the milk. Crushed bananas will mess up a limited area.

Missions endeavors have its risk. 

All who participate in it must have an appetite for risk and mitigating it by having good counsels from experienced practitioners or at least by paying a field visit to do a due diligence. Those who is risk averse and/or had bad experiences will most likely take the easy way out. Latch on to an establish player and support them.

If this happens the local church would have missed out on a great faith adventure as well as also lose the opportunity to develop and train lay leaders. Further we may missed in supporting those who really have needs but may not be able to 'market' themselves or their 'products' due to small ministries or lack of communicative skills as well as not able to speak the language of the supporters.

Basically with some attention to details on the ground, have a keen observation skills plus working in teams the efforts will most likely yield good results to both parties. The benefactor and the beneficiary.

We need to pay attention to two areas of risk:

1) The evaluation of risk. The evaluation portion has to do with our training, background and good or bad experiences from similar endeavors. We need to get this right. From the perspective of good practices there is a need for a good variety of views when it comes to evaluation. There is also a need to check on the place (location) and the face (those involved in the field). Many eyes will made the evaluation more accurate. A field visit or more is essential to look into these matters:
- Evaluation of Project/Ministry
- Evaluation of Ministry Philosophy and Organisation Structure

2) The management of risk. The management side is more straight forward as it is done after the evaluation exercise. The key is to identify gaps in their understanding with regards to the project and also managing it. Then build their capacity and bring it up to speed.