Beckers

I am a third generation missionary kid following in the footsteps of my Grandfather, Carl K. Becker and my father, Carl K. Becker, Jr. who both served in Zaire/Congo. After graduating from Rift Valley Academy in Kenya, I went to Wheaton College in Illinois and got a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Communications. After Wheaton I worked for my Church denomination in Pennsylvania for a year. In 1976 I went to Kenya to work with the Africa Inland Mission running a mobile film van operation called Cinema Leo. At first the programme was based at Kijabe but then it moved into Nairobi. I was in charge of four mobile film vans showing educational and Christian films supported by commercial advertizing in the interval between films.

After Idi Amin fell from grace in Uganda, I was on the first plane into Kampala with a medical relief shipment that was also bringing in members of the new Government. These members invited me to do the same type of ministry in Uganda as I was doing in Kenya saying that moral reconstruction was also needed. So, I moved to Kampala and started Cinema Afrik - again with AIM. A few years later I was approached by International Christian Aid to become their Uganda Director to resettle Karamajong tribesmen, which I did.

Debbie and I were married in August 1982, just about a week after the coup attempt at the Seventh Day Adventist Church below the Pan African Hotel in Nairobi. I had to work two weeks in Uganda and then one week in Kenya where Debbie lived, on a regular rotation. Obviously, this made for a difficult adjustment to married life that was made even more difficult when about 11 months later Debbie miscarried.

In 1983, we moved together to Zaire/Congo to set up a new program there for ICA, but ICA lost its Christian direction and so we parted ways. We then had two extremely difficult years in Florida where Debbie worked in a basic secretarial job and I worked as a commercial photographer with a Defense Contractor.

At then end of those two years, we got a job in Chad with World Vision International where I was appointed Country Director and Debbie had a job as support services with computer work. We had a six-week intensive course in French and then got thrown in at the deep end. During the six years we lived in Chad it was a really HOT time both temperature wise since its on the edge of the Sahara and otherwise. Toward the end of our tour in Chad, we went through a Coup in which Debbie was evacuated out to Paris, France. I took my chances and stayed on to try and keep the World Vision program alive. This involved travelling around in a situation like the Wild Wild West trying to recover nine of our stolen World Vision vehicles in three countries. In Central African Republic, God promised me I would find all five that had been taken there. I "dropped off the face of the earth" for over ten days and nearly gave Debbie "heart failure". He did fullfill His promise even though I had to wait for the last vehicle until two hours before recrossing the border into Chad. It was a very difficult time but I found that God does have a very real sense of humor and really is closer than a brother in that kind of crisis.

About six months later we were given a new assignment by W.V. in Mozambique. Our first year was the last of the civil war which made for very interesting times. Gunshots were not uncommon and Debbie remembers looking out the window to see who was shooting and then thinking how stupid that really was when she should have thought about being on the floor. The second year was the first year of the "peace" and we had almost a million people returning to the area I was responsible for as the Provincial Representative and Commodities Officer for World Vision. Debbie was also given the job as Administrator. It was a 20 million dollar program and so we really had to put in a LOT of hours. Working in both "Rebel" and "Government" areas certainly had its moments - especially when I was the only neutral person "chairing" their meetings. That year we had to move nearly 6000 tons of food every month over an infrastructure that was destroyed by years of war to feed returning refugees. There were six government trucks outfitted against mines to do the first trips to new locations. Even then, we ended up losing two trucks to antitank mines killing the folk in one truck and seriously wounding the folks in another.

I was then offered the Africa Directorship of World Concern based out of Nairobi but they began having serious funding problems and so we looked for another alternative. I had heard that CBM needed a West Africa Representative from Dan Ward while visiting at his house one evening and so I applied for the job and got it. I had one year with CBM in Nairobi learning the job and then in April 1996 moved here to Lome, Togo where we have been ever since. I am the Regional Representative responsible for Christoffel Blindenmission's 96 projects in the 14 countries of West Africa. I travel almost 50% of the time visiting projects and coordinating funding. Debbie is working as support services here trying to keep our computer systems alive against all the odds in our local system.