JAMESTOWN, NY (November 29, 2002) - What's a nice accountant like you doing in a place like this?

There were days when Erika Beckstrom of First Covenant Church in Jamestown asked that question as she went from working with corporate executives to explaining basic accounting procedures to missionaries in Africa. Beckstrom spent last year as a short-term missionary, returning in July from an assignment that included three stops on three continents. She said that her nine months in mission ministries gave her a unique appreciation for the workers she met.

Beckstrom spent five months in Burkina Faso in West Africa, two weeks in Monterrey, Mexico, and three months in Thailand. "When I applied, I had applied for just the summer (of 2001)," said Beckstrom. "A couple of people asked about me and Barbara Johnson (who previously coordinated short-term mission work for the Department of World Mission of the Evangelical Covenant Church) asked me if I would be willing to stay on for a year and go to more than one place.

"It was very, very enlightening as to what is being done in missions," said Beckstrom. "I didn't know much about the breadth of mission work being done. I had always thought of it as church planting, evangelism and things directly related to that. I didn't know there would be things for someone with a finance and accounting background."

Beckstrom first traveled to Africa last fall and began her work in Burkina Faso, collaborating with an interdenominational mission organization called Serving In Mission (SIM). She worked as an accountant with health centers in Piela and Mahadaga that were transitioning into a government entity. Thankfully, Beckstrom had some French language skills that allowed her to communicate with workers as they consolidated their bookkeeping systems. She also explained accounting principles that would allow those in Burkina Faso to broaden their accounting skills.

"You want to go in and provide advice, but not to go in with a haughty attitude," said Beckstrom in describing her initial months spent in training people for accounting in Burkina Faso. "In the United States we did what we had to do and just left. All of my work I did was with people with accounting and finance backgrounds. In these other countries, all of the people I worked with had no accounting training, but they were doing what they had to do (on the field). It was a much different working environment - it was really humbling to see both the missionaries and local people who hadn't been to school for accounting, but felt God was using them for accounting."

In February, Beckstrom headed to Monterrey to assist The Family Foundation, a non-profit organization loosely affiliated with the Evangelical Covenant Church. The Family Foundation, which has been open for more than a year, offers parenting classes, marriage enrichment classes and provides help for families with Down's syndrome children. She assessed the foundation's financial strategies with Covenant short-term missionaries Dana and Charles "Chic" Puckhaber and full-time missionaries John and Letha Kerl and Cindy Hoover.

Beckstrom had considered finishing her mission experience after returning from Mexico, but the day after she arrived in Jamestown she received an email from World Mission Asia Regional Coordinator David Husby asking for assistance with accounting and finance needs in Thailand. In April, she headed to Thailand and eventually split her time between Covenant mission sites in Bangkok and Roi Et. In Bangkok she assisted missionaries Carl and Karen Groot in setting up accounting and marketing procedures that were simple enough to be continued while the Groots left Thailand for itineration in North America. Karen Groot trained two women to run the managerial portion of the project. At Roi Et, she assisted Doug and Carolyn Johnson.

"They work through the local people with non-profit businesses they've set up," said Beckstrom. One example is the Abundant Life Center (ALC), which helps people from the Issan group in Northeast Thailand who came to Bangkok in search of employment. People leave their villages thinking they can find a job in Bangkok, a city of eight million people. "That doesn't always happen. The ALC assists families through community living, providing adult education classes and small CELL groups that serve as churches for the community."

Beckstrom completed her undergraduate studies at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. She worked five years for Arthur Andersen LLP in Chicago as a financial consultant and auditor. She left in the spring of 2001, just a few months before the company experienced fallout from a financial scandal involving one of the firm's clients, the Enron Corporation. Beckstrom has fond memories of her time at Arthur Andersen and believed the work she did was both ethical and valuable. However, her mission experience has given her food for thought as she considers how to best use her talents in the future - whether it is in the corporate world or elsewhere.

"I loved the work at Andersen and I loved the people," she said. "We worked with upper level management and attorneys and I really enjoyed it. We did work with companies in financial stress and tried to help. But there was something missing for me. And the past year really opened my eyes open to mission, both inside and outside of the Covenant. I had the opportunity to meet people within other churches and mission ministries. To see the work they're doing and the way the people appreciate it, I feel strongly now that I want to work for an organization whose mission I stand strongly behind."