By Ben Terris

For some people, returning home after two years of living in Congo would be tough. Donald H. Livingstone hit the ground running. Back from a Mormon mission in Africa, Mr. Livingstone, a teaching professor in the department of finance at Brigham Young University, not only returned to the classroom but also landed a spot on the Board of Directors of Red Hat Inc., a Linux distributor and provider of open-source software, based in Raleigh, N.C.

Mr. Livingstone says he never expected that, as a 67-year-old man just back from two years abroad, he could land such a plum job. A Securities and Exchange Commission filing indicates that he will earn $70,000 a year for his board service, with an initial grant of stock worth about $300,000 and the possibility of $150,000 more in stock each year).

But he had a couple of things going for him. First, he knew a departing board member, a friend from Brigham Young who was about to go on his own mission, to Tokyo. Second, he knew business: He'd had a 29-year career at the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, and he had run the university's Center for Entrepreneurship for more than a decade.

Under Mr. Livingstone, the center gained an eight-figure endowment, created a program with 20 classes each semester and brought in 150 practicing entrepreneurs to help teach (including the late Larry H. Miller, then owner of the NBA's Utah Jazz).

Graduates of the program have gone on to found companies such as Omniture, a Web-analy­tics provider that was acquired this year by Adobe Systems.

"His financial acumen and experience working with entrepreneurial leaders enriches the dialogue our board members can have," says Brandon Asbill, assistant general counsel of Red Hat.

For Mr. Livingstone, the prospect of working for Red Hat is about a lot more than money; it's a chance to work for a forward-looking company.

"Since we use Linux, which is open software, we can literally have thousands of engineers working on our product. Much of our work is being done by outsiders, outsiders who together are forming a sort of community."

This is not the first time a sense of community has played an important role in Mr. Livingstone's life, he says. He had known for a long time that he would go somewhere on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He just never expected to go to Congo. When he visited Salt Lake City in 2006 to receive his assignment from church leaders, he thought perhaps he would go to Los Angeles or maybe even Omaha.

"After I heard it was the Congo, my jaw dropped," he recalls. "I didn't know anything about the country. So I went home with my wife and the first thing we found was a State Department warning that said not to go there unless you absolutely had to."

Still, he felt the mission was his religious duty, and he also knew that Brigham Young would help facilitate a relatively easy return to teaching. As an institution sponsored by the Mormon Church, the university has about 15 faculty members out on missions at any given time, and helping them make the transition back into the classroom is part of the university's own mission.

But that didn't mean the adjustment to living and working in Congo would be easy.

"The first week was an exercise in sheer terror," Mr. Livingstone says. Over the course of two years, however, the place grew on him. He formed friendships with dozens of African missionaries and says he couldn't remember a happier collection of people.

More than anything else, he learned about just how powerful a sense of community could be. He saw a Roman Catholic monastery without electricity or running water—showers were taken when the 55-gallon oil drum out back collected enough rainwater to dip a bucket into—that every Sunday became a place of worship for 1,000 people. The two-year experience was eye-opening.

"I thought I was going out there to help and teach, but really we were helped, and learned," he says. "No matter what I do next in academics or business, I won't forget what I was taught in the Congo."