Chapter One: Charting the Course

Opening line of book: “The purpose of this book is to describe a proposal for understanding the principles and practice of transformational development (positive material, social, and spiritual change) from a Christian perspective.” (1)

Transformational development transcends what is normally considered as Western modernization. It’s not about the “stuff.” Transformation seeks “positive change in the whole of human life materially, socially, and spiritually” to the point that people can be “finding and enjoying life as it should be.”

Christian witness is preferred over “evangelization” which implies the overzealous and culturally insensitive street preacher just off the plane or a series of tent revivals for the heathen. Development for the poor is a journey to the “ideological center” of a belief system. “These core values and beliefs are where we get our understanding of who we are and what we are for.” It shapes efforts to change the present with a “better human future and we should get there” as an outcome.

The Christian context of the approach taken in this book transcends proclamation by word only, but also in life and deed; an “active faith.” Myers calls Christians “the sixty-seventh book of the Bible.”

Paul Heibert’s notion of “the excluded middle” has had a strong impact on Myers’ approach to work among the poor in the Third World. [Ed. Note: Heibert’s article is archived at www.strategicnetwork.org...; premium subscription required. It is also in the Perspectives reader.] Westerners tend to view the world in two distinct and non-intersection segments: the first being the spiritual world with God at work in mystical ways and the second is the seen world with science and technology in the tangible realities around us. The missing section can be seen by examining a traditional animist worldview. To these poor, there exists the seen and unseen world, but there is also the “low religion” part of the unseen world. High religion (unseen) involves institutionalized religion and the seen world involves those things that are known and experienced. The low religion involves shamans, magic, curses, rituals, and some aspects of folk religion such as the evil eye and the spirit world.

Myers credits charismatic Christians as successfully working with the poor on the power level giving supernatural answers for what God is doing through the work of God through angels, healing, signs, wonders, angels, etc. Animists seek an explanation for the transformation happening through development work and rather than crediting their belief system, realize that something different is at work. They are more interested in power than in truth. This is why an animist will view a well that brings water out of the desert as a work of magic rather than on the technology level.

Again, the words, deeds, and signs work together among the poor. “Words clarify meaning of deeds. Deeds verify the meaning of words. Most critically, signs announce the presence and power of One who is radically other and who is both the true source of all good deeds and the author of the only words that bring life in its fullest.” This is why revelation works to explain the spiritual realm while observation and reason help interpret the earthly realm. In other words, our Christian activities are not separate, but a “tool for knowing or working in the real world.” Science is not separate from God’s work. Westerners are warned to understand the spiritual implications of their work – as a way to facilitate the Gospel!

Chapter 2: The Biblical Story

Myers does a great service by pointing to the oral learning preference that virtually universal among the poor. He recommends switching to a “narrative account of the biblical story.” By “storying” the entire word of God, the poor have an opportunity to hear the full account of God’s involvement in the world. The worldview issues of the locals are portrayed in the idea of a people’s “story.” It influences their perspective—and worthiness—not only in the eyes of Westerners, but in God’s view as well. Myers brings in the biblical narrative as a way to explain to the poor how God is at work in their world.

The Great Command of Jesus (loving God and your neighbor) is at the heart of two things: (1) Transformational Development—The Fall (Adam & Eve) was not God’s plan. Sin causes the world to be broken in every aspect; and, (2) Christian witness—walk with the poor to help them to re-establish a saving relationship with God and then walk away.

Redemption is now God’s purpose for mankind.

Christians have the best story that explains the best source of Power for action, and the best reasons to express care rooted in WORD, LIFE, and DEED. (re-occurring themes)

Exodus is a role model of God at work. It is not a Western model relying on science and technology, but spiritual answers. God freed Israel, but also taught Pharaoh that he wasn’t God. (An idea needed in our world today.) The long-term outcome is in God’s hands. The future defeats injustice and the ills of poverty.

The poor have a paradox. They are simultaneously the least receptive to God’s story, but for whom God’s story is most relevant. Keep the narrative in perspective of a Beginning and an End. However, a people group’s story is also part of God’s big story. Creation wasn’t completed until people groups in Genesis 10 (Babel). All peoples of the world have this in common.

Genesis is important in development because we learn God intended for every person to work and not be worked for. We must share resources, have a responsibility to work, expect growth, and share the results. “Everything belongs to God.” (25)

Deception, distortion, and domination cause poverty. These are spiritual problems resolved only through Jesus. Development work must convey the gospel to be transformational. Satan must not be overlooked or omitted from the Bible story as causal and adversary to God’s purpose and plan. The Fall influenced more than the spiritual side of mankind, so we must be, too. Sin affects the ills of economy, politics, and the religious systems that deviate from the Bible. Psychological changes are needed to turn slaves into freemen in Christ. Cost is great in terms of wealth and power.

“The net result of the fall on the economic, political and religious systems is that they become the places where people learn to play god in the lives of the poor and the marginalized.” (29)

Jesus transformed lives of those in need. Yet in all He did, He redirected praise from Himself to God. It’s about more than workers. Jesus turned people to the Kingdom of God. It’s more than Christians or the Church. The Kingdom is also more than tactics and effort from good intentions, even love. It’s love that hurts to the point of death, and cares enough to tell the truth, always free of hate.

“The doctrine of the Fall affirms the radical nature of evil and frees us from any illusion that we or our social institutions are perfectible apart from the redeeming work of Jesus Christ and the full coming of the Kingdom of God.” (30)

Jesus was the ultimate role model. He was the center of the culture and redefined Israel’s center to God’s center. It didn’t matter that Jesus was not from Jerusalem or hold status there. Look at the poor through Christ’s eyes. He changes who the core is. And He did not work alone in his mission. “Transformation is the work of a community; it is not served well by lonely ‘cowboys.’” (35) “Transformational development that does not work toward such a church is neither sustainable nor Christian.” (39)

God works in truth (upper levels of formal religion), in power (excluded middle religious level by the West), and in love (the known or seen world). Science only goes so far—it can’t explain what things are for. Technology and science cannot stand separate from Gods’ Story at work in the lives of people groups in need. “God has no enemies who lie beyond the love of God, even the most vicious, grasping, greedy landlord. … God’s love of us and our neighbor can be a tough, truth-telling, there-are-consequences, your-soul-is-in-danger kind of love.” (51)

Chapter 3: Poverty and the Poor

Myers also pulled ideas from Jayakumar Christians who pulled from Chambers and Friedman. Jayakumar addressed the social interplay that traps people into a cycle of poverty. Inner-group conflict results in “oppressive relationships” that bully the poor that can be addressed on the spiritual level. The other social aspect was the network of relationships upon which the poor rely. Think blind leading the blind, which means the spiritually blind make terrible leaders, detrimental to the poor around them without spiritual revelation that brings godly changes. Loss of hope is a downward spiral that excludes a path that would involve a loving God.

“The world tends to view the poor as a group that is helpless; thus we give ourselves permission to play god in the lives of the poor. The poor become nameless, and this invites us to treat them as objects of our compassion as thing to which we can do what we believe is best.” (57)

Complex relationships and social structures were examined. Poverty exists on different levels. Relationships among the poor can be unhealthy. The concept of marred identity is important because it sustains a cycle of poverty. Myers adds the spiritual aspects of poverty to the socio-levels of society or culture. At the core of the entanglements and nature of poverty lies an answer only as God provides in Jesus Christ. Needs differ from the structures that cause those needs. A Christian’s compassion cannot ignore the need that must be addressed; no withdrawal for study periods. Meet the need while simultaneously analyzing the micro- and macro-cause of the need or deficit.

Children, youth, and women were identified as both a special concern and special opportunity. Women comprise two thirds of the world’s illiterate. “The poverty of women is physical, spiritual, and social.” (65)

The nature of poverty is one aspect, the other is the causes of poverty. For instance, it is easy to see a village lacks water. Providing water seems to fix the problem at first glimpse. However, upon further analysis, the cause of the water shortage causing the poverty is actually the ownership of the water. Ownership is affected by the social structures, for instance a caste system. Then there are groups and classes and, at the bedrock level, would-be ideologies and values that deem who is worthy of water. (See diagram on page 82.) Yes, meet the need, but know the stream of causes.

The non-poor face their own web of lies, nets, and strata of problems. On one level, they strive to maintain the status-quo to preserve their power, but on another they become entombed by their possessions. (A man should live in a house. The house should not live in him.) The non-poor develop god-complexes and entitlement attitudes that can only shift with spiritual transformation. The ideological center must not build structures that trap the poor. The haves may also point to fixed social orders or sinfulness (lazy, drugs, etc.) as a deception. It is true malnourishment can diminish intelligence, but the non-poor and the macro-systems in place must not let generations continue to suffer.  Change is needed for providing access to adequate nutrition and healthcare for people that God loved so much He both created them and died for them.

“When people believe they are less human, without the brains, strength, and personhood to contribute to their own well-being or that of others, their understanding of who they are is marred. Similarly, when the poor do not believe that they have anything to contribute, or that they cannot be productive, their understanding of their vocation is distorted as well.” (88)

The ultimate poverty exists for those being raised by “deviant, delinquent, and criminal adults.” (1979, Dilulio, p. 89) Spiritual poverty can and does blend into the real world as the poor pay for charms, feats, and rites given as an attempt to manage those holding power over them. At the heart of poverty is sin that binds people into self-imposed limitations. They seek self-improvement without the Holy Spirit’s involvement. These chains exist for all poor and non-poor living apart from following Christ daily.

“The poverty of the non-poor is fundamentally relational and caused by sin. The result is a life full of things and short on meaning. The non-poor simply believe in a different set of lies. The only difference is that the poverty of the non-poor is harder to change.” (90)

Chapter 4: Perspectives on Development

This chapter includes influential men dealing with poverty. It serves as a history of sorts. The technical aspects of their work were very academic. Their work is presented, discussed, and critiqued by Myers. At first, a concern surfaced regarding Marxism and Liberation Theology with its socialistic responses. However, Myers kept it with an evangelical framework while challenging believers to develop a healthy interaction between activism and politics.

1. Wayne Bragg—A 1983 Wheaton College consultation listed nine characteristics of transformation, but in the context, the paper was deemed very political. Myers pointed out the paper focused on the redistribution of wealth, but not creation of wealth. Worst of all, Bragg put the poor in such an idealized light that the poor were not to be bothered by being involved in their own problem-solving, poor things.

2. David Korten in 1990 proposed people suffered from poverty, environmental destruction, and social disintegration. Korten proposed three principles for sustainability, justice, and inclusiveness as arenas of change. Korten insisted development workers need a philosophy to shape their strategies. Strategies fall into four categories from responding to symptoms to digging to root causes. The four are response, community development, work for sustainable systems, and promoting people movements (everyone pulling together over time). Myers criticized the need to choose and work on one level at a time instead of figuring out ways to address all four simultaneously. He even suggested hybrids of the four and also a way to use networks of like-minded partners. He also pointed out people movements were very rare.

3. John Friedman says the poor are powerless to effect change. Households use groupings around them for improvement. A web of relationships can grow (called “transformational frontiers”) in an irregular as-needed basis. The bad news, according to Myers, is the non-poor resist the poor making advances into their realms. Friedman also neglects spiritual networks and causes. However, Friedman challenges Christians to develop a theology of political engagement that benefits the poor.

4. Robert Chambers is concerned about more than wealth or poverty, but well-being for everybody. (Think quality of life.) Livelihood security is defined as the flow of goods and adequate stocks available, and having the capability to achieve equity and sustainability. The five italicized words above are the transformational frontiers that form the poverty trap. Myers says that Chambers ignores the “missing middle” like witch doctors, landlords, fear of evil spirits, and other influences which suppress the will to change. Like Friedman, Chambers relies on the goodwill of the non-poor to participate in the change process, especially correcting injustice in the political arenas.

5. Jayakumar Christian’s views are loved by Myers. Christian builds on Friedman and Chambers so that the issues of development are addressed in the power realm of Christianity. He addressed the Kingdom of God overcoming a web of lies that mars the self-identify of the poor that perpetuates ungodly poverty. Development work is done in a way that brings value and indeed values the poor. Healing, recognizing God’s image, communicating the Good News, prayer, and fasting are vital for success. Together, the worker and poor walk together toward God’s Kingdom. Myers believes that Christians could be stronger adding poverty of purpose to identity and doing. The purpose helps workers meet expectations and avoid disappointing those among the poor.

Chapter 5: Toward an Understanding of Transformational Development

Transformation happens as the poor become involved and discover God’s purposes fulfilled in their own time and way. This may or may not be ultimately credited to relief workers, donors, or community developers. Just as the West has found solutions that have worked, so the poor must journey, too. Unlike many in the West, Christian workers have the opportunity to help the poor arrive at a more godly Christ-centered solution. Myers frames the process of change to be:

•    Affirming the relationship between God and mankind.

• Restoring broken relationships on a number of levels.

•     Keeping the ultimate objective in mind as a point of focus.

• Recognizing Satan is working to defeat genuine transformation.

• Seeking truth, justice, and right-living.

There are three stories in any community on earth: an individual’s story, the culture’s story, and God’s story. All three converge in transformational development. “Only by accepting God’s salvation in Christ can people and the community redirect the trajectory of their story toward the kingdom of God. This is the bottom line of every community’s story, poor and non-poor.” (112)

God not only has a better future in His plan, but He is constantly inviting people to move into it! The Kingdom of God is more than about providing an afterlife: on this earth, it changes poverty that exists in the physical, social, mental, and spiritual parts of lives. To reach that objective takes more than a transfer of “stuff” or “training.” “A flawed process can make the poor poorer by further devaluating their view of themselves and what they have.” (116) The poor need to rediscover their identity and what God wants them to do about their situation. Restoring identity and developing character lead to a new vision so the “web of lies is unmasked for what it is.” (117)

Recovering identity and discovering vocation are linked to God, to themselves, and to the community around them. Myers speaks to reconciliation as transcending the harmful actions against you or the community to the point the instigator is no longer considered “other” in the culture. When people are labeled as “other,” it fragments the society. Separation happens among the poor and non-poor. Only by embracing Christ can the complete truth be said and justice derived. The Parable of the Prodigal Son is a good example (Luke 15:11-31). Otherwise, “the will to exclude creates blindness.” (120)

Moving toward a better future is only possibly through development workers encouraging and developing just, peaceful, and harmonious relationships. Relationships are often affected from a distance. Myers recommends empowering to the most local levels possible. It is possible to “play God” from a distance; it’s often easier. Concerns for bringing change must encompass all levels. Often the poor do not have a voice among the powerful. Sometimes the poor are trampled in the process. Goodwill erodes into harmful consequences. There are nine warnings that should be heeded. These are listed on page 125. They include:

• Increasing competition and suspicion

• Freeing up local resources for further exploitation, violence, and war

• Distorting local business activities

• Giving credibility to those holding political power

• Favoritism causing separation and increasing tension

• Generating competition among segments

• Contributing to violence by hiring guards

• Reporting to the public causes local anger and further alienation.

Churches and small groups make the greatest contribution when they serve as encouragers and not judges, provide a source of “value formation” in the community as more and more believers tell the Good News, and gets the local believers to contextualize the efforts so that God is praised.

Transformational processes should not depend on outsiders. Dependence on external resources often causes the poor to suffer worse in the long-term. (They are worse off than before.) Often this has nothing to do with money, but feelings of being special are gone and services that provided encouragement leave the poor in isolation and despair. When outside influences are removed, the movement of transformation may no longer be sustained. Myers lists sustainability measures for physical (healthcare), mental well-being, social (community relationships), and spiritual sustainability. Does the church go beyond their own walls? Do they work among the Christians as well as non-believers? The church should model God’s Kingdom in the here and now.

“Soul care is the development of personal faith, personal devotional life, day-to-day application of the faith, commitment to truth and teaching of the biblical command to love God and your neighbor as yourself. Social care is community service, importance of social interaction, helping the poor, and correcting injustices in society. (1997 Posterski and Nelson, p. 134) [My emphasis.]

Chapter 6 Principles and Practioners

The twin goals of transformational development are changed people who have discovered their identity as children of God and just and peaceful relationships. “Social systems are counter-intuitive and dynamical (a technical term meaning non-repeating and nonlinear.) They will self-organize, but they are not particularly amenable to management and control.” (15)

On the surface, this chapter is a how-to and how-to-be chapter. It is full of advice and incredibly pithy or downright profound sayings. Myers pulls from years of development work to provide both warnings and godly counsel.

There is a need to listen to those in the community. Listening needs to happen on several levels. Really hearing what they’re saying adds value to their existence. We tend to think linearly and bull our way into a situation where we may or may not be invited. The notion the locals understand their environment requires Christians to pay attention. After all, they are survivors. Symptoms may come from the real world, but may intermingle with the supernatural. Religious structures most often reflect a need beyond local resources to address.

“Asking the community to locate God in its history is a way of helping its members to discover that they are not God-forsaken.” (139) “Enabling people to discover and declare their survival strategy is part of healing the marred identity of the poor.” (141)

Social and survival systems are complex. A pre-arranged plan will likely fail without addressing the whole strata of relationships of the local system. However, you start at the place where the people find themselves. Because the poor have survived to this point means they know several things that actually work. That’s why scientists today are taking a new look at herbal remedies and practices that actually heal and protect. Even the poorest person knows water exists under big trees and anthills. It takes humility and patience to understand the poor. This is accomplished when we hold off on management-by-objectives and choose to evaluate the situation frequently. “We have to evaluate often enough to ‘learn our way’ into the future.” (146) Participation by the locals is essential to restoring healthy relationships with themselves and their community.

A step-by-step work model was adapted (148-149) that can serve as a model for P.E.A.C.E. teams to follow. [This document was originally written for the PEACE Plan articulated by Rick Warren and Saddleback Church.—Ed.] This is the traditional model. However, it excludes many spiritual elements that will separate secular from Christian development work.

Characteristics of a holistic practitioner were detailed. The Christian offers the only reliable answer to poverty, because evil is at work, and God is the only antidote. The workers’ attitude must be godly to be a neighbor, be patient, humble, learn, and find that God is at work everywhere. Spiritual discernment is necessary because “every moment and every action is potentially transforming…. Everything we do carries a message.” (151)

“Though Christian relief and development agencies do devotions, study the Bible, and worship together, the church is the only community that God has chosen to be the home and family of God’s people. A local church is God’s choice for the community of the Word, the place where the sacraments and local accountability are to be found.” (154)

On Job Training (OJT) works very well. Nobody can ever learn enough. We must rely on the Holy Spirit and God’s Word. The right people with the right gifts doing the right work is the aim. Training will only work when it is intentional and systematic “formal training, hands-on experience, and mentoring, both within the agency, and, if at all possible, through the churches [that the] agency staff attend.” (158)

Workers are stretched to the point of needing care and counseling. They discover new truths about God—and about themselves. If they don’t then something is wrong. The grind and encroaching cynicism can result over time if the worker doesn’t step away at regular intervals. “Holistic practitioners who give up everything—themselves, their marriages, the well-being of their children—to be successful among the poor, are not doing the work of God. They are making idols of either their work or of the poor.” (163)

An appendix to this chapter could be used in developing a job description or evaluation of a worker.

Chapter 7: Development Practice: The Tool Kit

The “tool kit” is a review of questionnaires, surveys, and other interview techniques that social workers and community developers have used over the years. Most of these are very secular. After a review of these methods, Myers centered on tools that are very appropriate for Christians to use in cross-cultural ministry among the poor. Instead of just focusing on problems, this new approach, called “Appreciative Inquiry” builds on what the community is (or the poor are) already doing right. The “AI” approach is so positive it makes the other methods seem to wallow in drudgery of the problems. The chapter also includes strong suggestions for trying to help women and children.

The traditional development approaches view the community as a cesspool of festering problems that need fixing. It places the development workers into the role of rescuers, which Myers repeatedly hammers away as being great for Western agencies seeking fame and successful fundraising, but in the long-term being detrimental to the poor. When Westerners understand their bias about their own cultural assumptions and ideas of right and wrong, then more objectivity is possible for transformation.

The problem with most community development programs happens right at the original assessment. That is why Myers keeps hammering away at principles and offers these “tools.” “If we do not understand the whole family of systems—social, personal/psychological, spiritual, and cultural—our assessment of cause and response is limited.” (170) The P.E.A.C.E. Practitioner will need to understand Christ is almost always removed from any analysis process by secular sources. Community development programs have been described by the brainiest researchers as “the process by which vulnerabilities are reduced and capacities increased.” (Anderson and Woodrow, Harvard, 1989, 171) At least one Christian researcher cries for spiritual transformation. “Ultimately all power belongs to God. Thus the slogan power to the people is not a biblical concept for the poor or the non-poor” (Christian 1994, 172).

In the early 1990s, two analyses of social development offered two planning tools that provide a bedrock of analysis—Myers liked Rapid Rural Appraisal in the 1980s and noted it was updated to become the PLA—Participatory Learning and Action. The PLA provides a series of probing questions to help outsiders interact with the poor to better understand their situation. Myers says one strength of PLA is it can be used to give the poor (including women and children) the empowerment to become their own advocate on the governmental and business strata.

“Appreciative Inquiry” is given an in-depth look. “Instead of looking for what is wrong or missing and then developing problem-solving responses, it looks for what is working, successful, and life-giving, and attempts to see additional possibilities.” (176) By imagining a wholesome future, the poor have a beacon to guide them. Myers makes the case for AI and PLA working together so positive investigation is possible from the outset.

In Sri Lanka, one irrigation scheme developed by Norman Uphoff has been successful using AI for seven years. Myers adds, “Together, ideas, ideals, and friendships (relationships) release social energy, energy needed to overcome resistance to change that lives within the poor and non-poor alike.” (179)

Myers invested several pages examining what can be learned from development transformation. The worker needs to know who will benefit from evaluation, the changes that it brought (in identity, jobs, relationships, and values), and the lives changed. Myers advocates working so closely with the poor that when plans are developed that the community be able to tell “how well we lived up to all this and to what degree its members shared our vision and value. I suspect a lot of learning would take place.” (185).

Critical issues:

The two biggest issues are women and children. Myers stressed the importance of listening to women and children. Cultural values often suppress the poorest segments of the poor from having a voice—or a choice—in their own solutions.

1. Myers believes women are the key to transformation in almost every culture because of food preparation and childcare responsibilities. Often they know things the men in a community do not know. Women are traditionally more relational in daily interactions. They share ideas, innovations, and can talk bad about unproductive methods—and also through ignorance maintain stigmas. “The incarnation is particularly attractive to women because they tend to see God at work in everyday activities such as getting food and washing clothes.” (190) The AI approach seems to work well with women because they tend to be more intuitive and compassionate.

2. Children are usually the most voiceless in the society. They are seen like “passive recipients of development aid.” (191) Children are the future. Childhood is when values are formed. Physical development requires nutrition to fuel healthy brain and body functions. And there are so many of them! Children comprise approximately 40% of the Third World population. (191) Children can bring change to their own people. In many productive places, children have formed committees to address issues that are important to them—abuse, violence, drinking, addictions, and even political corruption. AI helps them articulate a dream for a new future.

3. A Western sense of time (and timing) doesn’t always jive with the pace of life among the poor. Sustainable transformation is not slave to an arbitrary timetable. Chronology is helpful in carrying out activities (wells dug and graduation from school), but changing the identity and job-creation requires a different pace. Impatience is a detriment to most projects.

4. Don’t tune out the spiritual side of life. Community development work often centers on the physical plight demanding our attention and “values, religious practices, spiritual oppression, and the like limits our development response as Christians.” (193) Few, if any, causes of poverty or ill will credit “spirits, demons, curses, ancestors, gods… shrines, sacred trees, and places no one will go to at night.” (194) Most communities trust that visitors to their culture retain some sort of power. Some have technological power, while others see economics, political power, and other environment-influencing strata. But how do the poor detect a Christian’s source of anything is from God alone when only, say, technology or business practices are being implemented? That is often why benevolence might be rejected—it would offend the local deities. “Since the daily life of traditional cultures is devoted to managing the power and control of the unseen spirit world, they are quite sensibly weighing the cost of innovation.” (195) Fate (karma) often has a hand in explaining whatever the villagers cannot grasp. One of the most important questions a Christian can ask is, “What influences these areas of your life?” (196) In one village in India, seven of eight causes of the people’s problems were believed by the people to be supernatural in nature.

Four appendices were included at the end of this chapter.

Chapter 8:

Christian Witness & Transformational Development

Agencies must understand the opportunities and challenges they face as Christians. Although witnessing is not an option, there is concern for how this is carried out among the poor. The trick is to marry development principles with witness. Lesslie Newbigin’s contributions include unifying three major forces: life, deed, and word. Myers sees the continuum of holistic approaches blurring the lines between evangelism and discipleship. Where the secular developer wants changed lives and changed relationships improved among people in a community, the Christian wants the life relationships ultimately improved through knowing God. Sharing the entire biblical story is one major key to success. “It is the whole biblical story that carries the account of who we are and what we are for, that declares the lordship of Christ over all of creation and all our relationships.” (18) One of the best contributions was helping Christians interpret science and technology so it points the poor away from man’s efforts so a relationship is deepened with the Lord. Because of Myers’ close relationship with New Tribes Mission, he endorses Chronological Bible Teaching.  (CBT constantly jumps ahead in the biblical narrative so that Christ is featured regularly.  Chronological Bible Storying in use by the major evangelical missions agencies prefers communicating the Bible in a continuum with the idea that those who can’t, won’t, or don’t read may have a timeline upon which to build an “oral Bible” which may be more easily re-told than the CBT approach.)

Christians should not be ashamed or shy away from opportunities to convey their witness among the poor. “Christian witness is the beginning of transformation.” (204) Evangelism must be intentional to be effective. “This is not a call for proselytism; neither is it a call to coercive, manipulative, or culturally insensitive evangelism. It is not even a call for development practioners to become evangelists…. Rather it is a call to be sure we do our development with an attitude that prays and years for people to know Jesus Christ.” (205)

Myers understand evangelism as verbally communicating the good news of God’s grace rather than “propositional statements.” (206) It is more than a set of ideas, but a relationship available for everybody. It is literally a new story for us, the community, and from God.

In a community deep in the Sahara, a well was being dug by a Christian humanitarian aid organization. When the people were asked to describe what was going on, the people said they were witch doctors divining the spirits of the ground to send up water and consulting a magic book to seek power, just as their imams did with the Qur’an. The people said they were very good witch doctors because they never failed to locate water. Unfortunately, the workers tried explaining the technology which the villagers took to be a mystical explanation of how the gods worked. An explanation should always be ready to explain in terms of God’s creative power and His wisdom as His servants. Otherwise, idolatry and the occult are glorified.

Many cultures will view a Christian’s benevolent efforts as earning points for salvation; a works-based mentality prevalent in Roman Catholic, Muslim and Buddhist cultures. Even explanations of God’s power at work only results in eventual secularization of the community. “As soon as the people figure out, as in the West have, that technology works without God as part of the explanation, in time God is dropped from the explanation.” (207) Instead, we want people to worship God at the end of our efforts.

Christians often carry a self-righteous attitude into the field. They don’t mean to most of the time, but they confess knowing where eternity is headed and hold all the answers for the poor. Instead of humbly sharing the gifts God bestowed on them, they inadvertently convey god complexes. Development work always surfaces questions. Something is changing and they want to know why it is happening. Development workers must make their lifestyle, their words, and their deeds resonate with God’s story. This is what Jesus did, what Peter preached at Pentecost, and what Stephen communicated leading up to his martyrdom. Life, word, and deed are the keys to Christian witness that transforms relationships, alters a community’s story, and ushers people to the throne of God. Don’t separate life, deed, and word—they’re part of the holistic mix.

The PLA and AI toolkit described in Chapter 7 only go so far. The worker’s incarnational presence must be for a reason. It must constantly focus on the Lord. Invitations are crucial. This is not arrogant or “imperialistic,” but a call from the heart of God. “The gospel of Jesus Christ is the best news that we have, better than community mobilization or development technology.” (212)

Don’t compartmentalize evangelism separate from discipleship. We tend to move on to others after they accept Christ as Savior. By moving on, we miss the opportunity to have people understand Christ as Lord. The Christian walk is not a series of facts to accept. Living as Christ wants us is a moral imperative. New converts need to be assured of their faith, too. Conveying the Old Testament is extremely important, and often overlooked in a rush to get to the cross. Most cultures can closely identify with Israel’s struggles and need to know the hope of anticipating a Messiah. [They need to know why it was necessary for Jesus to come and save them instead of obedience to endless cycles of rituals, sacrifices, and regulations.]

Christian witness is defined as living exemplary lives with the mind of Christ. Christian workers must see “the fingerprints of God” in their daily lives as well as in the work. (217) For every lie that is challenged, the Truth must replace it. Psalm 104 was lauded as a metaphor for seeing the fingerprints of God—a model for workers to use in explaining God at work.

Powerful example (220-221): One people group believed that they were eternally cursed by the Hindu god Krishna. A rival god tempted Krishna by an evil woman who bore a dark-skinned forefather of this people group. When the unwanted son accidentally killed Krishna’s favorite bull, he was cursed. The group explained this banishment was why they left the Himalayas and relocated in India. Of course everything in their lives would be cursed! Nobody loved them or sought to bring them out of poverty. Poverty was the marred identity of these people. Any number of new wells would not change this people group’s perceptions on life and their role in it. Myers called for a new set of stories to replace their old story. The challenge was to recompose it through recognizing God created everyone and everything. The deception of sin and the fact that we are all sinners apart from God’s grace has transforming power. They must understand that they have been deceived; a cause of their poverty.

As Paul and Barnabas were treated as gods for a miracle (Acts 14:11), so may the workers’ efforts be misinterpreted. Deeds and words and life must be explained in the way that everyone can grasp and attain in their own life. Technology can kill or heal; science can fall short of a promised set of solutions. Those who seek power often see the unexplained through a set of different interpretations. Do we communicate that God made the universe with its “natural and moral laws?” (223) Christians must speak up, make corrections in love, and commit to constantly share our faith and its direct correlation to what is going on in the work and why. Some people groups (the Masai, for example) complained Christians waited until acts of benevolence were accomplished before sitting down to explain their faith.

The Bible must be the Christian’s source for truth—and communicate that truth on a regular basis. God’s Word is “the only true and unbiased source of guidance to the goals and means of human transformation.” (225) The Bible is more than a book, it is a living word that communicates creative acts in history and places the human condition within a cosmic context.

“The Bible lies trapped in Sunday Schools, churches, and Bible study groups, where Christians use it for spiritual development. Our first challenge is to free the Bible from its spiritual captivity and allow it to engage and speak to the whole of human life.” (227) The Bible cannot be held so holy that it cannot speak to the heart of those who need the Words of Life. Language choices and even Scripture that is shared should engage the poor such that it leads them to a personal encounter of their own.

Myers advocates a “Scripture Search” study methodology where the Bible “is less a source of rules or a conceptual foundation and more of a creative encounter with God and the story God has chosen to tell us.” (229) In other words, use the Bible to relate to the context of morals, right living, life applications, addressing issues, and contributing to the community’s spiritual understanding. [This is akin to addressing the bridges and barriers to the gospel within the worldview.] Scripture Search methodology is part of the holistic development process captured in a Bible study’s Seven Steps: invite, read, view with wonder, listen, share, group tasks, and pray.

“We need to keep our hopes for transformation clearly in mind so that the way we witness, the content of our witness, and the way we use the Bible address the important transformational frontiers.” (234) Those frontiers are the spiritual root causes of poverty. This requires inviting the poor to investigate the biblical story for themselves. The use of PLA and AI tools helps people to see what is right according to God’s standards. This alignment with God’s story helps them gain a new identity and work for God and the betterment of their fellow man apart from sin.

Transformation happens when relationships are just and peaceful. Christ’s lordship applies to five levels: God, self, community, “other”—the banished or enemies, and the environment. The poor need a renewed identity, meaningful work, to find their voice, and understand their place in the world. Change happens in the household in which families overcome vices and addictions, assimilate prisoners back into society, marital fidelity, reprioritization on mutual respect, and put an emphasis on education for students. After changes in the household, comes Christian changes in the social system including politicians taking their roles more seriously, the environmental problems are addressed, and cultural relationships with the poor are changed.

Worldview must be changed by Christian witness through the Bible story changing the culture story to become a people whom God wants to bless. Worldview must change in beliefs and values so that behavior changes. Dialog is the key between Christians and the poor, recognizing that everyone has things that need changing; none are perfect except the Lord. Who is being worshipped? Christians must probe for changes at the heart level—the “missing middle” of folk religion full of magic and hidden beliefs. Christianity cannot exist with external and the internal being different. Myers calls this polluted system folk Christianity; a result of missing various levels of a person’s worldview. “People try to live as Christians in their spiritual life and be like good moderns in their material life, while still being bound to their animism. This explains the actions of some Christians who go to the doctor for medical advice, ask the church to pray for healing, and visit the shaman at night.” (239) Christians always look for the underlying spiritual cause to poverty.

The transformational Christian development worker must work at the worldview level with an open-mind, caution, and with a set of skills that leads to change. Praying and fasting are tools that prepare us for the spiritual discernment God provides. Myers listed several examples of how workers were willing to listen and learn without quickly judging.

When the Christian worker assumes the stance that everyone needs to change, then we become fellow learners and avoid god complexes. “We do not have to speak positively about our faith by speaking negatively about theirs.” (241) Today, governments (especially Western governments) insist that the spiritual and religious be separate from the development work. Governments see Christian involvement only as an excuse to get people to convert. “This demand for purely materialistic programming is at complete odds with the holistic worldview of most of the people who are the recipients of development aid. Whether the poor are animists, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, or Hindus, they believe in an integrated spiritual-physical universe.” (242)  If we believe that there is no development without change in values, then what is left is “secular liberal democratic” ideology. (242)

Christians must not forget that other religious and even atheist groups are engaged in development efforts. “The driving force for Christian witness in the context of transformational development is to be sure that credit is given where credit is due… that good deeds that create and enhance life in the community are evidence of the character and activity of the God of the Bible, the God whose Son makes a continuing invitation to new life and whose Spirit is daily at work in our world.” (244)

Three appendices were at the end of this chapter.

Compiled by Mark Snowden, Director of the Mission Education Team for the North American Mission Board.

If poverty is a curse from sin, then national prosperity and progress should very much be a concern for Christian missionaries and leaders in the task of discipling a nation. After 20 years of working with the poor in the Philippines and observing poverty throughout Asia and Africa, I organized the Foundation for Transformational Development in 1998 to help churches to empower the poor to help themselves and others through Christ.

The poor are poor because they cannot produce a surplus from their efforts. They have handicaps unique to them, which we may find difficulty in comprehending:

• They do not have any financial discipline, and hence are not capable of handling large sums of money. Giving them capital for small business will not solve their problem because they lack the skill and the discipline to manage the fund: they end up consuming the capital for their basic needs.

• Their worldview is riddled with superstitions and barriers, leaving them incapable of controlling their lives. This leads them to splurge borrowed money on celebrations, without any thought on future needs, much less on how to repay loans.

• There exist corrupt and abusive people in power whose actions isolate the poor from needed basic services and other resources.

• The poor have sins. They partake in corruption and perversion and idolatry and witchcraft. These bring down the curses and calamities that impoverish them.

• The poor are poor because they have lost the ability to dream and hope for a better future. Much of their attention is focused on yesterday: the debts they have to pay, the failures that imprison them, the calamities they are trying to recover from.

In a country like the Philippines where terrorism and corruption abound, we long for the promise of God revealed to Isaiah:

Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, And the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, And the fruitful field is counted as a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, And righteousness remain in the fruitful field. The work of righteousness will be peace, And the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever. My people will dwell in a peaceful habitation, In secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places…” (Isaiah 32:15-18, NKJV)

The implication of this vision has serious consequences in the manner we try to help the poor. Peace and prosperity are merely the effect of justice and righteousness, justice being the external enforcement of a moral code, and righteousness being the internal nature to do what is right. Hence, it would be a serious waste of resources for the West to pour aid to the poorer nations unless there is a parallel effort to curb corruption, enforce justice and evangelize the citizenry. And the trigger to all these is the outpouring of the Spirit.

This has inspired our vision:

Communities visited by Spiritual revival…

where justice and righteousness

will result in prosperity and peace,

until God’s people will live in security and in their own houses.

The Bible is replete with instructions, not only on how to get right with God and get to heaven, but on what to do while here on earth. It shows how a nomadic tribe that was enslaved for 400 years got to be a prosperous nation state. It shows how an individual can attain self-sufficiency and be able to help others.

Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters—that you may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the LORD for it; for in its peace you will have peace. Jer 29:5-7 (NKJV)

From this we got our strategy to transform communities:

Empowering the poor and the needy to: build houses, produce food, increase and not decrease, pray, work for the peace of the city (for in its peace you too will have peace)… through Christ!

This strategy has serious implications for our ministry:

Implication 1: Transformational Technologies. Technology is very much needed to build houses and produce food. The Foundation has made a strategic decision to invest in and develop appropriate technologies to empower the poor to be able to produce a surplus and build homes. We have over thirty technologies in herbal medicine, hygiene, food production, irrigation, electric generation, and housing. We continue to research and develop appropriate technologies that can be used and sustained by the poor.

Implication 2: Transformational Values. We need to transform the poor from being consumers to producers. This entails transforming their self-perception and values. For example, the first thing a poor man does when he has money is buy a cell phone or expensive imported sneakers, and then goes home to the same dilapidated house that has no plumbing. We use a series of Bible studies to impart the Bible-based social, stewardship, financial and moral values.

Implication 3: Transformational Organization. The poor need to be organized to network and access basic services and capital resources. They also need to be organized to protect their basic human rights. They need to be trained to overcome the corruption that isolates them from progress and prosperity. They need to realize their numbers are actually powerful, politically as well as spiritually. That is why God said for them to increase, and not decrease. So, we train them on basic management, partnership and organization.

Implication 4: Transformational Faith. Replacing their fatalistic faith with a Christ-centered overcoming faith. Much of what they think is faith is actually a fatalistic acceptance of their lot in life. It is a defeatist attitude that prevents them from venturing into something new. They need to hear and believe in the pure Gospel of Christ so that they will develop an overcoming and life-changing faith.

Implication 5: Transformational Education. Realizing educating the young generation is a strategic priority, we have developed a Transformational Education program where we train high school scholars one extra day a week on English, computers, applied sciences and food production/entrepreneurial skills.

Implication 6: Transformational Partnership. The Foundation believes that the task for alleviating poverty is too large for any one government, or foundation or church. That is why it believes in partnership and networking with individuals, organizations, governments and churches to empower the poor.

Implication 7: Conflict Transformation. The ministry of mediation finds real application and numerous opportunities in the Philippines. We train pastors in conflict mediation and peacemaking. We have been involved in many situations where we were able to be peacemakers. We term our projects in conflict areas as “bridges of peace.”

In the Philippines, we estimate around 4 million children go to bed hungry, and at least 700,000 are at risk. In our small way, we help churches feed malnourished children, give relief goods to evacuees from conflict areas, build houses for the poor and organize cooperatives for livelihood and health.

For more details, contact us at rgn7@tri-isys.com….

by Rev. Rafael “Chito” Navarro, executive director and founder of the Foundation for Transformational Development.

Rachel has been up since 2:30am. Yasemine and Gulben showed up, not knowing where else to go. Their families are gypsy in origin, but their identity is splintered. Fathers fade into twilight existences playing mournful tunes at questionable night venues. Mothers spend so much time with alcohol and fortune telling reality and imagination have blurred, leaving women who move from hovel to hovel with their entourage of children and ever-changing male partners. What is it to them that their twelve year old daughters were out in the darkest hours?

To them Rachel’s simple three room flat is a haven. When Yasemine couldn’t get into the local school because she had missed too many weeks with a moving mother, Rachel took her and faced the teacher on her behalf. School books and uniforms had to come from somewhere. Since Rachel lives as simply as any of her neighbors Yasemine did not look to her to provide, but when there was an unexpected gift from someone at church, Rachel could use this as one more testimony to the child that Jesus loves her and had supplied her need.

The weekly day care and after school facilities Rachel provides have been the safe place in this community. The children shyly slip off tattered street slippers at the threshold, eager to be inside. When they come, they try to wash. They nudge each other if someone slips and uses bad language, knowing it is not welcome in this warm and loving place. Here they have a chance to do their best. For some bigger boys even holding a pencil can be a challenge. Having spent most of their days without routine or a regular home, learning to sit still and listen to simple directions has made a big difference for these children. Before Rachel came most did not make it past first grade. Now there is a chance they could make it out of this neighborhood one day.

Rachel takes a lot of flack. When she went to see Yasemine’s mothers that morning she got a face full. She offered to let the girls sleep at her house so they could get consistently to school. Of course, the verbal abuse happens out in the streets, as these gypsy mothers have no living space to speak of. “It’s just like the media informed us; you foreigners are here to steal children and sell their body parts!” one spat at her. “You are CIA, trying to twist children’s minds and take over our government! You Christians have orgies and eat children, we know!”

Turning the other check takes practice and this is a great arena to get it in. Rachel calmly smiles and waits until the barrage is over. The women know for many years she has cared for the children in her little day care center so they can go and beg or clean toilets. She has provided them with winter clothing when they had none. She has wept with them when a child was hit by a car and killed. She has visited and prayed for a son who needed heart surgery. Rachel knows the anger is all hot air.

They are curious that she takes time to pray. They are fascinated when she and her co-workers actually sing to God. Sometimes they pause in the street outside to listen. Yes, raw sewage sometimes leaks through the ancient bathroom walls from upstairs. The walls are so thin every sound carries through from arguing couples next door. The air pollution weighs like a heavy blanket and sickness lurks in many corners. Sometimes it seems the city never sleeps as the night people come out with their unique life style.  But Rachel and crew know if you aren’t there with them they can’t see Christ in a way they can comprehend.

“You are forbidden to come near my daughter ever again!” Yasemine’s mother screams. But days later when Rachel comes down the street the child gives her a furtive hug. Truth speaks loud: they may lash out, but when these women need her, Rachel is there. She recognizes the wall of pain they are hiding behind. There are generations of betrayal and living with a hard heart to ward off feelings. Patient love will win through. With Yasemine it already has. “I know Jesus loves me,” she confesses, “He keeps doing kind miracles to me through you.”

by M. Smeenge, who serves with her family in Asia under Cross Cultural Connections

He told me “Sir, we must do something for these street people. Let us take them, wash them, heal them and shelter them”. I said, “Raja, we have more than we can handle already. We cannot take these on our hands now”. We were working with the quarry people and the dislocated slum people by providing them with adult literacy, health care, tailoring classes, schools for children and pastoral care for families under the Karnataka Evangelistic Association.

T Raja was drawn to the street people. He left KEA. With few friends he started the NEW ARK MISSION. One by one he began to take the destitute street people—men and women, old and young… and began to nurse them to health. He often had to amputate the leg or hand and try to stop the decay in their body. Some were too far damaged that they died within days or weeks. T Raja was willing to pick all kinds of street people. Even the police department began to bring such destitutes from all over the city of Bangalore to the Home of Hope for T Raja to take care. They trusted him and his work.

The stories of the people are amusing as well as heart rending. One of the men had 17 trousers one on top of the other. Another was a famous film director once upon a time. A rich man with his own house in Bangalore, left his family who were constantly quarrelling and took to streets. Raja repaired his damaged body and reconciled him to his children. One inmate is now a healthy woman who was picked from the street with her hand all swollen, infected and with worms. She wore numerous metal bangles in her younger years which had become too small for her growing hand. The metal was immersed into the flesh and became infected to the point that her flesh was eaten away by insects and bone was visible. Such cases have been brought to normal health.

What makes this ministry possible is the holy boldness of its leader. Raja himself carries the maimed bodies -even HIV infected people and nurses them to health at the Home of Hope.

Support started pouring in. Christian NGOs as well as non-Christian organizations, governmental authorities and individuals began to contribute. Times were plenty when there was no food to give but someone drops in with cooked food to serve! I was reminded of George Mueller’s home.

What started in 1998 as a small beginning is now a noted ministry. There are around 150 inmates of all ages and backgrounds cared for at this Home of Hope. Campus Crusade has provided a space for this home. The news media has covered the story on television and news magazines. The Governor of Karnataka and many organizations have already honoured T Raja—and he is now referred as Mother Teresa of Karnataka. News brochures and video clippings are available to show the work and to challenge people to reach out to people in need.

Home of Hope is tackling the problem of street people. Poverty has hit here at its worst. Homelessness, illness, loneliness, hunger, apathy, hopelessness, destitution - these are the tale of these people. Though families are there and the government has programmes for such, yet in a large human mass such as India, there are tremendous needs to reach out to such persons. T Raja is a bold and innovative model in mission to the poor.

As a Professor of Missiology, I teach and train post graduate students of mission theology and praxis. I often tell them that T Raja was my best student in mission! We need many more like him to bring gospel and ministry to actual people in actual situation to make a difference. I recommend this Home of Hope as a model in mission and cover prayer for its ongoing ministry to the poor and destitute. n

Sarrut’s wife, Heng, tends to the chickens before cutting a few dozen withered sugar cane stalks to crush into juice at their roadside stand. It is amazing how she is able to feed all 6 people in their house for just under 6000 Cambodian riels per day (about $1.50). She has learned to make do with little. She learned this during the horrible years under the Khmer Rouge, and in the lean years after the war when her husband was gone.

After surviving the genocide during Pol Pot’s communist “experiment” and the Khmer Rouge regime, Sarrut spent more than 10 years in the jungles near the borders of Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, leading small groups of soldiers who were resisting the Communist Vietnamese government who occupied Cambodia. During this time he could not visit his home in the northern province of Preah Vihear, where his wife and 4 children lived. But Heng, being a resourceful woman, not only managed to raise their children, but was able to save up wood for building a house… all through selling a few vegetables, planting crops or working in the fields of others.

In 1991 Sarrut was finally able to come home. He joined the government forces and continued serving as a soldier. Sarrut was amazed his wife had not only survived, but had kept the children in school. During his time in the jungles, he had encountered another force which he felt had protected and watched over him, keeping him safe from incoming shells, landmines and dangerous wild animals in the jungle. Someone had given him a French New Testament, and he spent much of his time thinking about and praying to the God who he did not yet know. In 2003 Sarrut finally found what he was searching for the past 20 years. Sarrut embraced the Gospel with as much enthusiasm as he displayed leading his men during his time as a soldier. Now he wants to make up for lost time, and has a great burden to help those within the family of God in Preah Vihear, as well as to preach the Gospel to those who haven’t yet had the chance to hear.  “We must find ways to spread the Word of God and teach our own people and plant churches without any outside assistance. We must become the leaders of the church.”, Sarrut explained.

Today Sarrut’s vision of raising and lending cows and using agriculture as a way to practically help his fellow Cambodians in this remote rural area is creating a “path in the jungle” to start Bible Studies in the areas he takes his agricultural program to. He gets no remuneration for the many hours each day he puts in. They live on what his wife makes at her juice stand, while the $30/month salary he receives as a military leader goes to support his children, now in college. Sarrut’s philosophy of hard work, simple living and resourcefulness is an example to many of the people around him who seem to have given up, become apathetic or turned to alcohol to dull the sense of hopelessness they feel. As the Gospel penetrates these remote corners of the dark land of Cambodia, what were once Killing Fields are now Living Fields, full of a harvest of people who are learning to trust again.

As Sarrut drives the cows along the dusty road, the countryside is already full of activity around him. The rains will come soon, with a promise of refreshment and vigorous growth. And Sarrut will be there, praying for a good harvest.

by Joel Stewart, serving with World Team in Cambodia.

Later she was told by reliable sources that the children resorted to thieving because they had no money for food and were hungry. She found that 100 or so children from nearby border villages cross the border to umbrella-shade Thai gamblers as they travel to 2 casinos at the Cambodian side of the border. Casinos are forbidden in Thailand and this has cause a steady stream of avid gamblers practicing their vice across the border. Some of the children are orphans and some live with grandparents, with parents working elsewhere. They earn about 5 baht a time shading the gamblers across. Upon hearing this, the Lord touched the Thai lady pastor’s heart causing her to break her vow and avowed again to bring the Gospel to these “precious” little ones and their families. So her ministry started with permission to use an unused immigration building for lunches & teaching to the children. Over the year or so now the Gospel has reached these precious little unreached ones.

Due to poverty & for the past year, the children had been coming to the border everyday to earn some money umbrella-shading Thai gamblers from the Thai border to the 2 casinos on the Laos border. A few “bad hats” disguised themselves as Christians & crossed the border to scratch cars, steal belongings inside cars, break windows, and puncture tires. The Thai immigration has reacted by barring the Khmer kids from plying their border trade, making living more difficult for their families. These children have been given the Gospel and many of them have received Christ as their personal Saviour. With the Thai border barring them, the children have stayed put at a few villages near the border, deprived of the meager income they used to make before. The children in the first village have a meal a day and the Thai pastor brings lunch for them on Tuesdays, Thursday & Saturdays, where they would be privileged to eat 2 meals a day. Children’s Ministry is taught each time when they go to the villages, usually 1 or 2 villages on each excursion inside. Medicine has also been taken in to treat the wounded, the sick, the skin diseases, head lice, deworming, pains & aches. There are no doctors at close call & urgent medical care can only be sought at town centers, quite a long distance away. During each excursion in, a good supply of medicine is dispensed to them.

One little lad has been punched by the border guards, mistakenly thought to be the bad group of thugs, just because he was within the vicinity of the disturbance. He has since been unable to open his jaw wide!  We only found out when the dentist could get him to widen his jaw for an extraction. Many are today turning to gather orchids and wild mushrooms from the forests to sell. As lower orchid plants are been exhausted, the gatherers have to reach higher for them. Another youth had his feet pierced through whilst falling down from a tree where he was gathering orchids to sell. The regular story of no medical treatment was true for him & his foot was turning septic when he came for treatment. His sister had insisted he came for the Thai ministry for medical help rather than accompanying her home for the Cambodian New Year. This is certainly God’s appointment!  Having assessed his dilemma & urgent medical need, we sent him to the Thai border hospital where he had a proper cleansing and treatment. He came back a happy young man, for his sore foot was not so sore & healing was taking place already. That timely action & God’s perfect timing negated another foot amputee!

The lady pastor has 2 ladies helping her as they all speak Cambodian. They ministered in songs & bible stories. There has been no foreign aid to her ministry to these umbrella-shading Khmer kids. The kids had been given permission before to congregate at the Thai border building with the help of the Thai pastor’s husband, who incidentally works in government service. A medical doctor cum dental team came and gave these underprivileged ones some much needed medical treatment last year.

Our vision is to not only reach the Khmer children with the Gospel but also the adults and youth there too, by creating a central place of meeting where the children & adults can meet for ministry and worship and training and mentoring local leaders to run their own indigenous church, in time.

by a field worker who wishes to remain anonymous for security reasons.

There are floods that sweep away the paddy plants and their bamboo huts. There are prolonged droughts that dry up everything. There are millions of small crabs, locusts and insects that destroy the crops before they can be harvested. There are poisonous snakes that bite and diseases that kill both the strong and the weak. On top of these, there are hidden man-made dangers out in the fields. Though the country is now enjoying some sort of peace, there are still 4 to 6 million land mines and unexploded bombs throughout the country.

Now there are several groups working to clear the mines but it is a slow and expensive process. Some farmers could not wait, so they try to clear the land themselves. A few were successful but many were not. In a period of 18 months, 22 people in one commune alone in Battambang province were injured or killed by land mines. Livestock and cows are killed when they wander into the mine fields. The loss of animals further reduces the productivity of the farmers.

When any kind of disaster strikes, the loan ‘’sharks’’ are always there to “help”. Those farmers who borrow from those sharks will eventually lose everything, including their loved ones. Many of the children would be sold to brothels in Phnom Penh or across the border to Thailand.

Then there are the corrupt officials and the demobilized (but not disarmed) soldiers. Both extort money and food from the defenseless poor and often use trickery to seize land from illiterate farmers.

When these helpless families have lost everything, they will often leave their village and head for Phnom Penh, hoping to find a better life. Many will end up as rubbish collectors at one of Phnom Penh city dumps.

Today, Setha, a shy eight-year old boy, looks around with the sharp practiced eyes of a “hunter’’. The “mountain of trash’’ is still burning from a recent fire. Suddenly his eyes lights up and a smile brighten his face as he spots a “treasure’’. Quickly he moves to pull it out of the ashes and put it in his plastic bag before another can claim it. His red plastic bag is already three quarters full—not bad for a day’s work. Soon he must seek out the “Recyclers’’ and sell the still hot pieces of metal for the price of a meal.

Setha is but one of the hundreds of people eking out a living by scavenging among the trash at the city dump and along the streets. They go through each heap of rubbish and each bag of trash carefully, sorting out rags, plastic and any reuseable items. Then they burn the trash to extract metal. Some use their bare hands, others have tongs and long metal hooks. All either wear a pair of slippers or go bare-footed in their “hunt’’. The slippers are no defense against infected hospital waste and other dangerous refuse. Loads of needles are dumped there from the AIDS Patients’ Hospital. Many  rubbish collectors’ live right there at the edge of the dump in small makeshift cardboard and corrugated metal homes. n

After completing the WEC Candidate Course, I flew out in 1999 from France, with a one way ticket to Cambodia. For almost 6 years I have been working among the street children of Phnom Penh. During the last 2 years in particular dozens of local Christians and overseas workers have joined the twice weekly Street Outreach. We go out in teams of 3 to various areas of Phnom Penh. We share food, clothes and the Gospel to the many street children, with a special emphasis on the ones collecting rubbish. They are easy to spot: many of them are pulling a wooden cart where they stack all kinds of items they find in trash bags along the road.

We meet people in desperate need: boys and girls and babies sleeping on the pavements, maimed and disabled beggars, young boys addicted to glue sniffing, widows, orphans, homeless young mothers. There are children we never see again. Many times I wander where they have ended up. Have they been sold? Phnom Penh has now become one of the world’s capitals for human trafficking.

Meeting the children on the streets is not enough. We can’t just hand out food , clothes, a pair of slippers and a Gospel tract. They need to start a new life away from the dangers of the streets. We need to find a peaceful place when the children can come and find long term help. A safe haven where they can start a whole new life.

And this is why the vision of a Drop-in-Center for street children was born. A Day shelter. A Half way house that served as a bridge between the streets and a better future.

This summer, the ‘Bridge of Hope’ house will open. On the outskirts of Phnom Penh, 700m from ‘Smoky Mountain’, the big city dump, where children like Sitha work and live.

At the Bridge the children will find:

• a place to rest , where they play with toys, games, craft and books
• clean clothes and something to eat
• basic medical care
• awareness of the dangers of HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, exploitation, and
• someone they can talk to and pray with.

Ultimately we don’t want the children to stay at the Bridge for long periods. We want to be facilitators between the streets and Residential Care in an Orphanage, a Foster Home or even a Cambodian family who would take the children as their own.

If the child is sick, if needed we will take him to hospital.

If he has no schooling we will ensure he goes to school or for the older ones into Vocational Training.

The children will be given the possibility to join a Christian fellowship with a good children’s program.

The Bridge will also be a meeting place for prayer open to all Christians who have a heart for Cambodian children in crisis.

7 years ago as I was working as an assistant pastor in France, I got a phone call one morning. Therèse an elderly Christian lady started to share a vision she believed the Lord had given her for me. ‘I saw a big house, in a far distant land. The house was full with children dressed in little shorts. And there you were Tim, among them’’. She would often write to me reminding me that her mentally handicapped daughter and she were praying much for me and the work in Cambodia.

A few months ago, two friends and I were driving through Phnom Penh looking for a suitable house to rent for the ‘Bridge of Hope Project’. For many days now, we had been looking for a place. After driving for 2 hours that Saturday morning I took a left turn down a narrow dirt road. It would be our last try for today.

And then we saw it! A house with a sign ‘to rent’. This is exactly what we need. Big gate. Open space with some trees. 4 rooms, a kitchen and a garage. This nice house will become ‘The Bridge of Hope’ center. A few days after finding the house, I got an email from France giving me some sad news. Therèse, who had been fighting cancer for a few years had just passed away. Therèse was the one who back in 1997 had already ‘’seen’’ the house.

It seemed that the Lord would not take her home till that house was found.

One day in heaven I will meet Therèse. I will introduce her to those ‘little children with shorts on, from that big house in that far distant land’. Children who have cross the ‘Bridge’ into the Land of God.

by Timothée Paton, a WEC field worker in Cambodia, www.timpaton.com….

Aziz’s introduction to a life of begging came harshly. He was a throw-away child. After his father died, his mother remarried when he was 7 years old and she simply left him in an empty little hovel to fend for himself. Thankfully a neighbor family gave him food from time to time, on the days that he came home from his “work” empty handed.

He is married now with three small children. They live in the same little mud-brick house, which is about the size of many American’s walk-in closets. Its window opening has no glass in it, and the “door” is a only curtain. And remember, this in a region where the winter lows drop down to around 0 degrees Farenheit.

On an average day their diet consists of two to four flat, round loaves of bread and some weak tea—that’s it. Occasionally they enjoy some rice cooked with oil, but that kind of meal is more expensive than bread so they don’t get it too often. No meat, no vegetables. Those are luxuries they only eat when someone is particularly generous, such as at a Muslim festival.

Aziz’s wife used to beg too, at one of the main intersections in the city. That was before a big black Mercedes ran over her, and then casually drove away. Now she spends most of her time limping around the little courtyard to cook meals and care for their three children. Even if it was not for her being crippled, she does not have the strength for walking and begging all day because she also has Central Asia’s curse of the poor—tuberculosis.

This is what it means to be one of the poorest of the poor in the Muslim world. Most of Aziz’s neighborhood, 30,000 to 40,000 people, pretty much live this way. Some are a little better off, but the vast majority live at a bare subsistence level that keeps their short lives full of sickness and disease.

My friend has tried hard to be a good Muslim. He diligently learned to recite portions of the Koran from memory, and he tries to follow all the proper rituals. Nevertheless, the imams at the mosque disdain him and his people, and will only come to say funeral prayers in their neighborhood if they are paid.

Aziz and I have been friends a little over a year now. I regularly give them alms, and have bought medicines when his wife was in the hospital. We also talk a lot about the meaning of knowing God.

One day he told me, “Some of the men in my neighborhood accused me of having a Christian friend. But I don’t care what they say. You are not a ‘Christian’ to me. You are a true Muslim, like one of the prophets. You may not have been to Mecca, but your heart is like someone who has already been on the Hajj, except you have been on a true spiritual hajj—to God.”

Soon after this Aziz and several of his neighbors watched the Jesus film that we gave them at Christmas. Then they watched it again and again. He came to me a few weeks later and excitedly said, “Now I understand. Now I know the prophet Isa is God’s own son. He was sent to show us who God is. But those evil men pierced his hands, beat and killed him. It was so terrible! But he is not dead! No, he returned again to life and is now in heaven. And someday he will come back for us.”

“In this life I have no one except my wife and children, no one who cares about me. But I saw that Isa loves people like me! He loved and did many wonderful things for the poor. Now I know that God wants to be a father to me, and that’s why he sent Isa. And now I know why you live the way you do, you are trying to walk on the Isa road. I want to walk on the Isa road too.”

In this life, Aziz will not get anything out of following Jesus—except persecution. He will never be wealthy or successful by the standards of anyone I know. The kind of “gospel” that is preached by many in the West would be completely unintelligible to him. Our multi-million dollar churches would only leave him cold, another sign religious people don’t care about the poor.

But even though Aziz has nothing, don’t cry for him. Weep we should, for the millions of Islam’s poorest-of-the-poor who have not heard that God wants to be a Father to them. Aziz has received eternal life. His name is now written in the Lamb’s book of life and someday he will receive a crown of righteousness that will never fade.

Gene Daniels and his family have been serving among an Unreached Muslim people group in Central Asia since 1997. Gene Daniels is a pseudonym.

The combination of poverty, AIDS, and war have been overwhelming for this nation. For nearly two decades the people of northern Uganda have endured a horrific war largely unnoticed by the rest of the world. Over 1,000 civilians died every week and more than 1.5 million people (80% of the northern population) fled their homes in fear. Hundreds of thousands of people have been moved into “protected villages”—camps where many die from preventable diseases. Perhaps worst of all, tens of thousands of children have been abducted and more have fled.

The war was launched by Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel paramilitary group operating mainly in northern Uganda. He believed himself to be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ and a spirit medium, but with little support in the population for his ideal millennial government, he resorted to a war of atrocity. The civil war is one of Africa’s longest-running conflicts. The LRA have been accused of widespread human rights violations, including the abduction of civilians, the use of child soldiers and a number of massacres.

Since 1986, over 20,000 boys and girls have been abducted by the LRA. Once in captivity, boys are forced to loot and burn villages and torture and kill neighbors. Abducted girls are routinely raped and become sex slaves or “wives” of rebel commanders. All witness unimaginable atrocities and many do not survive.

Around northern Uganda, little children and adults who don’t find a safe place at night are in danger. People who are found by the rebels can be burnt to death, or beyond recognition. Body parts are cut off — noses, lips, ears, fingers. To avoid this, thousands of children in Northern Uganda each night walk miles to safer villages and towns where they find a place to sleep—usually in the open. Then, the next morning, they walk home. They have become known as the “Night Walkers.”

In an encouraging development towards the end of 2005, the International Criminal Court (ICC) indicted leaders of the LRA and 5 arrest warrants have been issued. The Ugandan government believes the LRA is weakened and ready to make peace and in April 2006 announced plans to begin to resettle Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) living in camps, backed by a budget allocation of over $2.1 million. Aid agencies have pledged to support the resettlement exercise although they have expressed concerns about security.

The enduring conflict in northern Uganda has been a serious barrier to poverty alleviation. Nearly 40% of Uganda’s budget comes from aid, but the north has been largely closed to aid agencies. It lags behind all other areas in the nation: adult illiteracy rate of 54% compared to the national average of 37%, people without access to health facilities at 35%, compared to the national average of 26%, and the highest probability at birth of not surviving to the age of 40 years.

Through no fault of their own, the children of Uganda are among the poorest of the world. Here is an opportunity for Christians to fulfill their role as heirs to the covenant with Abraham, and “be a blessing” (Genesis 12). Thankfully many are stepping up to the challenge but more needs to be done. n

Already three quarters of Subsaharan Africa’s urbanites live in slums, making it the region with the largest proportion of slum dwellers. In other parts of the world, the percentages are: South Asia, 59 percent; East Asia, 36 percent; Latin America, 32 percent (UN-HABITAT). Some 80 percent of the urban populations of the least developed countries live in slums. For developed nations, the number averages 6 percent.

Slums are growing rapidly because people are leaving poor country sides in search of work, into areas where authorities (be they owners or governments) are unable or unwilling to build up sufficient infrastructure. Africa’s squatter settlements will likely double their population by 2025. Already in Nairobi, 60% of the population lives in slums which occupy 5% of the total land.

While slums can be concentrations of extreme poverty, they need not be. For example, most slum households in Bangkok have color televisions. Many slums—those in Pune and Ibadan, for example—are home to university lecturers, students, government officials and private sector employees. However, because nearly all slums are essentially illegal “squatter settlements,” no one is required to provide any services (sewage, water, electricity, trash collection, repairs, maintenance, schools, etc). The result is severely poor health, no education, and extreme poverty. A wide range of ministries are desperately needed in these areas.

A sampling of statistics about slums—

• Total slums in the world: 250,000
• Highest percentage of slum dwellers: Ethiopia (99.4%), Chad (99.4%), Afghanistan (98.5%), Nepal (92%).
• Poorest slum populations: Maputo, Kinshasa (where 66% earn less than the cost of the minimum daily required nutrition).
• Cairo, Phnom Penh: recent arrivals squat or rent space on rooftops creating slum cities in the air.
• Bangkok: over 25% of the population (1.1 million) live in slums and squatter camps.
• Five great metropolises of South Asia (Karachi, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Dhaka) contain 15,000 distinct slum communities with a population of 20 million.
• Lagos itself is simply the largest part of a slum corridor of 70 million people stretching from Abidjan to Ibadan.
• 85% of urban residents in the developing world occupy property illegally due to indeterminant land titles and squatter cities.
• Primary religions of slums: Islam, Pentecostal Christianity.

Sources: UN Habitat, Daily Times of Nigeria, UNESCO, UN Publications, World Resources Institute.

Dharavi, India. Called the “largest slum in Asia,” Dharavi is spread over 1.75 square kilometers in the heart of Bombay (Mumbai), not far from the airport on the western coast. The slum has garbage pits, no sanitation, dirty water, and legally does not exist. Yet it is home to an estimated 1 million people; together, their craft industries generate over US$1 billion per year. Even this is not extreme poverty on average: it equates to US$2 a day.

Kebira, Kenya. Perhaps the largest slum in Africa, Kebira is home to nearly 1 million people in 2 square kilometers. The average home is roughly 6 square feet, shared by 5 people. Sanitation is the biggest problem: the whole area shares 600 pit latrines. Drinking water is pumped through plastic pipes running alongside the sewage trenches. Health services are minimal, and over half Kenya’s urban dwellers are HIV positive or have AIDS. Epidemics can easily break out. Kebira is just one of Nairobi’s 200 slums, housing over half the city’s 3.5 million people.

Cité-Soleil, Haiti. A densely populated neighborhood located southwest of downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti, it is also known  as Du Soleil is considered one of Haiti’s poorest, roughest, and most dangerous areas. Most residents are children or young adults and few live past the age of 50. AIDS and violence are prevalent. The streets are patrolled by armed gangs loyal to deposed President Aristide. Battles with government forces have occurred.

Dhaka, Bangladesh. The slum population in Dhaka has doubled in a decade, rising from 1.5 million in 1996 to 3.4 million in 2006 after  heavy rural-urban migration. Slums typically have a population density of about 900 per acre, eight to ten times higher than the average city population density. Over 5 million people live in slums in the slums of six different cities in Bangladesh (including 3.4 million in Dhaka, 1.5 million in Chittagong), with more than 40% living in extreme poverty. Most of the slum dwellers are transport workers, day laborers, factory and domestic workers and hawkers.

Jakarta, Indonesia. Of the 12 million people living in Jakarta, over half are estimated to be poor. Many workers live in slums where it is common to have only one or two toilets for a community of 50 to 100 people. Lacking clean water, workers are forced to buy bottled water. Pluit and Tanggerang are two examples of overcrowded, polluted areas, featuring narrow streets, open drains, small houses, and workers earning about $2 a day. Being a taxi driver in some places is considered to be the most prestigious job.

Lagos, Nigeria. There are more than 100 slum settlements around Lagos, over twice as many as the 42 identified in 1983. Many are volatile and dangerous. Governor of Lagos, Nigeria said two-thirds of Lagos State’s total landmass could be classified as slums; “no one knows for sure the size of the population, let alone the number of murders each year or the rate of HIV infection.”

Bangkok, Thailand. Nearly 6 million people live in Bangkok, 20% in slums. One of the oldest slum communities is Klong Toey, a deep river port with about 130,000 residents. Fortunately its age has helped it to develop: most wooden walkways, for example, have been replaced by concrete paths and the majority of houses have electricity and water. Sanitation is a constant problem. Poverty has led to both prostitution and drug abuse common, and HIV has bloomed.