I am guilty. I have been embarrassed and sceptical of Christian development work #dmingml

Most of us remember the tsunami that hit Indonesia Dec 26, 2004. I was in Melbourne and remember finding the news updates incomprehensible. Everyone was talking about it. Everyone wanted to help. Relief agencies were on the ground as quickly as possible.

  Not long afterwards, in my role back then as VP of International Relations for Focus on the Family (not a relief agency), I was asked by a major U.S newspaper whether or not we were abusing the situation and purely motivated to help because we wanted to ‘evangelize’ the people of Indonesia.

  I remember being deeply offended, and yet at the same time, I was challenged by the accusation. Was there an underlying or ulterior motive in wanting to help? Questions like this shouldn’t be ignored, and to be honest, there have been many times when I have sceptical and questioned the motivations of other agencies wanting to suddenly help when they have never had any previous skin in the game. Are they genuine or opportunistic? I know this sounds extremely judgemental, and for that I apologize. I am relieved, though, to be able to tell you that through one of our significant partners on the ground – World Harvest – Focus on the Family were able to direct people’s money specifically to projects that provided direct medical support, housing, food, water, and so on. However, I continued to be haunted by the question of why we were doing this?

  If it wasn’t to ‘evangelize’, then how do Christian organizations represent Christ and be distinct from other humanitarian agencies? If it wasn’t to ‘win’ people for Christ, then what were we doing there? Now of course, there is a lot of meaning, distortion and critical inferences attached to the concept of evangelism. Some of it is justified, and some of it is not.

  It is at this point that I wish I could lift an entire chapter and insert it here from Bryant Myers’ book, Walking With The Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development. It is his chapter on Christian Witness and Transformational Development. He deals with the issue of Christian witness far better than I can. However, let me share a couple of poignant points he makes in relation to this –

  Firstly that the need to share God’s good news is directly related to a Christian understanding of transformation and what motivates development. Jesus gave us two specific commandments. Simply, the first was to love God, and the second was to love our neighbors as ourselves. This is the motivation that takes us to care for the poor, the broken hearted, the oppressed, the homeless, the widow, and those affected by injustice. Importantly, Myers’ goes on to say that this is not a call to proselytize or a “call to coercive, manipulative, or culturally insensitive evangelism…it is a call to be sure we do our development with an attitude that prays and yearns for people to know Jesus Christ.” (205).

  Secondly, whether we stand by and do nothing, or we choose to participate in development, both bear witness to our faith and what we claim is at the core of our identity, attitudes, motivation, practice, and so on. In the light of this, we may choose to do development, but if there is no cause for people to ask why we are doing it and there is no opportunity to share Christ, then we are merely doing development, not transformational development. This is why Myers takes time to explore a developmental approach to Christian witness. Drawing from numerous biblical examples where people witnessed something miraculous, amazing and surprising, he reveals that the activity or result of the activity led to an opportunity to share about Christ. “In each case, the gospel is proclaimed, not by intent or plan, but in response to a question provoked by the activity of God in the community. There is an action that demands an explanation, and the gospel was the explanation.” (210)

  I’d encourage you to read this book. Myers goes on to explore many more concepts and questions about development that I have wrestled with for years. Although embarrassed by examples of Christian development in the past, this has not prevented him from engaging in transformational development where he claims it starts with Christ, and to which Christ is central.

  Today, I work for an organization that delivers trauma rehabilitation to children and families who have been victims of war, natural disasters and human trafficking. In being part of this work, I am bearing Christian witness. Not by proclaiming Christ with a megaphone, but by bringing about transformation where the focus of our work is on bringing healing to people, their relationships and their communities.

#dmingml

Poverty Makes Us Feel Very Uncomfortable #dmingml

My family have moved to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland for me to take up a position working for Dr. Robi Sonderegger who founded Family Challenge Charity Trust. They do great work with families on the Coast, as well as provide training to international agencies working with kids in ravaged, war torn areas around the world. They rehabilitate child soldiers, and are passionate about rescuing kids out of the sex trade. So, it was with considerable interest that I picked up “Walking With the Poor” by Bryant Myers, as one of the books to review for my Doctoral studies with GFU.

  Myers looks at various perspectives on poverty and how people tend to view this in vastly different ways through the lens of their own experiences or what he calls, the “non-poor lens.” It is difficult not to do this, except that sometimes our definition of it so often removes it from us to the degree that we don’t feel any pressure to respond to it, or where we don’t know how to respond to it. Therefore, it becomes someone else’s problem, not mine.

  Secondly, we tend to view poverty as an issue for Third World countries rather than developed countries. If we live in a developed country, it is convenient for us to discount the presence of homelessness, unemployment, inability to access basic medical care, the economic impact of marital breakdown, harmful drug use, prostitution, and the rise of emotional and mental health disorders and their ramifications for families and communities

  Thirdly, if we do feel we have an obligation to respond, our modern worldview mistakenly leads us to thinking that our ability to ‘fix’ the poor causes us to elevate our status to that of saviour or rescuer, or where we are ‘better’ than those we are helping. Myers calls this our modern "blind spot", where most of our invitations to help put us in a position of power, to the extent that sometimes it is as if we play God. What results, is often more harm done than good, where we violate a culture’s belief system and their way of life. Of course, we wish we could say this is unintentional, but with all honesty we have to admit that sometimes those of us doing the helping quite simply believe we know what is best. Many of us can draw from multiple examples where our own biases lead us to thinking we know what is best for the situation at hand. We listen and do not hear. We observe, but do not see. We talk when they wish to speak. We are quick to provide for the immediate need without understanding what must be done to resolve what is causing the need and feeding this longer-term.

  Myers writes,

  “Too often agencies do the policy analysis with professionals and then presume to speak for those whom they claim have no voice. This implies that the poor are unable to diagnose their own situation and that they, in truth, have no voice. This does not have to be the case, and in ensuring that it is not the case, a transformational frontier can be crossed. The poor will be less poor when they learn to do their own analysis and find their own voice. This will require help and support…” (124)

  Myers doesn’t leave us in no man’s land. He looks at the causes of poverty and their relationship to systems and issues that reinforce and maintain this, while acknowledging that other issues prevent people in poverty from recognizing that there is hope beyond what they are experiencing. However, after more than 23 years working with World Vision leading their international strategy, he prescribes to the belief that relief of poverty and ultimately, any viable solution to poverty must revolve around a holistic model, and that the redemptive story is not only important to this, but unavoidable in its application. God desires to redeem people to him, even through the social injustices that people face, and God initiates this from a position of unconditional love and humility. Jesus speaks to this in Luke, 4:18-19. To merely address an issue of shelter, or hunger or violence as a singular issue prevents us from seeing it in the wider context of God’s redemptive purposes at work in a broken world. Ultimately, there is no relief without Christ.

  Myers has done us all a disservice. He brings the issue of poverty to our doorstep where its reality is inescapable, and we can no longer overlook a personal and uncomfortable response.

  As my good friend Tom Davis (President of Children’s Hopechest) would say, “When we stop seeing poverty as a 'condition' or a 'statistic,' instead as a life it will change our view. Get to know a little orphan girl in poverty, her story, her heart, her hope, and you will never be the same.”

  That girl could be next door.