I recently saw a lecture by Paul Farmer at Virginia Tech. For those of you who don’t know, Dr. Farmer runs Partners in Health and has been working for many, many years in Haiti. His story was told in the book Mountains Beyond Mountains.
In response to a question he gave an extended answer about why our missions programs sometimes don’t work. Poverty and development is such a tremendously complicated issue that no answer during a lecture, no matter how extended, will be complete. But, he covered some important ground that any organization, whether government, NGO or church needs to consider.
He gave four reasons our programs don’t work: infrastructure, poor diagnosis of problems, a poor understanding of history, and a lack of persistence. Let’s look at each of these in a little more depth.
1. Infrastructure. A society is a web of many interconnected needs and delivery systems. If you address one or even a few without considering the overall environment you may bring short-term relief but not long-term solutions. A simple example is a church that built a cistern for a village in Central America to provide clean water. It worked great for a while, but then the pump broke. No one in the village had the resources or the skills to fix it, and the church had completed its work and was no longer there. The cistern sat while the people of the village once again drank unhealthy water.
2. Poor diagnosis of the problem. The American mindset is often that the solution to poverty is about adding resources. For example, if a village doesn’t have a school then the solution is to build a building and buy books. And while that may be part of the solution, sometimes we ignore the underlying factors that kept the village from having a school in the first place. Maybe there is a cultural or religious issues that keep children out of school. Maybe the location can’t attract teachers. Maybe there are government requirements that make going to school too expensive. A building doesn’t make a school; you can have a perfectly acceptable school sitting under a tree. If there are problems other than resources, they need to be addressed as well or resources won’t help.
3. A poor understanding of history. We know we’re coming in with good intentions and want to help. But, what if the people we’re trying to help have seen others, over a long period of time, come in with good intentions and cause tremendous hardship? Whether that’s a war that killed relatives, missionaries who tried to extinguish culture, or just extensive promises that were never fulfilled, it shouldn’t be surprising if people are less than receptive to our wishes, desires, requests or even commands. It’s arrogant to assume we have solutions to long-term problems if we don’t understand the history of the people suffering or the history that brought about the problems in the first place.
4. Lack of persistence. As a very wealthy country, we’ve come to expect quick fulfillment to our wants. That’s not how it works. It took many generations to get into the grinding poverty of much of the world and it may take many generations to get out. How long are we willing to commit? Do we have a one-year plan? A five-year plan? It may take God using some of us for an entire lifetime. Are we ready for that kind of commitment?
Next time we’ll look at some of the reason our programs work.
Response:
–Has God given you a particular heart for a specific area of your community or the world? The place to begin may be to learn more about the history and culture of that area. Start with a heart to learn and God may use you to teach.
–Are you looking for simple answer in your life or in your ministry? Ask yourself, in what areas of your life are you seeking to explain when you may need to first understand.
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2 Comments
Matt,
Thank you so much for your last few post, I’ve really appreciated them. One other thing to look at when addressing poverty and the response of the church in missions is the policy that our own government (and many of the other “Western” governments) sets up in regards to the poorer nations. There are quite a few decisions made about how our government will interact with other governments that few people ever read about. And these policies are often what allows nations to continue to live in poverty, not having the options which you mentioned in your last article, and making it that much more difficult when NGOs, INGOs and faith based mission organizations do go into an area.
One last thought about missions…I spent a number of years working in a couple different mission organizations before I realized that I needed quite a bit more training in the areas of development and social justice. Many times, as Christians, we think we can simply go into a location and God will give us all the wisdom we need. While He definitely can do and sometimes does this, we also need to take responsibility and gain the necessary tools to have a bit more understanding before doing things like building wells or schools. Not that we need a degree but definitely training. Just one more thought to think about:)
Again, thank you for sharing!
Thanks Melissa, and yes I completely agree on both points. It was recently in the news about how the US government subsidies to American rice farmers drove many Haitian farmers out of business, and the same can be said for cotton farmers around the world. As a citizen, being informed is often difficult but very important.
And, I am with you on your second point as well. Did you read the comments from an NGO worker in Haiti recently about the well-meaning couple who showed up because “God told them to go help”? They didn’t even have a ride from the airport, adding to the already overwhelmed resources.
Working through local people who understand the ins and outs of the country and culture, especially if you can do it through the local church helps tremendously.
Thanks for your input!
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