Our aim is to obey God's command
to worship God by loving our neighbors as ourselves. In order
to do this properly, we need professional local knowledge in implementation
and gospel-based long term planning. Thus, independent acts of
compassion tend to get disjointed and are less effective in the
long run. Our recommendation is to find a competent and reputable
organization, learn more about their ministries, and make a commitment
to support them for a period. Please maintain your interest by
getting stewardship and ministry reports from them and asking
questions. See you next month.
Now for those of you who are willing to read more, Simon has
a bit of experience with the disaster assistance programs of the
PC(USA), which we will use as an example. A "disaster"
is defined as a situation where the local population does not
have the capacity to control or to recover from its harmful effects.
We have seen the pictures of earthquakes, floods, the September
11 carnage, and many others. We can classify disasters in two
dimensions: speed and cause. Rapid- or sudden-onset disasters
happen very quickly, while slow onset disasters such as crop failures
happen over a time period. Human beings are not the direct cause
of natural disasters, but are responsible for plenty of other
disasters.
Three phases of assistance
Much of our mission work around the world is to assist populations
who are not able to manage the effects of natural and man-made
disasters. Some disasters linger for so long that we tend to accept
the condition as “normal.” In disaster assistance
programs, there are three distinct phases: relief, restoration,
and preventative development. Relief refers to the initial life-saving
efforts, such as supplying food, water, medical supplies, and
temporary shelters. The second phase is to restore normal life
circumstances such as basic education and community life. The
third phase is the developmental efforts to prevent the disaster
from reoccurring or to minimize the negative effects of the events.
Many of United Mission to Nepal’s (UMN) projects in Nepal
fall in the latter category: education, forest management, improving
the economic capacity of the poor, establishing equality and justice
in the society, developing community support systems. As many
of you can see, the nature and duration of external assistance
are very different for each phase.
Relief
The relief phase is quite similar to emergency care at a trauma
center. The victim's control over the treatment, his initiative,
modesty, and self-respect are all secondary to saving his life.
We have all heard about instances where governments actions based
on political considerations have resulted in the loss of many
lives unnecessarily. The most recent example is the SARS epidemic
in China. Sometimes, our very best intentions to respect and assist
local partners can also contribute to confusion and mismanagement.
Many of our church partners in poor countries are organized to
function with minimum resources; they have no extra capacity with
which to take on additional responsibilities. In a disaster situation,
their capacity is even less than normal, and they are not equipped
to handle relief efforts that are several times larger than any
of their previous projects. Further, the relief agency, in this
case Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA), does not have the
time to start developing their expertise before taking on the
relief efforts where rapid response is the utmost importance.
While we make every effort to engage our partners in the relief
efforts, the primary concern is the professional competence and
ability to act quickly. This is the reason why PDA often engages
the services of professionals with good local knowledge (in language,
customs, contacts) and experience. PDA always builds in a component
for the Church partners to contribute and learn from the experience.
When Simon was working with a Malawi Presbyterian synod on famine
relief efforts, much of the discussions centered on the efforts
of Malawian Presbyterians to share in the larger effort and support
with the widow's mite, although they lacked administrative, technical,
and financial capacity to design and implement a program on their
own.
Restoration
Next come the efforts to restore normal life to the affected
population as much as possible. Returning people to permanent
shelters, making sure they don’t miss the next planting
cycle, reopening shops and businesses after a ceasefire, returning
people to their hometowns—all these are examples of restoration.
This is when the target population should have more participation
in the decision-making process, and not just in technical considerations
or for financial efficiency. It must also be considered that strict
adherence to the conditions that existed before the disaster would
only ensure the cycle of suffering. In the El Salvador earthquake
in 2001, rebuilding the shacks of sticks and mud would have been
senseless, as it would only have prolonged the difficulties that
existed. Instead, programs were initiated to assist families to
build better houses on their own land and with their own labor.
Outside assistance was needed to finance (as loans) the material
purchases and for design and construction expertise. Much input
from the community was sought, and the local partner contributed
crucial local knowledge in community and beneficiary selection
as well as the logistics of purchasing and administration. Sometimes
the process is more cumbersome and time-consuming, but the benefits
of working together and building the capacity of local partners
are worth it.
Permanent solutions
The third phase is to develop permanent solutions and put them
in the hands of local population. The solutions will deal with
preventing disasters in the future and in developing local capacity
to react in a timely and effective manner to any disaster that
might occur. Increasing awareness of the root causes of the problem,
organizational capacity to mobilize resources in an accountable
manner, compassionate and just treatment of the weak and neglected
in the community—these are all parts of long-term solutions.
Much of our long term efforts are in the area of education, health,
and economic development. The PC(USA)’s International Health
Ministries Office provided more than $52,000 for UMN's health
work this year, all but $7,000 of which went for scholarships
to help train Nepali staff in clinical and community health work.
This is the way to long-term solutions.
Money issues
Now we return to the money issues. When Christian mission organizations
engage in disaster assistance, we should look beyond the initial
relief stage because we are there to help heal the broken bodies
and souls, not just to deliver food stuff and supplies. To help
people to get back on their own feet is to focus on people rather
than our programs. When disaster strikes, people react to the
images of destruction and suffering and open up their purse strings.
When television coverage moves on to other disasters, so does
financial support. It takes experienced hands to plan out the
donations for the life of the programs, since the flow of resources
dries up quickly, while the resource requirements for the latter
stages are much bigger. Quite often, the amounts of gifts received
during the relief phase is much greater than for other phases,
although the resources needed for restoration and development
work are much greater than the initial phase. If we spend all
the donations for the relief-phase programs, we’d have started
large scale efforts with no resources for the follow-through.
Also, even though people respond quickly in a disaster situation
by sending donations, disasters require immediate responses from
the ready reserve funds, which are then replenished as gifts come
in. All this requires planning and management of funds and programs
by professionals. Our recommendation is to search for competent
and well-managed organizations, such as the Worldwide Ministries
Division of the PC(USA), and participate in their programs rather
than sending funds to the “popular cause of the month”
type programs. Support of other mission projects needs to be evaluated
in the same way, by looking at the objectives, the methods, the
implementing competency, and the integrity.
We do not want to give many examples of well intentioned but
misguided projects, but we do want to reiterate that the primary
purpose of mission funding is neither to lessen our guilt for
having so much, nor to make us feel better for doing something
good. It is an opportunity for us to partake in God's work to
restore the human dignity and life, as we are told to love our
neighbors as ourselves. All of us are accountable for good stewardship
of our lives and resources to glorify God, as our Lord Jesus has
done. We pray that you can find a responsible organization to
help you learn more about God's work in the suffering world and
find your own place in it.
Grace and peace be with you.
Haejung & Simon
The 2003 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 166
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