A must read -- When Helping Hurts

There are times when the impact of a book is life changing. “When Helping Hurts ... Who to Alleviate poverty Without Hurting the Poor .... and Yourself “ is that kind of book. Anyone involved in short term – or long term --mission projects should read this book for reading and discussion.

Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert are involved with The Chalmers Center, a part of Covenant College, in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. An excerpt from their website states that

‘The Chalmers Center for Economic Development at Covenant College helps churches to help the poor to help themselves. The methods we use center on the person of Jesus Christ. We believe that He is the only One who can give poor people the dignity, hope, and power they need to restore them to being what God created them to be: workers who can sustain themselves and bring glory to God in the process.’

Another quote (they say it better than I can.)

“When Helping Hurts" combines sound theology, solid research, foundational principles, and proven strategies that prepare you for Christian transformational ministry among the poor, whether in the local community or abroad.

Good Intentions Are Not Enough. Churches and individual Christians often have faulty assumptions about the causes of poverty — assumptions that many times lead to ministry strategies that do considerable harm to poor people as well as to themselves. "When Helping Hurts" addresses these assumptions and offers several principles and strategies for poverty alleviation, including:
the distinction between relief, rehabilitation, and development
the difference between asset-based and needs-based strategies
the advantages of participatory over blueprint approaches

This book is available from Amazon both as a soft cover book and as a downloadable ebook.

The website http://www.chalmers.org/when-helping-hurts/index.php includes information about the book, video interviews, audio interviews and webinars.

Drainage at San Carlos

There is a small church in the neighbouring town of San Carlos,only 25 members, that operates a Compassion project in which they provide after-school care and instruction to 135 children each week. Members of our local church in Alberta, sponsor a girl who attends this program and I visited the San Carlos project with them last year. Since that time we have developed a good relationship with Carlos and Claudia. We bring bananas and rice.

A few months ago they requested some help. There building is built on a slope and during the wet season there is water in three of the rooms – two classrooms and the office. Compassion suggested that they find a solution to the problem. The Bolivian solution would be to build different buildings but that would cost much more than the church could afford. Compassion suggested that they look for help internationally but their church is a national church without international connections. The only ‘extrangeros’ (foreigners) that they know are ourselves, so they asked us for suggestions and assistance.

Ideas ranged from moving the church and the project to another location to building a second floor on the existing building. The first did not meet with much enthusiasm from the church and we were not enthused about building a second floor since it did not solve the drainage problem. It would only give them a new church and a larger recreation field.

Instead we put heads together and worked on the drainage problem. There were two factors that were clearly part of the problem -- no drainage tile and no eaves troughs. Eaves troughs are not a new concept so they could be easily installed but drainage tile was not to be found. So we built our own using the basic principles that we had used for the filters in the water wells. All we needed to purchase were four inch tubes and clean gravel.

The day was organized. Some volunteers would dig the trench; others would cut slits into the tubes. We arrived to find the trench already started and the volunteers were all female, except one. Our helpers were the director, the teachers, and the minister’s wife. The male volunteer was the minister. All went to work and later in the morning two more men arrived. The men did the digging; the women cut the tubes and carried the gravel.

The system worked smoothly. After the trench was dug, gravel was laid to make it level. The tube was placed in the trench and more gravel was added. Then rice bags, similar to feed sacks, were placed over the gravel so that sand would not clog the tube. Finally, the soil which was mostly sand, was replaced.

At five o’clock everything was completed. We were a tired but happy bunch. We hope and pray that this system, and the eaves troughs, will solve the water problems in the classrooms.

Thank you to Woody Nook Christian Reformed Church for providing the funding for this project.