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Ministry beyond the “nine-day wonder”
by Frank Decker

Pastor Blas and his wife Irma live on dirt. Literally. Their clapboard home has a dirt floor. Their children play in a living area—bordered by a hand-dug well, a chicken coop, and some beehives—that are all situated on a well-swept dirt compound. Even the road to their rural home is unpaved and often muddy. The average annual income of a family in their congregation in this eastern Paraguayan community is about $200 per year.

Upon arrival and reception by these gracious hosts, the North American visitor is tempted to begin formulating means by which his host’s standard of living may be instantly improved. “What can I give them?” the well-meaning visitor asks himself. Money? Clothing? The Western mind instantly moves toward alleviating the economic disparity. “How can I ‘fix’ this situation?” the efficient visitor wonders, with good intent.

If I handed Blas a $20, $50, or even $100 bill, he would be grateful. But would it make a difference in his life? Perhaps such an action would go further to assuage my conscience than to impact his family.

That is why the visitor must understand the distinction between relief and development. Relief responds to immediate needs, while development enables enduring change. Certainly there is the need for relief work throughout the developing world, and I am grateful for the work of many fine relief agencies, including United Methodism’s UMCOR. However a cross-cultural worker should understand that relief should never serve as a substitute for development as a long-range response to material need. Long-term relief in lieu of development creates the danger of perpetual dependency.

I recall hosting a work team when I was a missionary. One of the members was thrilled by the reaction of the children in a village when he walked through town passing out dollar bills to them. He didn’t seem to understand that his “relief” efforts, however good they made him feel, were actually counterproductive to our desire to relate to our hosts on a deeper, eye-to-eye level. In a matter of days he would be on a plane back to the United States and we would remain, wondering how to explain to our friends that our presence hopefully had a more enduring significance. My hosts had a term for a ministry that ended when the visiting missionaries left. They called it a “nine-day wonder.”

Of course, appropriate forms of relief are necessary to address certain immediate needs. Every year doctors, dentists, nurses, construction workers, and others with specialized gifts have an impact upon people’s lives by serving missionary terms measured in weeks or even days. In Paraguay the Mission Society sponsors a mobile medical clinic that travels from town to town, combining medical care and evangelism. But relief efforts such as these are best offered in the context of a larger ministry strategy that also includes development. A visiting preacher who conducts a crusade in a village with no church may be providing spiritual relief to that community. The one who also enables the planting of a new church is providing spiritual development. The two strategies should complement each other.

In Eastern Paraguay, Mission Society missionaries Ben and Jenny Reyes observed how the people of Blas and Irma’s congregation were struggling to compete with larger, wealthier farms. The Reyeses also noticed that there was a market for locally-produced silk. They provided the seed money for sheds to produce silkworms, and now seven families in the area are involved in silkworm production. During the first year each family’s income tripled from $200 to $600, and is expected to increase to $1,000 the second year of production. In Ben’s words, “The possibilities for future financial increase will depend upon them.” That’s development.

Across Paraguay, the Methodist Church is involved in ministering and proclaiming the love of Jesus Christ, and development is an integral part of this ministry. Ask John and Colleen Eisenberg about the carpentry school that they’ve recently started among the Toba Indians. Members of a culture of hunter-gatherers are learning how to make folding chairs and tables to sell. Ask Ed and Linda Baker about the wells they are drilling in rural Paraguayan communities, and how the gift of fresh water reinforces their preaching of the message of life in Jesus. Ask Mark and Georgia Waltz about the 150 children in the Zulma barrio who had no opportunity to attend school in this poor region of Asuncion until the Waltzes began a school there. Now children who previously had no opportunity for a formal education have a brighter future, and are learning about Jesus in the process. And ask Pablo Mora, the president of the Paraguayan Methodist Church, whether or not these development ministries have had an impact on the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ in Paraguay.

As much as I try to imagine being in his place, I don’t know what it would be like to be Blas. But I do think that I’d rather be involved in the new silkworm project than to have a visitor reach in his wallet and hand me a donation. After all, one day the visitor eventually will leave. The question is, will the fruit remain?



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