Ministry: Social and Community Ministry
This is the poorest, least developed area of Burkina, on the edge of the desert, a region that suffers regular droughts, with low literacy, and low life expectancy. There is huge need, and while the gospel message is central, we cannot neglect the social, economic, and political dimensions of the kingdom of God that calls us to care for the whole person within their context.
I therefore seek to take a holistic approach - not just preaching while ignoring the physical need, but trying to relate as Christ did to the whole person - physical, emotional, social, spiritual. A local Christian agency is now forming that could be a key partner for the development and management of these schemes working alongside local churches.
Responding to need
At one level, we have been trying to respond to the immediate suffering and lack
of basic needs that people face. Working together with locals,
we have helped out with emergency food in times of famine, supported orphans
through school, supported a scheme to help TB sufferers get treatment,
and helped any number of individuals and families in times of personal need.
Following the floods in Gorom-Gorom in 2006, which destroyed half the town and
left about 6000 people homeless, I worked closely with the local churches in a concerted response.
With financial help from churches in the west, we became the main agency helping people with food aid,
mosquito nets, blankets, and mats in the first emergency aid response. We were also able to respond
first to help the most vulnerable people rebuild their homes.
(Read more about the Gorom-Gorom flood and our response)
We plan to continue to respond to such need as it arises, and to support the weakest and most vulnerable. However, such aid is never enough, and it is one of the most heartbreaking aspects of life that, however much we do, the need never seems to get any less. We also need to address the powerlessness, injustice, sin, attitudes, etc that keep people from breaking out of poverty and powerlessness.
Community Development
When Jesus touched people's lives, he not only healed them, but
also set them free from slavery to the powerlessness of their situations, transforming their lives
socially, physically, and ecnomomically as well as spiritually. I believe that
God still wants to liberate people from such slavery and powerlessness.
Together with local people, we are exploring appropriate ways in which the church can be this agent of transformation in the community. We want to avoid any kind of imposition of externally designed "solutions", or dependance on western finance. Rather, we want to see how to help people to take control of their own lives through the grace of God.
Some of the things we are looking at, depending on the needs and concerns of each situation include:
- Education: Schools and education support: helping children get education. We currently are preparing to build a Primary School for Gorom-Gorom. Also adult literacy classes.
- Health promotion: (Eg. raising awareness about Aids and fgm, mosquito nets for protection against malaria, support for Tb sufferers)
- Clean water: Good wells and pumps. In Nov-Dec 2008, we spent 4 weeks drilling wells and repairing/ replacing pumps in the north of Burkina Faso.
- Micro-credit: small loans to help people start small businesses to support their families, thus increasing family stability and moving people from dependency to dignity.
- Business development and skill training: helping people develop work-related skills and develop and manage their businesses
- Social events: Children's camps, sports camps etc.
- Environmental protection: Eg. woodless construction houses and improved stoves that reduce the use of scarce wood, thus reducing deforestation and desertification.
A Christian approach
We are seeking to take a particularly Christian approach, recognising a Christian understanding of God's
desire for humanity, the nature of reality, and the inter-dependance of the physical, the social and the spiritual.
Thus, the church is at the heart of our community development approach, and we are thinking about what unique contribution
a Christ-centred approach brings.
The world is not simply material, but has spiritual, moral, relational, and social dimensions. Economic prosperity, devoid of ethical and spiritual values results in the society we have in the west, where people are wealthy, but where depression, suicide, family and community breakdown, social exclusion, spritual aridity, and immorality are rife. There is a better model.
A Christian understanding of development.
A Christian view of development is based on the vision of the kingdom of God, where there is restored relationship with the Creator, right relationships within community, banishment of sin and sickness and suffering and oppression, wholesome family life, individual empowerment, people living in dignity, free and responsible to make good choices.
"Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years...Although this vision will only be fully accomplished at the return of Christ, with the new heaven and earth, Christ has announced that the kingdom of God has begun to arrive now, and that the church is to be a model and agent of the kingdom. Jesus said that people's healings and deliverance were signs that the kingdom of God was happening.They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat.
They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they and their descendants with them." (Is 65:17-25)
Some aspects of a Christian approach, which will shape both the goals of development, and the process would include the following: dignity, spirituality, relationship, integrality, empowerment, and discipleship.
(Read more about a Christian approach to development)
Related pages
- Empowering local workers,
- Partnering local pastors in northern Burkina with churches in the west, to help them in this mission
