Working Together

About two years ago, Rocky and I read the book, When Helping Hurts:  How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself.  It was a book that deeply impacted our thinking with respect to how we do missions.  Our hearts desire is to share the Gospel in love and community, and to come alongside the local people to help where we can.  This last week was a beautiful reflection of this desire.

We had a group of 20 women here from Jacksonville, Florida.  Their team brought project money to build a set of bathrooms for a public school in Seguachil and participate in the water project in Sepalau, but, they didn’t actually do any construction work.   Instead, their focus was on another kind of building – that of relationships. 

On Tuesday, in the morning, the ladies toured the local health clinic.  Then in the afternoon, we had a number of women from Chisec come out to the mission to share an afternoon of food, fun and information.  The ladies team got to hear what the greatest needs are in this area right from those who are living and working here – the local women (teachers, school principals, health care workers, business owners, pastor’s wives, etc).  It was a powerful afternoon of sharing.  I truly believe the women from Chisec felt honoured to participate and knew their voices of concern for their people were heard.  The team was deeply impacted by this time as well and it was a wonderful preparation for the following day’s work. 

On Wednesday they went out to Sequachil to do a medical clinic and a prayer walk through the community.  Two of the women on the team were doctors, and along with a local doctor and other health care workers, they saw tons of patients and were able to intercede in some situations that were life threatening.  The rest of the team went with the local pastor and school principal into homes and prayed for the families of this community.    It was collaboration between the local community leaders and the team, as they worked side by side addressing the physical and spiritual needs of the people of Seguachil. 

God doesn’t call missionaries to the field to simply tell the people what they need or to do things for them.  He calls them to be a part of the community, to build relationships, to love the people and work together with them.  He called us To Guatemala to share the love of Christ by working alongside those He already has in place – local pastors and the family of believers – to build His Kingdom together.  This is missions!