by Debby Thomas

Although I am involved in Christian development work right now, that was not my original idea. God has slowly been teaching me that in Rwanda the gospel needs to touch the lives of the poor to be truly good news. In fact, none of the development projects I am now involved in were my ideas.

My family's foray into development started one day when a friend came to us explaining that charcoal had become so expensive that his family could afford either the charcoal used to cook food or food, but not both. We were deeply disturbed by this news, realizing that the problem was the same for many people we know. David and I both knew that God didn't desire for our Rwandan friends to live in poverty and hunger, yet at the same time we felt there was nothing we could do. We felt helpless in the face of widespread poverty.

My husband David suggested investing an hour every day to pray about the problem of poverty. We did this together every morning for about three months, and soon God began to give us ideas about what we could do to help Rwandans move out of poverty. Through prayer and follow-up on our part, God led us to learn about solar cooking (making solar stoves for $2), fuel-efficient cooking (making fuel-efficient, wood-burning stoves for $2), urban gardening, home composting, intensive gardening, Farming God's Way, growing moringa trees (Trees for Life), new experimental crops, and many other things. We learned that God is deeply concerned about the painful reality of poverty that Rwandans face on a daily basis, and that he desires for us to help them find practical solutions. We are also learning that God doesn't want just to impact people spiritually, but he wants to transform their physical lives as well.

A development scenario

For a moment imagine that you are a missionary or a development worker. You enter a needy village and after talking with people and observing their lives, it becomes obvious that one of their big problems is that they don't have a good source of clean, potable water. They walk long distances to get water, and often the water they get is contaminated. Much of the sickness in their village can be traced to drinking this unclean water.

What are you going to do? Is this problem purely physical in nature? Could it also have social, economic, political, and perhaps spiritual elements? Does the gospel of Christ have a piece in helping this community, or does the community simply need someone to come and drill a well?

In reality, many African villages face this exact problem. It's a huge problem in poor areas and it has been dealt with in a number of different ways. One solution is to bring in a team of people who have the knowledge and tools to figure out how to get water to this community and get the job done. This seems to be the most efficient means of solving the problem. Sometimes, however, the community will end up believing that these people who came with their equipment were powerful witch doctors, and that the water itself is associated with powerful and harmful spirits. Therefore, they refuse the clean water and continue to use that which is contaminated. In other cases the villagers will gladly use the water, but when the system fails for one reason or another it's never fixed since the locals don't have any idea how it works. Rarely, if ever, will this be a sustainable solution for the community's need for clean water. Nor will this solution help the community know how to solve their many other problems.

Transformational Development

Recently I was introduced to the concept of transformational development as presented in the book Walking With the Poor by Bryant Myers. Myers's ideas on transformational development are helping me better understand how development and the good news of Christ go hand in hand.

First of all, I have come to realize that God's story is the normative story that ought to shape all of our reality. In any Christian development effort, God's Word must be a central part of who we are and what we do. We don't want to teach people only to use technology as the one thing that can “save” them! We want to teach people to know God, and to become more like what he originally created us to be. The Bible, God's story, needs to be the central part of our development focus.

Second, my understanding of poverty has been expanded. Poverty is not merely a lack of money, resources, and services. Poverty is caused by and held in place by a complex web of elements that are not easy to identify. A simplistic view of poverty will inevitably produce a simplistic response that will not address the root causes. Theories of poverty are too complex to discuss in this brief article, but suffice it to say that the root issues are deep and many—including political, social, religious, economic, and cultural systems, isolation, vulnerability, powerlessness, material poverty, spiritual poverty, and physical weakness.

Bryant Meyers sums up the roots of poverty by saying that “the nature of poverty is fundamentally relational and its cause is fundamentally spiritual” (13). What in the world does that mean? Essentially, he says that all the problems of poverty show up in relational ways—through broken relationships with God, with others in the community, with those who are different from ourselves, and with our environment. “The poor are largely poor because they live in networks of relationships that do not work for their well-being” (13). This complex web of poverty cannot be broken by simply applying better technology. Only the power of God can get to these deep roots of poverty and replace lies and brokenness with his truth.

Third, my role as an agent of transformational development has been changed. I am not the one who knows everything, not the one to teach “them” how to do things the “right” way. Nor am I merely a bearer of Western technology or the one to save the “poor.” My role is more of a facilitator to:

• empower the poor to learn their true identity before God
• discuss clearly the problems of poverty these people are facing
• discuss openly as a community their vision for a better future
• encourage and mobilize the poor to take actions that will change the poverty in which they live
• teach methods of group Bible study that can inform these people's actions

Development scenario through the eyes of transformational development

Let's go back to our original scenario for a moment and look at the way one Christian development worker helped a village in Tanzania with its lack of clean water. This person began a relationship with the community, getting to know everything about them. The community started meeting regularly, discussing all aspects of their lives and livelihood as well as studying God's Word together in terms of how God's Word could be applied to their situation. Over time a relationship of trust was built. People talked about their problems and spent time discussing the good things that were happening in the community as they envisioned a better future. Eventually these relationships led them to working together as a community to tackle the problems they faced. In the eyes of the community, the problem of water wasn't the problem of highest priority, so they worked together on other issues first. Eventually they decided that it was time to tackle the problem of clean water. The development worker and the people decided how they would get clean water and which part of the process would be their responsibility. Instead of drawing up a typical contract between the donor organization and the people, this worker decided to write a covenant between God, the people, and the donor organization. Because Scripture study was used regularly in the whole process, and because this person had been discipling these people all along, the people were already aware that God was very much a part the development process.

When the water project was finished, the donor organization randomly picked some people in the community and asked them how their community got clean water. The typical response was a big smile, and the exclamation, “God brought us clean water…and this is how it happened.” The people were intimately involved in the project, they knew where the water came from, how the system worked, and how to fix equipment when it broke. Not only that, but they learned skills that will help them tackle other problems their community faces. As one can see, these people are on a journey of learning to know and love God more, as well as learning to partner with God and donors. They are actors in their own spiritual and physical transformation and are beginning to live out healed and whole relationships with God and with one another.

I believe that as Christians we are to bring a holistic gospel to the people we serve. We are not only to evangelize; we are to help people live out their Christian lives in every area of society. We must have a gospel that will change society, or our gospel is weak and meaningless. If we are truly the body of Christ, we will be able and willing to reach out in love to our brothers and sisters across the world with a gospel that not only meets their spiritual needs, but a gospel that also empowers them to transform society.