Am I My Brother’s Keeper?

EXPERIMENTS IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Reference: Grigg, V. (1990(84)). Companion to the Poor. GA, USA: Authentic Media in partnership with World Vision.

“You are not making a gift to a poor man . . . you are returning what is his . . . The earth belongs to all, not to the rich.” — St Ambrose

I skipped over a mud puddle and flicked open my umbrella in deft Filipino fashion as the heavy rain spots began to splash on the road.

Aling Cynthia was just ahead of me. I shouted out to her, “Saan kayo papunta?” (Where are you going?)

“Sa trabaho! Ikaw?” (To work! And you?)

“Sa doktor.” I showed her the skin rash on my hands and feet that had developed from bacteria in the polluted pump water. We walked and talked.

“You know, Viv, you have no real problems,” she said.

“Akala mo!.” (That’s what you think!), I thought to myself.

“You have enough to live on,” she continued. Since Mang Mario, her second husband, had a heart attack, everything had gone wrong. “You know how happy I used to be. Now I do not smile. For one year now, life has been so hard.”

I remembered Aling Cynthia as the enthusiastic member of a Bible study group a year before.

“If only there was work,” I said sadly.

We walked in the silence of sympathy. She knew that I knew she would be forced to go to prostitution to feed her three children.

“Yes,” she said. “For one year now I have searched, but there are no jobs.”

As I listened, I felt as if my heart was falling apart. I thought back to a conversation with a young man in a church back home, who had asked, “Is it true you can just pray and God will provide jobs for people?” I had answered, “Yes, I can pray and God will answer. His answer is you. You are to sell all your excess things, work hard and make enough money to give to developing work for these poor!”

“Oh, Cynthia,” I said, “I will do all I can. You pray for me, too, that I can find some men who will set up industries here in the squatter areas. It is so hard.”

Women need Jesus Christ to stay out of prostitution— and an alternative income.
 

The drumbeat

There is a drumbeat beating in my head day after day, a beat that impels me forward into long hours of discipline and constant work. It is the cry of those saved from their sin, only to be entangled again by that same sin—by the tentacles of their poverty, drawing them down, down, down, till they are totally lost to this earth.

We must work and direct our undivided energy and unflagging zeal to provide economic stability for these, our new brothers and sisters in Christ. Like Kagawa, we must avoid being so busy working among the slum people that we forget to deal with the problems of the slums themselves.

Frank read the Tagalog Old Testament in three weeks after he was converted. He had time since he had no work. He was hungry for God. But without work, he sat around all day, and the pressure from his barkada became too much. He returned to his drinking. Drinking men need Jesus Christ—and a job.

We must not only evangelize and establish churches; we must also pastor these new believers. We must establish industries, act as social workers, and reform the structures that create their poverty.

Exploited workers need Jesus Christ—and assistance in the right ways to relate to their oppressive employers.

Oppressive employers need Jesus Christ—and teaching on how to repent of their exploitation and illgotten wealth.

City officials need Jesus Christ—and models on how to repent from corruption and utilizing their offices for their own ends.

The deserted wife, the pregnant girl, the disillusioned prostitute, the aged and ailing widow, the hungry child, the underpaid mother working to support a fatherless family all need Jesus Christ and . . .

Evangelicals have always been suspicious of mission boards that concentrate on education, medical, social, or economic ministries, excluding or downplaying evangelism and spiritual development. Yet in most mission fields, one or more of the following conditions exist. If not attended to, they will inhibit  the development of independent churches.

Where public education is absent, church planting must include education to enable members to read the Scriptures.

Where sickness and malnutrition sap energies beyond the struggle for mere existence, church planting must include public health and nutritional services.

Where there is just enough food to survive, church planting must include agriculture and related sciences.

Where there is artistic or technical ability, church planting must include the development of these talents and where necessary the distribution of products.

Where small businesses are possible and needed, church planting must include training in business practices and perhaps even financial help.

The list could go on, depending on local conditions. In other words, to fulfill the church planting purpose of most missionary societies, a church planter must engage in more than evangelism and leadership training. Is it too hard a thing to say that it is criminal to go on establishing organized churches— churches that are condemned in advance to be permanently dependent on foreign money and personnel because we neglect the economic factors that would make self-support possible?¹

The biblical response to poverty caused by sin is to preach the gospel to the sinner, but the biblical response to sin caused by poverty is to destroy the curse of poverty. Only when Christ returns will we fully be restored to our rightful role. But wherever his kingdom and righteousness take root on earth today, substantial restoration occurs and needs to be facilitated.

First steps

To an outsider, one area of need appears to be hygiene. The poor of Manila spend much of their income on highly paid doctors and on an exploitative, profit-making private hospital system. Over 90% of the poor have worms. Simple consistent teaching on basic hygiene needs to be an integral part of any growing Christian community.

We invited our friend Alan, a doctor, to come and teach the people about worms. He spoke first, on “How to get rid of the worms from your stomach,” and then Pastor Jun spoke on “How to get rid of the worms from your soul.”

If your people die young, of what value is your teaching?

Another friend, a university lecturer, began to join us once a week. Each time she came, she brought some herbal plants to add to the garden behind Jun and Milleth’s house.

Within the folklore of the people, there are sufficient remedies from herbal plants for most complaints (including common colds) and sufficient to make up a nutritional diet. The Philippine Government has done sufficient research on their growth, traditional uses, and dosages.

All that is required is to find some representative of the poor, with the tenacity and desire to develop the model, plus someone to train such a person in basic horticultural technique.

In time, we expect to find such a man or woman.

Any cluster of squatter homes has enough walls and roofs to develop any number of window boxes or potplant gardens. The potential from such a project in terms of herbal foods, medicines, hair shampoos and oils is well known in Western countries. In time to come, God willing, a small scale industry could easily be developed. The need is a man or a woman with the vision, the tenacity, and the willingness to learn the culture and develop the project over ten to fifteen years.

Why ten to fifteen years? Because most economic projects fail. An entrepreneur expects to fail and fail again until success comes. One research study analyzing 400 projects in the Philippines run by both the Government and private sector concluded that only 25% of these projects were moderately successful.

After discussion with experts in the field, I concluded that the basic reasons for failure are personal sin and the inability of the poor to manage finances. The sins include being too proud to feed the pigs, too lazy to water the plants, and harboring bitterness towards a member of the committee handling the project. Because of these attitudes, the gospel and the word of God are basic to economic change. Spiritual and social healing provides basic ingredients necessary for economic success.

Rabbits are an interesting case in point. I tried rabbit projects at three different stages, but they require too high a level of technology and management for the average person in a squatter settlement. (Not to mention the fact that the word daga, rat, is also used for rabbit!)

Why did the rabbit projects fail? Small things are important in this type of business: cleanliness, care in feeding, detailed records for breeding and feeding purposes. When one litter of four-month-old rabbits is killed for meat, some of the money must be saved for feed until the next litter is killed. Someone without experience in keeping money— whose income each day is always insufficient—must learn how to save and invest. To succeed, the development worker would have to closely supervise the people, and I didn’t have the time.

Pig-raising illustrates the same problem. Many people raise pigs. But a score of pigsties lie empty and unused. The reason? A fiesta, a marriage, or a catastrophe. The pig is killed. The capital is gone.

Among those who have grown up in a “culture of poverty,” there is usually little differentiation between capital, business finances, and personal needs.

Diet is another critical factor for the squatters. I found a group of nuns, “Sisters of the Good Shepherd,” who had devoted their lives to developing suitable diets for the poor— nutritious diets within the incomes of the poor. Missionaries to the slums need to understand nutrition. Some need to teach it to others.

The diet of the poor is fish and rice—a diet greatly deficient in vitamin B as only polished rice is available. For this reason (apart from worms), many of the poor are anaemic. Early on, Gene Tabor had introduced REACH to brewer’s yeast as a cheap way of avoiding this deficiency. Mung (mongo) beans supplement the protein requirements, but are also deficient in vitamin B. The poor in squatter settlements can learn to plant gardens that grow foods to balance their diets.

But gardens, goats, rabbits, and pigs do not provide a steady income. They merely supplement or maximize the use of available income. Their critical area of need is to find work, stable work, in industrial cities that do not have sufficient industry for its people.

The problem is not a new one. William Booth faced the same issue in London’s slums a century ago. His solutions included matchmaking factories (from where we get the word “safety matches,” which did not use the toxic, yellow phosphorous that caused death and sickness in many other factories), trade training factories (an early form of sheltered workshop), farm colonies, and exporting men and women (after some skills training) to outlying British colonies such as New Zealand. Booth unfortunately died before implementing the last program.

Our first problem was not finding steady income for squatters, but to find a steady income for Pastor Jun, so he could be a self-supporting evangelist. Both of us knew that any discipling movement in the slums could not be dependent on foreign funding for its leadership. The squatter people needed a model of a pastor who, like Paul, was able to support himself with his own hands.

The first project Jun attempted was selling school supplies (notebooks, pencils, erasers and so on) under contract to an aid organization working with 400 women in the community. This was a fulltime project for three weeks before the school term. It provided enough income for three months. What Jun and Milleth needed, however, was an ongoing means of earning an income. Continuing to sell school supplies was a possibility, but few in our community had money or demand for them. A time might come in the future, as the community continued to develop economically, when a market for school supplies would be a reality, but at this time, it was not.

We needed a cottage industry with marketing possibilities outside of the squatters—among the middle-class or in the export market. Pastor Jun and his neighbors did a fea­sibility study of a bicycle assembly shop. They felt it might work, but with a very low profit margin. Success would be dependent on excellent management. Because of this, we were advised to try another approach.

Many ideas were suggested, and we debated and discussed their pros and cons. Finally, we agreed on vermiculture, or the growing of worms. With the help of an exporter, we would sell the worms to Japan, Canada, and Italy, where they would be used to make perfumes, placed in wines to make “macho” drinks, and eaten in worm-burgers! Their castings would make excellent potting soil for sale to rich people growing orchids.

Jun started with a few kilos of worms and worked diligently. The number of worms doubled each month. After a year, he had enough worms to begin selling. Unfortunately, at about that time, the exporter quietly packed up his office and disappeared. Jun, exhausted by the work, gave up. Where could he sell kilos of earthworms if not to Italians for perfume, Canadians for fish, or Japanese for burgers?

We went back to our discussions.

A good man
 

A man in Tatalon has outdone many Christians in his service to the poor of the slums—a small man, clad casu­ally in shorts, and very intelligent. He owns a small joinery in Tatalon employing twenty workers. He buys cheap wood, builds cheap furniture, uses cheap transport (a horse and cart) and is kind to his workers. He has a degree in com­merce.

The twenty men working there are the local drinkers. He pays them relatively low wages, but he provides stable work and often provides piecework for their children and wives. It is better to have stable work than no work at all or insecure work.

The men respect him. He sits and drinks with them. They say he knows pakikisama—how to get along with people, how to be one of the boys. That’s a high compliment for a man.

This is the kind of industry the squatters need: a place where men can learn a skill on the job in a productive business. Most unskilled men are unable to produce first-class work at an economic price. They have not enjoyed the benefits of training and education needed to become skilled craftsmen. Economic aid has to be focused at the level of developing entrepreneurs who will take others with them as they move out of poverty.

A friend came to help with some electronics ideas. Another friend told of someone who was employing several squatter Christians in a shoemaking project. Starting a welding shop seemed like a good idea since there were many jeepney and tricycle body-building shops throughout Manila. Each project required a skilled person to develop and manage it.

Over a period of time and the study of various economic projects developed by other groups, a conviction grew that with a team of three people with the right skills, a cottage industry-skills training project would succeed. For example, a woman trained in marketing, an engineer trained in production, and someone with management skills would be able to handle most projects. Three people seemed an appropriate number in a consensus-oriented society.

It also was obvious that the West is full of down-to-earth, practical men and women who, with little equipment, can build most things they need. They have imbibed basic management skills from their culture. I began to pray for such people in their late thirties to forties: people with above average sensitivity, able to stick at such projects for sufficient time until the culture is mastered and the work established, who can hold a hacksaw in one hand and a Bible in the other—who can, as they pass on skills, also pass on the love and power of the God at work within them. Grey-haired, retired executives would be a special gift from God. In the role of economic development consultant to the slum community, a skilled person could even work from outside the slum.

Will renewal become revival?

Our minds are saturated with data contrasting rich nations with poor. We do not want to hear any more of the problem. Most Western Christians long to hear of potential solutions that they can be involved in.

The church in New Zealand has had a deep social conscience concerning the Two-Thirds World poor. During the sixties and seventies, a significant percent of non-Christians in New Zealand defined a Christian as someone who does good for his neighbor, gives to the poor, visits prisons, and so on.

Partially, they were right. Faith without practical evidence, according to both Jesus and James, is not faith at all. Evangelicals often define the evidence of faith as baptism or a personal testimony (based on Romans 10:9,10). These are evidence. Jesus, however, adds another piece of evidence:

Come . . . inherit the kingdom . . .
For I was hungry and you gave me food,

I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.

I was naked and you clothed me,
I was sick and you visited me,
I was in prison and you came to me

(Matthew 25:34–36).

While on furlough, I felt constrained to declare that unless the cleansing and renewal occurring in New Zealand churches resulted in an economic repentance, it would not be true revival. Affluence and worship do not result in pleasure to God. A new spirituality must be outworked in new economics. Raised hands, ecstatic spiritual experiences and new worship forms in dance and music on their own are of no consequence to God. They are not holy, but like a mud bath in his sight unless accompanied by economic repentance and justice. Listen to Isaiah:

Bring no more vain offerings; Incense is an abomi­nation to me; New moon and Sabbath and the call­ing of assemblies. I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly (Isaiah 1:13).

Renewal came to New Zealand. Thousands of new house groups developed a distinctly effective Kiwi model of evangelism.

But Western nations must follow the model in Acts, when the coming of the Holy Spirit was followed by economic repentance and new economic structures.

Acts Chapters 2 and 4

First, at a house group and church community level, a commitment to economic sharing is necessary and, through this, a commitment to a simpler lifestyle. This will be the basis of a ministry of integrity to the poor.

Second, as a poor class emerges in the West as a result of economic depression, churches need to be ministering to them, drawing them into extended families and establishing work schemes.

Third, in relationship to the Two-Thirds World, Western churches need to take leadership in national repentance for our continued exploitation of the Two-Thirds World’s resources, our restrictive trade licensing system, our unjust balance of trade relationships with Two-Thirds World nations, and our totally inadequate aid policies. If the church does not repent, how can the government? The church is called to be the conscience of the nation.

Fourth, we need to get into the hands of the poor the means of production by:
(a)  transferring our technical expertise through people
who will give themselves long-term to learning
another culture, identifying the level of local
expertise, and passing on appropriate technology;
(b) donating or donating funds for the equipment
needed to help Asia’s urban poor begin small-scale
industries; and
(c)  Getting funds to Asia’s poor without interest and
without unnecessary controls.

These constructive activities would all be components of economic repentance, repentance from the sins of Sodom:

Behold this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, surety of food and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy (Ezekiel 16:49).

Traditional Western churches have rejected these words from God. In places where some have heard these words gladly and taken action, we can see a humbling before God and subsequent renewal.

May I have your sewing machine?
Ladies in the West often have two sewing machines. We asked them to give up one. I did not dare suggest that the rewards of giving their new one to be used full-time in the hands of a poor lady might outweigh the difficulties they would have going back to their old one. With two exceptions, we received old sewing machines.

My church in New Zealand is an unusual one. A number of wealthy executives, doctors, and professionals belong who have chosen simple homes and lifestyles, and who delight in supporting missionaries. They organized a “Day of Jubilee,” bringing many goods for the poor as a sign of renewed commitment to simplicity. Nine crates of goods were marked for Manila.

Meanwhile, the team in Tatalon was planning what to do with the goods when they arrived. Theresa and Resty were both engineers who came to be part of an economic projects committee. We discussed what we would do with the welding machine and the sewing machines. Could we set up a carpentry shop for the four carpenters who had been converted? Theresa prayed for a pair of glasses for Kid, who had frequently said he was unable to read the Bible because of poor eyesight.

The goods arrived. Four days of sweat, clearance through customs (with no bribes!), and fifty-nine signatures later we were careering down the streets with our full load. Christians in Tatalon sorted and packed the clothing into plastic bags. Lo and behold, a pair of glasses! Only later did we discover that the church secretary in New Zealand had misplaced his glasses while packing the goods!

We went around the community singing, giving the clothes and shoes to the poorest widows and families. A young pregnant woman began to weep. “I thought I had no friends, nobody to love me,” she said.

The sewing machines were spirited away to Aling Berta’s house. Gary and Berta had been two of the first to believe and were recognized as leaders within the community. Berta was the daughter of our barrio councilor or community leader. She immediately set in motion her plan to employ some women in turning off-cut cloth into rags that could be sold to jeepney drivers. Other machines would be used in dressmaking.

Importing company

I wanted someone to grapple with the issues related to unjust trade practices. We also needed a cottage industry outlet from Manila. We prayed for an evangelical importing company to be established in New Zealand. (A large “alternative” importing group in New Zealand had begun from a Christian base but had become associated with Marxism. In the politically volatile situation of the Philippines, we couldn’t risk working with them. Nonetheless, over the years this agency has brought about a significant number of creative changes in New Zealand’s trading policies.)

I prayed for one year. A week before returning to the field, the house group of a friend volunteered to put up shares and set up such a company.

Four cottage industries exist among the 14,000 residents of Tatalon: carpentry, cane chair-making, crochet and burricraft (a form of grass weaving). We spent many hours linking these up to a non-profit Christian exporting company and to the import company in New Zealand. Being involved in importing is giving the house group a first-hand opportunity to apply the biblical teaching on helping the poor and on doing justice.

Prayer and economics

But taking on Satan in the area of economics is not without spiritual opposition. Behind these activities were long evenings of prayer. The Lord made himself known during one particular evening in Tatalon. About twenty-five gathered together that night. How beautiful it was to hear Aling Nena pray in Tagalog.

“Lord, help us; we’re just poor people, but we know that before you there’s neither rich nor poor. We’re very poor, so help us. Please heal me from my sickness. I believe in you. I haven’t been to the albulariol (spiritualist or faith healer).

“And Lord thank you for hearing me—for giving work to Eleanor, my daughter. And I want to thank Viv for giving her the capital!”

We had given Eleanor P200 of the capital given to us for exporting goods so she could begin running a meat stall in a market. She was repaying us P5 per day, so we could recover the capital before the export goods left for New Zealand and use it for its designated purpose.

This loan system worked well. Other new believers asked if they, too, could take loans of P300, repaying them at a rate of P5 per day after the first two weeks. The loans were repaid within three months. Helen borrowed money for a dried fish stall; Liz and Rene for an eatery; another for bagoong (a tasty sauce made from ground anchovy fish).

We discussed ways to improve the system. An economic committee was set up consisting of people from Tatalon. These were now their own projects—run with their own motivation. Control of the finances and economic development policy was now in their hands. The young fellowship was now establishing an economic identity reflecting principles of the kingdom!

And the future?
 

Dreams create work, so it is wise not to have too many. With a goal of assisting every

squatter Christian leader to gain a skill or become self-supporting, dreams can be multiplied a hundredfold.

Soap-making, shoe manufacture, food stores, and bee­keeping (there are only about 400 beekeepers in the Philippines) have all been suggested. Micro farms that integrate ducks, fishponds, rice, goats, pigs, methane gas production and vegetables in a small area—and a multitude of other ideas—are all potential programs.

But they all come with costs in time, money and management that have to be weighed and paid at the right season. Programs have to emerge from the felt needs and responses of the squatter Christians. They have to be developed by someone trained to manage, and such personnel are hard to find among the poor.

William Booth summed up his experience in the area of economic programs among the converted poor:

Most schemes that are put forward for the improvement of the people . . . would only affect the aristocracy of the miserable. It is the thrifty, the industrious, the sober, the thoughtful who can take advantage of these plans . . . No one will ever make a visible dent on the mass of squalor who does not deal with the improvident, the lazy, the vicious, and the criminal. The scheme of social salvation is not worth discussing which is not as wide as the scheme of eternal salvation.

At the same time, he wrote:

I would not disguise the fact that I attach far more importance to reform of the man than to reform of the law. The problem of problems lies here in a nut­shell.²

The missionary role

What is the role of the pioneer missionary in all of these things? Missionaries will never become one of the people. They will always be guests in a culture despite mastery of language, understanding of cultural values, and depth of relationship.

The biblical word for missionary is apostle, or “sent one.” Apostles are to pioneer, to reach into new areas, to establish new fellowships, laying the correct framework built on Jesus Christ. They must lead, set the pace, and preach the word. Apostles are to direct the new believers to study the scriptures for solutions to their own problems. They are to sit and listen, clarifying the issues, but let the believers find their own solutions.

Local Christians understand the social structure, the economics, and the politics of life around them. They can bring socio-economic and political change within society. The missionary’s role is to teach the breadth of scriptures, to provide the depth of theology needed for a movement.

Western missionaries today must recognize at the same time that they are brothers and sisters to a nation of rich people. Behind them are great resources, which, because of a commitment to justice and compassion, they must tap. And this requires management. Christian aid agencies are useful, with administrative structures already established to take Western money and give it to the poor.

Jesus lived simply, but he, too, had behind him infinite resources. The missionary is to initiate and yet must, at the same time, seek to remain free from the administrative and managerial load that each economic and legal project demands. We must be free to pioneer new ideas, recruit new laborers, delegate tasks, and set up the structures for them to function by; free to continue preaching the word and opening up neighboring communities to the gospel; free to live the carefree life so loved by a modern-day follower of Francis of Assisi.

The first apostles or church leaders were well aware of the tension between initiative and freedom. Initially, they had to handle the economic interchange between rich and poor inspired by the Holy Spirit. As time went on, they realized the need to delegate the administration of a program for widows to seven deacons (for deacons read “social workers,” “community developers” or “administrators”): Therefore, brethren, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit, and of wisdom whom we may appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and the word (Acts 6:3–4).

They themselves would put priority on the spiritual dimensions. Jesus did the same thing constantly. I used to wonder why Jesus, a carpenter, never set up a carpentry-training program to help some of the poor. But he declared his vocation, “to preach the gospel to the poor,” and called the disciples to “go, preach the gospel.”

Jesus knew that preaching the kingdom, confounding demonic powers, and healing the sick were priorities. He was hitting at the cancer in the core of society, not just the symptoms. Francis Schaeffer has described how theology influences philosophy, which then influences the arts and music and, from this, all areas of life.

A matter of perspective
 

The squatter views his slum as a place of hope. The Western outsider views it as unsanitary, full of disease, lacking water, adequate housing, privacy, peace and quiet, trees, and so on. It appears destitute in comparison with the neighboring “normal” middle-class subdivisions that can be observed elsewhere. This point of view is only natural for the Westerner suddenly thrown into a shantytown.

In reality, the standard of living in most slums is no lower than in the rural areas from which the inhabitants have recently come, nor is it, perhaps, very different from that of the industrial West a century ago. But to modern Western eyes, life in the slum is in stark contrast with the technologically advanced, affluent urban populations in industrialized nations and, even more pertinently, with that of the elite of the Two-Thirds World.

For the slum dweller, life is much better than it used to be. Unlike residents in a more affluent subdivision, slum dwellers find cohesion and solidarity in their communities. Urban slums provide opportunity for him to participate in a new technological world: in consumer goods, a better educational opportunity for his children, and an increased average income over what he was able to earn in the province. The slum is a bridge to that long-hoped-for opportunity; a place to live close to kin; a way out of landlessness and exploitation.

Some may argue that we should not help the urban poor to move up, as they may move out of these areas. Apart from the obvious ethical fallacy in this statement, it is factually not true. About half of the areas identified by the government as squatter areas in Manila will be upgraded, and they have become stable places of residence. The entire community has the chance to move out of poverty together.

NOTES

1.      Excerpts from Charles H. Troutman, “A Fallacy in Church Planting: a Fable,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly, July 1981, p 137.

2.      General Frederick Coutts, Bread for My Neighbor, Hodder and Stoughton, 1978.

3.      Maslow, Abraham Harold., Motivation and Personality, Addison-Wesley Pub Co; 3rd edition, 1987.

© Viv Grigg & Urban Leadership Foundationand other materials © by various contributors & Urban Leadership Foundation,  for The Encarnacao Training Commission.  Last modified: July 2010