At
the end of April, I had an opportunity to visit the Philippines for a vacation
and also to visit the FM churches and Bible College there. I thank God
that I could meet the American missionary, Rev. Fred Adams, who has started a
Relief and Development program and established a farm called Elim Farm on 36
hectares in the Philippines. I had
planned to visit the farm originally, but God had a better arrangement for me.
I was able to visit their office in Davao City (the second largest city
in Philippines), and we had a wonderful discussion and exchange of ideas with
his core team members, brother Darwin and sister Elizabeth.
God is good that I could learn from their experience and see how God is
working in Philippines too. I would
like to share some insights:
Relief and Development
In Cambodia, we focus on development because we want
to avoid dependence on us by
the local people. We want them
to have a self-help mentality in order to sustain their livelihood.
This creates some difficulties when they are not capable of doing things
by themselves, such as what we have experienced in the pilot piglet raising
scheme here. However, the approach
in the Philippines is focusing on both relief and development, and they have set
a very long time frame in order to carry out relief and development at the same
time. The transfer of the skills and
technology takes time, but more important are the holistic needs of the
community. So they provide both
skill training and evangelize the workers gradually.
Partnership instead of provider
They created partnership with the farm owners in that they also hire them to
develop their land under close supervision.
When a farmer has the skills, they will loan the necessities and allow
the farmer to start on his own. On
one hand, it is easier to control the process; on the other hand, there is no
need to buy land that may incur the problems of ownership and overhead cost in
the long run.
The effort of the church, development team and
management team
The holistic balance consists of the participation of
3 main constituents. We usually
stress the role of the church which fulfills the spiritual transformation, and
the development team that pushes for social reform.
Nevertheless, a sound management team is essential to plan, coordinate,
market and sustain the system for the continuity of the holistic nourishment.
Fast and Pray
The holistic ministry is also spiritual
warfare because it goes deep into human hearts for life transformation. Again,
Satan never stops attacking the children of God through tribulations,
temptations or impatience. Dr. Fred
Adams shared with me that fasting and prayers are the weapons to fight against
the ruler of the world. In Cambodia,
Satan also uses our sinful nature, culture and superstitions to obstruct
the work of God. We must
always be alert!
Thank
God that He grants me this
precious opportunity to learn and understand more about the essence of
development. There is still lots to
learn, and may He use us to let His blessings flow.
Prayer points
- May God grant our team to have the wisdom to carry
out holistic ministries for the communities
- Another pig that was raised for about 7 months got
sick and was finally sold. There are no more pigs left and we need to review
this pilot project in order to plan future development projects for the villagers
- Consultation with contractors about the construction
of the covered playground at
the Phnom Penh Thmei property
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Davis Lam
