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NEPAL: In 1995 a group of Christians in Nepal were inspired by the work of the Micah Network, and the teaching they had heard about integral mission to get together to encourage the churches in their own country to understand and practice integral mission. Micah Network Nepal (they are the only national level Micah Network) is a Nepali Christian response to the needs of poor and oppressed communities which reflects the mandate given in Micah 6:8 “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God”, starting with a group of Christian organisations who:

• Are committed to responding to poor and oppressed communities through integral mission;
• Are equipped to challenge the wider Christian community to embrace integral mission;
• Share their experiences and learnings with each other in a supportive environment;
• Advocate with and on behalf of the poor on poverty and justice issues, individually; and
• Collectively prayerfully support the network and its vision

In 2008 they also became part of the Integral Mission Initiative, committing to work with others in their country to promote integral mission. They have their own website and are currently organising a national conversation on integral mission in order to start working with other Christians groups in Nepal who share their vision.

THAILAND: AIDS has affected a vast amount of people who have responded in various ways. This is the story of one Christian family’s struggle to overcome the stigma of an AIDS- infected son and the rewards that emerged in their community as a result.

Malee and Yanyoong Charoenboon live in a predominately Christian village about fifteen kilometers outside the city of Chiang Rai. Here they raised four children, three sons and a daughter. Yanyoong worked for World Vision in the provinces of Phrae and Chiang Rai, while Malee stayed home and looked after the children. Her parental influence, as well as the village’s, led to their third-born child Wayo growing up into a Christian young man; however, the unstated rules of young Thai society made it acceptable for young men, even Christians, to regularly visit prostitutes. Theories indicating that no harm was being done and everyone was behaving this way were rampant.

Unfortunately, these theories were wrong and led to disastrous effects. Often young men would not use protection when seeing these prostitutes and many became infected with HIV which eventually evolves into the AIDS virus.

Such was the case with Wayo, who contracted HIV in 1991 when he was just 22 years old. He was the first in his circle of friends to get the disease but kept silent for three years, not even confiding in his family. Although he did not share this information, the town figured out by observing him that he was in fact HIV-positive and reacted accordingly. Little was known about AIDS, and the community was terrified of it, shunning those infected and regarding it as a punishment from God. They would refuse to be associated with anyone who carried the disease, as well as his or her family. Malee remembers the hard times her family encountered at the beginning, when people would not speak to them and even cross to the other side of the street to avoid a probable meeting.

After a period of three years Wayo realized that telling his family about his condition was inevitable; his health problems had become too much for him to bear alone. Once the whole family knew, they went to a doctor and he informed them that in his present state Wayo had about a month to live. This came as a great shock to his family, confirming that their son had AIDS and he would only be with them for another month. Even though he had had the disease for a fair length of time, Wayo would not acknowledge it and continued to live as before, drinking and smoking with no regard to his health. They decided to keep him at home to care for him, heeding the doctor’s instructions to let him eat whenever and whatever he wanted. In addition to telling them how to care for Wayo, he explained that a person could not catch AIDS from drinking after or touching an infected person as many people thought, but only through having intercourse or exchanging blood with him or her.

The doctor also told them that people who have AIDS need to know their family and friends supported them and encouraged them to attend a support group. By this point nearly forty cases of AIDS existed in the community and virtually every family had been affected by the disease. Upon hearing the news that Wayo had only one month to live, neighbors and people from surrounding villages traveled form near and far to rally around the Charoenboon family, providing support and motivation for them.

The family also rallied around Wayo, his mother and sister caring for him as if he were a baby. They helped him change his clothes, bathe, and eat. Following the doctor’s directions to let him eat anything he wanted placed a strain on the family. They often had to travel long distances in all conditions to obtain food for him. Yanyoong once walked 15 km during a flood to get a certain dish that was not available in the community. Another time Wayo wanted a specific type of fruit and since his father worked in Phrae, they called the staff there and arranged for some to be sent to Chiang Rai.
Thankfully Malee and her family did not suffer from large medical expenses, as only once did their son have to be hospitalized. This cost around $2,700, which is very expensive, but happened only once, so the family was able to look after his other minor medical needs.

Through the community’s encouragement, the family was able to set up a support group for people with AIDS. Many people attended and were able to share their stories and know that they were not alone. In the year following her son’s confession that he had AIDS, Malee attended every funeral and struggled with the loss of these young people, knowing her son would soon die as well. Her main encouragement came through neighbors asking how things were going and if there was anything they could do.

Of the 40 cases in the community, about five of them were friends of Wayo. He was the first to get the disease, but ironically was the last of his friends to finally succumb to AIDS. Wayo died at age 26, over one year after the doctor had given him a month to live. The entire family mourned the loss, but at one point Malee’s oldest daughter shared that even though the situation was tragic, her brother’s having AIDS had brought the family and the community together in a unique way and helped them to rely on God always. Life for the family continued on in many of the same ways after their son died. Malee continued to go to support groups and an idea soon started to form in her mind.

The idea grew as Malee heard of a project called Loan Fund that gave interest-free loans to people with AIDS and their families to start up income-generating projects. This organization recommended that those in need should apply to receive a loan. In 1998 individual loans were made to families within the support group. Malee became a volunteer staff person for the Loan Fund, visiting people in the program and helping to collect the money. The following year the support group asked for a loan of 20,000 Baht from the Loan Fund and started to set up a savings group. The savings group then formed a committee and appointed Malee as coordinator of the funds. People could apply for loans and save money for future use as well.

In 1999 they received a loan for 20,000 Baht, repaying it the next year and asking for a loan once again, this time for 30,000. They have successfully repaid that loan as well and in 2001 the amount had risen to 50,00 Baht, to be payed back over the course of four years.

This savings group is doing remarkably well and Malee has been instrumental in its development. People repay the loans they receive and also are able to set aside money for savings. Every year a large meeting is held and Malee informs the group about how much money is available and how much interest has been earned. The revolving fund increases itself, making greater opportunities available to more people. Approximately thirty families are involved in this group, and those who don’t currently have loans are contributing additional funds to the savings group.

Malee is now 58 years old and, besides volunteering, she helps look after her grandson. Yanyoong, now 65 years old, has since retired from World Vision and works with his eldest son in growing rice and other crops. Malee has been awarded with a plaque from the Church of Christ of Thailand for her work. They are very positive about their situation and work and as Yanyoong once said, God has provided for them that they may in turn help others.

CAMBODIA: Svay Att is a 199-family strong village in Pursat province of Cambodia. Most of its residents are poor farmers, some of whom migrated to Thailand in search of work, leaving their young ones and the elderly. Through the evangelistic efforts of Im Seila, the pastor of the local Methodist church, the number of new believers increased. Soon, many of them faced persecution; the church also had increasing restrictions placed on it.

Five years into his ministry at the church, Pastor Seila attended a training programme on holistic ministry following which he implemented seed projects[1]. For his first project, Seila mobilized community members to repair a path in the village. Despite many challenges, the project was successfully completed. Community members were happy about the outcome and were proud to have participated in a project which was planned by them, implemented by them and for them. Since then, Pastor Seila planned and implemented many other projects such as cleaning the village, helping poor families by providing them with food and so on.

Though there were many Seed Projects implemented, the impact was minimal due to the frequent droughts in the region. Families continued to borrow from money lenders at very high rates of interest to buy rice seeds for cultivation. Sometimes after harvest they were unable to even pay the interest, so they were forced to sell their land to repay their loans.

Seeing the needs of people in his village, Pastor Seila spent some time in prayer and wanted to start a rice bank to help the people in the community. So he shared this vision with his congregation and the villagers; some of them liked the idea. Others criticised his idea saying, “…good idea but how can we start a rice bank while we don’t have rice to eat?” At the beginning there were twelve families who were interested in participating in this project, so Pastor Seila formed a voluntary group among the twelve families – five who were Christian and the rest, non-believing. With faith and the 750,000 Riels (187.50 USD) collected from the participating families, they set out. Seeing their enthusiasm and faith, the MMC- CHAD project (Methodist Mission in Cambodia – Community Health and Development) chose this church to work with in partnership in community development. At the time of writing this case study, there was more than three tons of rice available for loaning to both Christians and non-believers at a rate of interest affordable to the poorest family in the community.

Pastor Seila noted that after having the rice bank in his community, conflict between Christians and non- believers was reducing from day to day because the rice bank benefits all people in the community, regardless of their faith stance. The village chief and commune councils appreciated the initiative as also Buddhist priests and monks who began to enquire openly about Christianity and the story of Christ. The opportunity to share the Good News with the Buddhist priests and monks. More recently, Pastor Seila was appointed to be a member of the Kindergarten Committee, Vice-Chairman of the conflict resolution and domestic violence facilitation committee. She also works closely with the administration police in his community.

A savings group is next in the plan.

This is just one of many such stories which are the result of churches engaging in integral mission. These came about as a result of a twelve-module training course on Integral Mission and the local church. It was initially attended by 294 church leaders from eight provinces of Cambodia who in turn trained a further 2021 people.

Subsequently, 300 seed projects were initiated by the church leaders. In some cases as the churches developed seed projects, the local government backed the initiatives and supported the churches further. For example as the churches repaired roads and bridges the government seeing the initiative enabled the construction to be bigger than the church could have hoped to achieve alone.

Additionally, 67 development projects were also implemented by churches using their own resources and funding. 16,743 members of the community benefited from these seed and development projects and 530 people became new church members.

Having witnessed the impact, Shining Light Project sought to develop the training course further into a Theological Education by Extension course that could reach up to 500 church pastors each year.

[1] Small projects planned by local people that use local resources and are implemented in a short period of time to show the love of Jesus Christ to neighbours as the Bible commands.

PHILIPPINES: Peace and order was a big problem in one neighbourhood of Quezon City. Each day there were up to five killings among rival gangs of teenagers. A pastor decided to move into the dangerous area of the neighbourhood and live among the gangs. This was an initiative by the LIFE Project, which is a partnership between the local Batasan Bible Church and ISAAC, a Christian non-governmental organisation. Gradually, as the pastor shared his life with the teenagers, they began to share their lives with him. The lives of many have been transformed. One ex-gang member says, ‘The pastor modelled to us a better life. He was a mentor to us, teaching what was good and bad and we were filled with the Word of God.’ Many of the teenagers did not attend school. Batasan Bible Church has helped them to study and gain diplomas. Before the project, the local shops would shut by six o’clock in the evening because of gang fighting at night. Now the shops stay open much later because the neighbourhood is so much more peaceful.

This case study was first published in Roots 11 (Tearfund UK, 2007)

KYRGYSTAN: Christianity is quite young in Kyrgyzstan. Many churches place the main emphasis on preaching the gospel and are less concerned with the needs of poor people. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the approach of the political system was to prevent people from taking initiatives to improve their lives. This affected the process of decision-making, the ability of people to take part in public life, the quality of leadership, and the well- being of the people. The church did not participate in social and political matters because it did not have the motivation, skills or knowledge to do so.

Suiuu Bulagy (Centre of Initiatives), a Christian organisation, encourages and equips local churches to play a bigger part in society. This involves envisioning local churches, and providing training, information and networking opportunities.

It was difficult at first to make links with local churches. They were not interested in interacting with each other because they did not trust the teaching of the other churches. At the first training workshop there were only ten people from different churches. When the participants went back to their churches, the pastors and church members would not support their wish to carry out initiatives in the community. The pastors only wanted them to pay attention to spiritual growth. Suiuu Bulagy decided that the local church pastors needed to be envisioned about integral mission. They held a conference for the pastors and invited a well known person to speak. This person could speak with authority and their presence at the conference encouraged the pastors to attend.

The pastors started to understand Suiuu Bulagy’s work and wanted to cooperate with it. The following year, there was a pastors’ conference about the church’s role in protecting human rights. A well known speaker came to the conference and helped Suiuu Bulagy to conduct training in advocacy with the pastors. The pastors were so excited that they established an alliance.

Another conference is planned, and Suiuu Bulagy is now able to mobilise the local churches to participate in events, such as cleaning the streets of the city.

This case study was first published in Roots 11 (Tearfund UK, 2007)

INDIA: In 2005, the city of Mumbai in India was affected by serious flooding. The relief and development agency EFICOR provided the Christian organisation ACT (Association of Christian Thoughtfulness) with money to respond. ACT brought together members from different churches in the local area and provided them with around three hours of training. This enabled the local churches to carry out a needs assessment in their communities. Vouchers were given out to households that qualified for aid. The following day,
church members took part in the aid distribution and ensured that only those with vouchers received aid.

A month later, the local churches conducted follow-up visits to the households that had received aid. Many of the people were impressed by how the church had responded to their needs with love and compassion in that time of crisis. As a result of the follow-up visits, a new Hindi-speaking local church has been established.

This case study was first published in Roots 11 (Tearfund UK, 2007)