Lausanne World Pulse – Urban Articles – A Lesson on “Community Development” from Cambodia: A 10-Year, Bottom-up Approach

By Kristen Jack

 

When we come into a situation of great need, such as that found in Phnom Penh, and we want to see deep and abiding change for

the better, the first thing we should do is seek a few good people.

After more than ten years of living with Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor among the urban poor in Cambodia, and praying and working to see the lives of the poor and their communities transformed, I have learned some key lessons about “development.” The most important being: “good plans follow good people, and good money follows good people with good plans.”

What I mean is this: when we come into a situation of great need, and want to see deep and abiding change for the better, the first thing we should do is seek a few good men and women. In those few (maybe only one or two) lie the seeds of change and renewal. Maybe this is what Jesus was talking about when he commanded the disciples to “search for some worthy person” (Matthew 10:11) as they launched out into mission.

Identifying and Encouraging Good People
 By good people, I do not mean “highly moral” people; instead, I mean those whose hearts are moved by the things that move God (sickness, hunger, suffering, death, violence, abuse, addictions, etc.), who love those around them, and who are prepared to get their hands dirty and do something about injustice. These will be people of compassion and action, people who are already trying to help those in need.

As you gather together with these kinds of people, you can help nurture them. The mustard seeds of goodness and compassion that are within them will grow. There are several actions steps you can take to encourage these types of people:

  1. Pray that God’s kingdom might begin to come where they are (Matthew 6:10).
  2. Encourage them to dream their dreams, for almost certainly those dreams come from God. These will be “kingdom dreams”: dreams of healing, new life, and overcoming evil (Matthew 10:8).
  3. Start to plan and plot together how you can let God’s compassion flow through you to make a difference where you are.
  4. Dream a dream and build a team. If plans are owned by local people and earthed in the local situation, good plans will emerge. Perhaps this is what Filipino theologian/activist Melba Maggay means when she urges us in her commentary on survival strategies to “nurture a strategic minority”:

“Students of social change tell us that it is better to aim at consensus within a strategic minority rather than to waste time and breath at soliciting the conformity of the majority. Since a movement for change involves vision and sacrifice, it is not possible to start with the many. Very few people can see ten steps ahead of them. Most are too enclosed in the realities of the present to be able to imagine an alternative future. It takes a lot of imagination to believe that with the coming of Christ, a new order has come into being.”

 

Kristen Jack is the Asia coordinator for Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor. He and his wife have been living among the urban poor in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for over thirteen years. He leads the Servants team in Cambodia, which works to bring health, wholeness, and justice to the urban poor.