From: brett harwood <mednetbrett@juno.com>
Date: Mon Jul 17, 2000 10:54 am
Subject: Re: [streams-online] Different facets of R&D: Not a dichotomy
One way that relief can and should be a benefit to development work is the positive connections that relief makes with government.
Examples:
For many years YWAM has operated a children's feeding and medical clinic in a large barrios (slum) on the outskirts of Guatemala City. One of the challenges we faced was the difficulty we had communicating at high levels of government. When in need of government approval or assistance we were often sent to low level beaurucrats that had no personal interest in assisting us and we were often left frustrated and this hampered our progress. Mercy Ships came and started a nationwide relief project that drew the attention of cabinet level officials. They (Mercy Ships) invited us to meetings involving these officials and we benefited from the relationships established at those meetings. The key was Mercy Ships generosity and willingness to allow our participation.
During relief efforts with hurricane Mitch in Honduras we had a number of meetings with high level government officials to coordinate YWAM's relief efforts. During those meetings we always made sure that the local missionaries and church leaders were present, even though they may not have had direct involvement with our work. This opened the door for further relationships between the long term missionaries and the government officials that can really help.
The principal for us is to always include the long term missionaries at high level meetings for the purpose of making our short time there beneficial to the development missionaries and local church leadership.
