in the september 2001 issue of mission frontiers of the us center for
world mission, glenn schwartz talked about the principle of geographical
proximity. he said the idea is for local needs to be met with local
resources. when all other sources close at hand have been tapped, then
global resources can be called upon to help meet the needs. he says the
problem occurs when global resources are used first to help meet local
needs. that, he says, could destroy local initiative and sets the stage
for long-term dependency.
my name is Edgar Garcia from mindanao, philippines. i am new in the
forum. we have been thrown into a 'relief'' situation these past 2 weeks
because 2 adjacent muslim communities have been burned in a big fire
here. as soon as we learned of the fire we mobilized churches here to
contribute money, used clothing, food, blankets, etc. tommy duan
mascariqa, also on with this forum even helped us by sending money.
we've been visiting this community for several years now but i think the
reception we got yesterday was quite different.
one thing that struck me was the presence of the men, with whom we had
really good conversation. in the past the men just ignored us and it was
mostly women and children who came to our various outreach efforts. they
were so grateful with the stuff we brought. one church brought their
children ministry to help. they are recently teaching missions to their
sunday school, and that relief operation was just perfect for exposure.
it surprised us to find out that there is still another community
affected (60 families; 1st community has 56 families). the muslim leader
came to us and he begged us to help their community. their mosque was
also burned and they were excited about the idea of us helping them in
rebuilding their mosque. the southern baptists here have a very good
program on r & d and they would play a big role in our next relief
operation this april 9, 2002, especially in rebuilding the mosque, which
they are very keen to tackle.
please pray for us. we wish to mobilize local resources as best as we
can.
