Sunday…a week after returning…
Had dinner last night (Clay) with an incredible and inspiring couple – Mark and Chiu Hea Hills. Mark works for the U.S. Center for World Missions – the group that publishes “Missions Frontiers” magazine and founded the “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement” course. Chiu Hea works with two “rescue” ministries – she’s been involved with Gary Haugen’s International Justice Mission and Nightlight Ministries. IJM has a broad focus to human trafficking and sex trafficking – Nightlight has specific focus to the sex trade of young women in Thailand.
Now – check out all those links – two great organizations doing great works. I’m blessed that the Lord would grant me such friendships! …and they can definitely keep me on my toes!!
It was a great evening and one big question asked of me was – have I finished “processing” what I experienced. And of course my answer might fall in line with Paul’s encouragement in Phillipians 1:6 – we’re a work in process – and my understanding of what we experienced – the same – I’m a learner.
Well – all that to say – there’s more to come on what I learned – what I saw – so much of it became tied to my reading of the book by Fikkert/Corbett “When Helping Hurts“. The book has really “peeled the layers of onion” back on some of my own efforts in the inner city here in Atlanta – quite a lot to understand – but one of the huge “nuggets” is that the long term – the development of a people in their own community – is where so many efforts really are – but we tend to want to see things from our own perspective – a “Western” view to how things should change – and then when the hurting happens – it’s when we apply “relief” efforts to a peoples that need the hope and support of “development” efforts.
Ok – I’ll stop for now – but here’s the deal – we just posted pictures and video on a new page on the Blog – if you’ve gotten a note about it – take a look!
http://jillclaykenya.wordpress.com/2009-kenya-pictures-video/
