The Crisis of Christmas

One of our partner churches (Christ's Church of Fountain Hills) is doing a series this holiday season called, "The Crisis of Christmas." This series included three videos explaining the difference between Christmas in Fountain Hills, Arizona and the barrios of Puerto Peñasco, Sonora. Embedded below are the videos (if you can't see the videos, click for week 1, week 2, and week 3).

Relief vs Development

Expanding on this post a little bit we wanted to mention the difference between relief and development. There really is no easy way to define the difference.

This chart is a good start to help explain the differences. Also Jeff Carr puts it well in this article:

If we are going to move from charity to community development in our ministries, we must move from being servants to being friends. We must become immersed in the lives of people and in the life of our community, to the point where we no longer see a distinction between our well-being and theirs. All of our well-being is tied together through our bond of friendship and faith.

There is no more us and them. Its only us. Paul seems to think the same way.

CHE training - Day One

Our whole team is going through CHE training this week in Phoenix. Today was day one.

Biggest takeaway - relief, betterment, and development are all necessary, however, doing one where another is needed more is detrimental to a community.

Motivation for Missions

Handouts and relief work make us feel good, but don't actually accomplish much.

For the last 20 years or so missions and charity work has been mostly based on what makes us feel good as the giver. Unfortunately after years of this we've expended an absurd amount of energy, money, and thought without accomplishing much in the realm of moving communities beyond poverty... but we definitely feel good about it.

Maybe what feels good to us is actually causing apathy and disinterest among the people we are trying to help. It's holding them back from owning their own communities and being the change they want to see. What's the point? If I work hard I can save money and paint my own house. If I do nothing but sit around and wait and look poor enough some organization will come and paint my house for me.

Robert Lupton says it well in his book, Compassion, Justice, and the Christian Life,

"Doing for a community what it is capable of doing for itself is charity at its worst." (PG 31)

The focus has to be on community members seeing themselves as the solution, not some government program or outside group that is going to be their salvation.

The richest man in the world is a Mexican. He doesn't believe in charity for some of the same reasons.

Without teaching capability and responsibility all the money and good intentions in the world won't end poverty.

Local Operation

This year we hosted around 1,000 participants on One Mission trips. That's somewhere around 50 houses this year. Thats 50 families of 3 - 8. Thats between 150 - 400 individual lives impacted. Not to mention the experience gained by all the participants.

In order to pull this off we rely on a ton of volunteers and a ton of volunteer hours. There are a lot of nationals who have stepped up and decided to be a part of the change happening in their community. We are excited to work alongside these people everyday. They are an incredible example of what a transforming community looks like.

To put this picture in perspective, a year ago we had 3 local volunteers and the rest was mainly run by Americans coming down and helping out for a weekend at a time. While we appreciated their help and couldn't have survived without it, we are proud to say that this is on track to become a locally run operation.

What we do: Spiritual Development

Our ultimate purpose at One Mission is to do more than just meet the physical needs of the people God places in our path. Spiritual development is at the heart of why we exist.

We believe life is not about religion or a specific denomination, but about living on mission: loving God and loving people. We are about introducing people to that life and then challenging, developing, and encouraging them.

We believe that God has gifted each person with unique talents that are to be used for the benefit of the greater community that is the Kingdom of God. We work to bring people to these truths by living out our Christian faith in how we act, what we say, and how we interact with one another using Christ as our example. We also create environments to further develop and serve communities such as Bible studies, church gatherings and community outreach events.

Our mission is that each community One Mission serves will overflow with people who passionately love God and are fully convicted to spending their lives for the good of others.

What we do: Houses

640 million children in developing countries live without adequate shelter. They live without bathrooms, privacy, personal security, or safekeeping of bedding or other possessions.

Worldwide an estimated 100 million people do not have any shelter, not even an abandoned vehicle, tent, or box.

How can you help?

Vacation with a purpose. A big part of our solution is to offer short term outreach trips to individuals, churches, business, and schools. This is a safe and affordable way to make a positive impact. By partnering with One Mission groups are not only a part of the short-term solution; building homes and providing medical attention, but also the long-term solution of building self-sustaining communities. Led by our staff, groups as large as 400 are comfortably hosted at our Base Camp. After the participants leave Rocky Point our staff continues to address needs such as life skills, education, and spiritual development.

Coming soon! Campaign for a house!

What We Do: Medical Outreach

Did you know...

• Around 270 million children (just over 14% of all children in developing countries) have no access to health care services.
• Every year more than 5 million people die from illnesses related to contaminated water, dirty living conditions, and poor hygiene.
• Nearly half of all the people in the developing world have a disease realted to contaminated water or poor hygiene.
• Lack of basic sanitation and unsafe water cause 80% of all disease and kill more people than all forms of violence, including war.
• Number of child lives that could be saved each year through routine immunization: 2.2 million.

The tragedy is that these deaths can be prevented.

One Mission is committed to meet the need for medical care among the world's poor with lasting solutions through excellence in medicine, patient care, and health education. We do this by:

• Mobilizing volunteers on medical clinic trips.
• Working alongside national doctors and health care professionals from the countries we go to and joining the efforts of the local church where possible.
• Education nationals in disease and illness prevention.
• Keeping homes and neighborhoods clean from feces and other unhealthy elements.
• Providing medicine.
  

What We Do: Education & Training

• Over 140 million children in developing countries 13% of those aged 7-18 years - have never attended school
• Over 300 million children in developing countries are deprived of information, lacking access to internet, TV, radio, telephone or newspapers. Without access to information children are deprived of the opportunity to develop internal mechanisms enabling them to understand their rights and opportunities as well as the ability to make decisions and perform effectively in a productive society.
  
• Nearly one billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.

One Mission is committed to education and training the world's poor with lasting solutions. We do this by building Christ-centered, self-sustaining communities through the development and discipleship of the local people.

Basic education & training includes:

Reading and writing. Just by knowing how to read and write a student in the poorest parts of Mexico is 20% more likely to get of the poverty she grew up in. Literacy programs lay a foundation for the churches to be led by their own as Christians are enabled to read and study the scriptures for themselves.

English. At this point in the world's history, English is the preeminent language of communication. Knowing English as a second language provides people with a greater opportunity for success in the marketplace as well as provides national Christian leaders with a greater opportunity to impact their communities and nations.

Training. Skills such as computer literacy, construction, hospitality, and small business allow people in developing nations to become more desirable and successful int he marketplace. We concentrate our efforts on long-term sustainable solutions that last beyond our presence. Communities that are owned by the people, demonstrated through volunteerism, and strengthened through training and discipleship. We strive to train, equip, and empower local leaders to make the impact in their own community.

Education not only saves lives but it helps entire families move from dying to surviving to self-sufficiency.

What We Do

Over the next few weeks we're going to be featuring a series of blog posts explaining what it is exactly that we do here at One Mission. We're going to go over vision, education & training, health, shelter, and spiritual development. These posts will hopefully keep people informed and make people aware of a new trend in missions and social work that absolutely needs to be addressed. One issue I'd specifically like you, the reader, to notice is the importance of relief vs. development. Thanks for reading and feel free to comment or contact us to learn more!

Starting Point

We hosted a Starting Point class in the Peñasco barrios a few days ago. We had about 40 people come learn how they can plug into something bigger than themselves and how they can own the future welfare of their community. We had very positive responses and we should be hosting one a month starting in October.

Mission Sites

A local church has numerous mission sites throughout the barrios. I had the awesome opportunity to preach at one this morning. I've been on the programming team of this church for a month now and have gotten to see a lot of the inner workings of the church.

It was great to meet the mission site leaders and to participate in the work they are doing.

They are doing a great job of providing people with food and drink - physical and spiritual.

Every Saturday there are 4 mission sites that preach the word to the parents, have a program for the kids, and provide all who attend with something to eat, usually hot dogs, pancakes, or sandwiches.

We are happy to partner with the local church in these areas to help them, help their communities.

Movie Night

We had our first movie night last night. We hosted about 100 people at our community center and watched Night at the Museum. It was a lot of fun and everyone that came is really excited for our next movie night in two weeks.

Starting last night every other Friday we are setting up the projector to watch movies. In the barrios, where there is no electricity, a 9x12 foot screen showing a movie and a loud sound system really stands out. We're glad to be able to offer the community something fun and free to do with their Friday nights.

If you're ever in the area and need something to do on a Friday night, come watch movies with us!

Neighbors and Friends

This week we built 6 houses and tomorrow one more starts making our Spring Break 2010 total 7 homes for families. That alone is a pretty successful venture, but let me tell you about something that participants don't necessarily get to see when they come down.

Yesterday Gold Canyon Community Church finished a house for Pablo, Yolanda, and their family. After they finished the house we all gathered outside for a group picture. After which everyone hugs, says their goodbyes, and gets in the car to drive back home. Usually these hugs take place between the volunteers and the locals. This particular time I saw Yolanda hug one of her neighbors, Alma Rosa. Yolanda told Alma Rosa how awesome it was to meet her and get to know her this weekend and then she thanked her for helping build her house.

These were two neighbors that didn't know each other at all before. I know I've written about this before so this is obviously something that gets me excited. Every time it happens so tangibly and visibly it completely confirms our mission here and encourages us to keep going. Thats only two neighbors. How many of these interactions do we not get to see?

Thank you to Gold Canyon and all the other churches and groups that came down to help build more hope in a hopeless part of Puerto Penasco.

One Mission Community Care Team

As we gear up for our pretty busy spring break season I thought you'd like to know about something that's been going on for a few weeks now. In order to receive a house each family has to volunteer in their community. In order to provide families the opportunity to volunteer we have begun a Community Care Team. Every Saturday morning our care team goes out to different parts of town and helps out in whatever way they can. This Saturday our team spent the morning volunteering at a local elementary school. It was pretty cool to see the people working along side each other laughing and actually enjoying their work.

A few of the teachers from the school came and worked alongside our volunteers as well. We trimmed palm trees, painted trees, dug dead trees out of the ground, painted a library, built benches for their basketball court, and raked/swept the whole property.

Our care team has been going out every saturday for three weeks now and already our numbers have grown from 5 the first week to 20 this week.

After all the work was done our volunteer coordinator explained to everyone that what they were doing was a good thing. Whether they received a house or not helping their community was a productive way to spend their time. We are happy to be able to provide people with shelter but without them taking initiative in their community our impact won't reach its full potential.