Women's Prison Ministry

In August, we started a ministry in the women’s prison. We are training and disciplining a group of women from the city to go into the women’s prison every Wednesday from 10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. We wanted to have a different approach from all the other churches that are working in the women’s prison. We want to outreach to those women that wouldn’t come to a church function. Our goal is to grow God’s kingdom to reach those who are spiritually dead and in need of God’s salvation. There are 49 different characters in the Character First Program that we use. We are developing a character program that fits our needs so we can use it with different groups of people. The teaching part of the program isn’t very long, approximately 10 minutes. The majority of the time is spent in smaller groups doing group activities and having conversations to learn and reinforce the character we are working on. We believe that this will be a more effective way of teaching, learning from each other, and getting people involved so they keep coming back. We want to build relationships with the inmates to earn the right to talk to them about Jesus. What we mean by earning the right is that we gain their trust so they will want to listen to the hope that they can receive from Christ. Once we get to know the women, we will ask them individually if they want to have peace with God. If they say yes, we will take them through the Peace Treaty (our evangelism program) and of course continue disciplining them. We decided to have an activity before we start the character teaching. So the month of August, we will be teaching Salsa.
There are 72 women in the prison. We wanted to work with a group of them, so the first day we had 39 women attend our character class. The atmosphere was a little strange at first. Hardly any of the women wanted to dance. I (Danell) was praying “Lord what should we do?” After about 10 minutes, a few more women started dancing. However, the ones that weren’t dancing, were making fun of the women that were dancing. So one of our leaders Silvia talked to them and they said sorry and stopped what they were doing. After the dance lesson, we performed a skit on a modern version of the Good Samaritan, this presents the Third Way. There are 3 philosophies in the world, the robber represents the first philosophy and that is what is yours is mine if I can take it. The person that just walks by and doesn’t help represents the second philosophy which is what is mine is mine if I can maintain it. The Good Samaritan represents the third philosophy and that is what is mine is yours if you need it. So after we performed the skit we had them break up into groups and talk about one of the philosophies and than one person from that group would represent their philosophy to the whole group. From the time we started the skit, the atmosphere in the room had changed. Everyone was attentive and participated in the group activity. The day started off a little shaky, but at the end, we could feel God’s presence! What a God day!

Mike and Danell

WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE A PROJECT LIKE PROJECT NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL WORK.

I was thinking about this again. It is pretty amazing when you think about it.
One can easily forget, or never even think about how many people it takes to launch a project like we have with PNHI.
First and foremost it is done for GOD. And without His help, guidance, encouragement, forgiveness and the power of His Holy Spirit, nothing would happen.

Then it takes our BOARD. They are committed to help carry out the mission and that means investing time, energy and funds. Our board meets every three months. They are people with other jobs, a family, a home church etc. but they make room to help represent all the supporters of the Project to help insure that we are doing things the best possible.

Then it takes the TEAM. That includes the Executive Director, to Mike and Danell on the field and the other workers on the field who are paid team members. That totals about 30 in all. They are working to carry out the task laid out before them and it isn't always easy. But they are committed to Christ and to the task.

Then there are the FAMILIES that help support Team Expansion and Team Expansion in turn directs that support to us three North American families, two on the field.

Then there are those who directly support PNHI and the work in Peru. There are 13 MAJOR CONGREGATIONS doing this. Beyond those congregations are mission teams, pastors, and then the thousands who faithfully give to insure that the work goes on.

Then there are VOLUNTEERS who give of their time to help in ongoing work related to the work here in the U.S.

And there are the HUNDREDS who have gone to Peru on short term trips to help with the work. They spend vacation or work time to go, energy, and money to do so.

THIS PROJECT IS A TEAM PROJECT. IT WOULD NOT AND CAN NOT FUNCTION WITHOUT THE THOUSANDS INVOLVED.

WE ARE GRATEFUL TO EVERYONE. GOD'S WORK IS ADVANCING. GOD BLESS YOU ALL.,

LOVE IN HIM,

JOHN AND CARLA

AN UPDATE ON THE WOMEN’S VILLAGE

The development of activity in the Women's Village facility located in the city of Trujillo has been agonizingly slow. After a highly visible and successful grand opening in November 2009, only nine women (with children) have stayed in the facility and taken advantage of the nutritional, physical, psychological, spiritual benefits provided there. But, activity seems to be picking up, probably as a result of Mara and Deysi's seminars (discussed later) and work with the courts, the C.E.M (Emergency Center for Women) and the police. There were two women in the facility for a short time in January, both suffering from physical and psychological abuse (one of them was eventually baptized and returned to an improved relationship with her husband), one teenage girl in February, suffering from sexual abuse, two adult women in April and one in May suffering from physical and psychological abuse and three in July, one a young adult woman suffering from physical and psychological abuse and two teenage sisters suffering from sexual abuse by their father.

The two sisters are an interesting but very sad story. One is 20 and the other is 15. The twenty year old has been required to have sex with her father since she was 10 years old. The 15 year old has been in that predicament since age 12. The mother, who under our expectations should be protecting the girls, sides with the father. But guess what, he is physically abusing the mother too, so what else can we expect? The abused girls stayed in the Villa for ten days and then returned home. The abuser is absent and awaiting trial for his crimes.

We believe that the cause of the slow growth in use of the facilities is threefold: First, the concept is countercultural in a society where a machismo attitude prevails heavily; second, the location in the city limits of Trujillo, in a busy area, keeps women from coming on their own volition because of the "shame" aspect (most of the women are from the barrios and the city is a naturally intimidating place anyhow); and third, the bureaucracy in all the government agencies puts up roadblock after roadblock, from the courts, to the C.E.M., the police, the family courts etcetera.

So, what are we doing about these three problems? For the first problem, Mara and Deysi, the only paid workers on the Villa staff, hold numerous seminars with government agencies, organizations designed to protect women, passing out flyers on the street and even going to soup kitchens now (56 of them available for Daysi's focus). They also meet with groups of women to explain their rights to them to overcome the age old fear.

For the second problem, the Mayor of Trujillo has become involved and promised a half acre of land in one of the barrios to which the project administers its efforts. This has been promised for over a month, awaiting only the approval by the city council. Mara is working with the members of the city council to encourage their favorable vote. While nothing is certain in a political environment, we believe that the mayor's generosity will be approved within the next month or so. Then, the mayor will also provide engineers and planners to help with the design and approval of the building to put on the land. More on all this later as more information becomes available.

For the third problem, only relentless efforts and time will solve this problem along with a close association with the mayor's office, the family courts and other agencies. Personal contact and a good history of results will be a strong factor too. One day, we hope to be the first thing that comes to the minds of the officials who should be sending the women to us and then we will see exponential growth and fantastic results, all to the glory of our God.

Please pray for strength, patience, energy, focus and success for Mara, Deysi and Dani in their ongoing efforts.

A Lesson in Lessons!!!!

I want to try and explain the Life Winds concept as simply as possible for those of you not familiar with it! I hope this helps explain it. It is one of our major tools as we are working in Peru.

About the time we launched PNHI in Peru we were introduced to Life Winds. They currently work in about 80 countries around the world. They are a mission organization that has learned a very effective way to work in the world. We adopted their training as part of our strategy.

While the concept is so simple, it is really foreign to the way most churches have been doing missions for decades. We are STILL learning to understand their system and apply it. It is hard to break old habits.

In a nutshell, here is how it works.

Our trainers (formerly called Directors) go into a selected neighborhood and seek out the leaders of any groups or organizations there; businesses, community groups, government groups, religious groups, etc. Those leaders are invited to a meeting where we present Life Winds and if they are interested we start twice a week training sessions with them.

This is a relationship building method. It is a slower system (and that is not bad) than what we are used to, but it is very good. Over the coming months we train the community leaders and then month by month over the following couple of years the people from the community, in how to improve their community with local resources rather than waiting for outsiders to come and fix all that needs fixing in their area.

The focus of Life Winds is poor people, marginalized people. The emphasis is showing them how they can solve most of their basic needs and problems by working together. There is an emphasis on health issues from the perspective of PREVENTION rather than CURE. It is much easier and cheaper to prevent a lot of illnesses and health problems that to try and cure them once you have them. But the training touches all areas of life.

Now here is the big deal for most of North Americans. For most of us half or more of what we call mission work or short term mission work is RELIEF work. This precludes helping in emergency relief after an earthquake or other natural or man made disaster.

Here is how we work. I remember the first time I saw the barrios of Trujillo, Peru where we are currently working. I thought, "Man, someone has to help these people." So we started working there; we built community centers, wells, bathrooms, houses, etc. After we started working in many of the poorest areas we discovered that MANY groups have gone to these poor areas to try and help; government groups, universities, non-profit organizations, churches, missions, businesses, etc. But little has changed. We joined the band wagon at the beginning! The real key is we have been learning there is a better way, that doesn't give the immediate emotional fix of 'having done something good' for the people, but having done something that will have longer lasting impact as we train them in doing something really good for themselves.

And here are a couple of the basics we are learning from Life Winds put in my own words.

Relief work, giving hand outs, is an enslaving life style. We must stop doing it. It is often humiliating and demeaning to the people even though they are smiling as we hand out the stuff. We think we are helping but in most cases we are teaching the people that if they wait long enough, maybe someone will come and fix whatever is wrong in their life. It kills creativity, industriousness, cooperation, and self reliance. "The government has to fix it. Or a church will come and do it for us."

We can see that in our own country. And many don't like it but then we go over seas and do the same thing in the name of missions.

Life Winds taught us that what we see as the needs in a poor area and what the people living there see as their needs are often two different things. So rather than starting with our list of what WE think they need, we work with the people there and find out what THEY think are their needs and teach them how to go about realizing them.

It sounds so easy. But it is a culture changing task and that isn't easy. But it is worthwhile and vital! While we are working with these people we are building relationships and gaining opportunities to share the Gospel along the way.

Life Winds provides the training materials needed to do this along with our own tools we use.

Now that we have learned their system we don't go into a barrio promising them anything other than helping them see how to achieve Personal and Community Improvement.

The Personal Transformation for us is obviously a spiritual transformation by coming to Christ. The Community improvement comes as they work together to meet their needs as a community. We train. We don't give money, build schools, church buildings, clinics etc any more.

As Life Winds leaders have shared, it is often hard to work along side a traditional mission that is building one thing after another, or giving out thing after thing; clothes, food, medicine, etc. because the poorer people are so accustomed to standing in their lines and getting a ‘freebie’ that are in truth, imprisoning, rather than freeing them to see how to improve their life and community.

NOW back to Trujillo. After seeing the poverty there and then learning of the number of groups that have offered help and the lack of change most of it has resulted in I see the value of the Life Winds method.

In June of 2010 I thought of a common comparison that helps me even better understand the concept. I think you will get it too.

I was thinking of someone who is a drug addict or alcoholic.

We can look at them and see the damage going on in their life, the unneeded suffering and we see what they should do to end the addiction; it is obvious to us. They lost or are losing their job, their family is fracturing, their health is falling apart, etc.

We want to confront them out of compassion. We want to help them.

Will it do any good, or will it end their addiction etc, if we:

1. Take them to a rehab center?

2. Have them hospitalized?

3. Take them to a psychologist or psychiatrist?

4. Give them a new job?

5. Give them money for food, new clothes etc.?

In most all cases, only under one condition.

And that is that THEY want to stop the addiction and do whatever has to be done to do so. If that is NOT the case, the other actions on our part are just putting a Band-Aid on a serious problem.

In the case of Life Winds and mission work, they have learned that if the PEOPLE don't want to change something, all the well intentioned ideas, feeling, and actions of outsiders won't make any or many lasting changes.

The PEOPLE have to want to change things.

Oh, they will be happy and watch (maybe even join us) as we hand out the food, clothes, offer the clinics, build whatever, but once we go home, things go back to the way they were, unless they sincerely believed it was needed in the first place and are willing to work hard and together to make those changes permanent.

IT NEEDS TO START WITH THEM, NOT US.

Now, once they identify what they want we can help them see how to achieve it. That is what Life Winds trains our trainers in how to do.

It is not easy, but it can become very rewarding for the people! It can be freeing, uplifting, challenging and fulfilling. It takes longer and the measurable results are different than what we often times look to measure as North Americans.

As we work with them in all of this we become their friends, and offer them really GOOD NEWS that is truly life transforming.

God Bless each of you!

John and Carla Hendee