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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
