A week ago, I visited a village in southern Cambodia roughly 20km from the Vietnam border. I was given the opportunity to visit with the village chief and other community leaders to hear about their experience as participants in community development projects.
We sat underneath a family’s home for about two hours and discussed a wide range of topics including: their families, agriculture projects, cow and rice banks, schools/education, health, and even the religions of represented in the village.
One interesting topic came up during the course of our conversation which was how many Christian families there are currently in the village vs. how many Christian families were present when Food for the Hungry began community development projects there. According to the chief, there are now 30 Families who follow Jesus, whereas before there were none.
The immediate reaction to this is one of excitement/encouragement/joy for seeing this many families in such a remote village choose to follow Jesus. One can even stop there and forget about what else was learned that day from the village leaders; however, this would be a grave mistake and cheat one’s self out of a much deeper understanding of Christ’s Kingdom and our place in it as citizens.
While there are 30 families who follow Jesus, there are 254 families eating each day, due to appropriate agricultural techniques that do not disrupt the environment or the wildlife, but yield greater quantities for families to sell in the marketplace and put in their historically empty bellies. Many families now have cattle, from which they can make other products to sustain and give proper nutrition to their children. Many families now save up money from larger harvests to invest in the building of a local school which will meet the standards of the government (which in turn will send the village appropriately trained teachers for free). They also saved and are currently building a village hospital to take care of health needs in the community. The physical body of the poor is found being redeemed and renewed in this small village in southern Cambodia. It is precisely this which defines the Kingdom of God.
Salvation does not come to people so that they can go to heaven alone. Salvation comes in the form of holistic redemption of mind, body, and soul! Yes there are families who follow Jesus, but just as important as that is the fact that there are families (whose potential and right to live life had been marred by the brokenness of poverty) who are now moving towards restoration and livelihood!
The idea of development, when coming from the Christian practitioner, is not to see people arrive at a goal, but to move them towards the process/journey of seeing their personal/family/community’s physical and spiritual needs met by implementing projects based upon the principles of the Kingdom of God! This is the vision of Food for the Hungry, and this vision has been seen and attained in this particular village which no longer needs our work.
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