Vision Seminar

Reberson and Silvia in Berisso

Well, I've facilitated my first Vision Seminar, and I hope they're all like this one! A Brazilian mission agency, Proyecto Puente had made contact with us a few months ago. Reberson had taken a TOT in Brazil and had been spreading the word about CHE. Paulinho is a Brazilian missionary with Proyecto Puente who has been helping people fix up their precarious housing, helping individuals get treatment for alcohol abuse, and working with teenagers and youth at an open-air church in the slum of Berisso, the city his wife comes from. Berisso is just outside of La Plata, the capital of the province of Buenos Aires (the city of Buenos Aires itself is autonomous).

Horacio and Silvia and I drove down to La Plata on Saturday to find a room full of 28 people from nine organizations, including three pastors from different churches and several mission and development organizations. Some are doing relief work with feeding centers or construction, others are working with refugees and immigrants, others church-planting, still others doing betterment work like school tutoring. All of them want to see lasting change in their communities. It was so exciting, because most of them didn't know each other before Saturday, and yet they engaged really quickly. I love the participatory, fun learning style we use!
The above picture is an exercise we did to introduce the topic of worldview. We talk about how the importance of recognizing our own worldview, the worldview of the people we serve, and also the Biblical worldview. It's crucial to not impose our own worldview as if it's God's, but we can't refrain from doing so if we're not in tune with the differences. (This teaching comes from Darrow Miller of Harvest International.)

This picture is one of the groups explaining the difference between relief and development. Relief is necessary in crisis situations, but is dangerous when done outside of a crisis. Development involves local resources and leads to empowerment, maintains people's dignity, and brings lasting change.

We were asked to come and facilitate a Training of Trainers there, "as soon as possible but when the weather gets better so that people will come, like September." Several of the organizations committed to sending people to the TOT. Very fun!