What’s in the name: World Renew? Here are some things that come to mind for me. I remember Hortencia, talking to a gathering of abused women in the Chalco slum of Mexico City. Her message was from Psalm 139 and those women wept to think that, in spite of the hitting and hateful words that had been heaped on them by husbands and lovers, they could somehow cling to the words, “You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” At its best, our work sparks an inner renewal that is pure good news joy!
I remember Hortencia, talking to a gathering of abused women in the Chalco slum of Mexico City. Her message was from Psalm 139 and those women wept to think that, in spite of the hitting and hateful words that had been heaped on them by husbands and lovers, they could somehow cling to the words, “You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” At its best, our work sparks an inner renewal that is pure good news joy!
At its best, our work of renewal points to God and deepens our relationship with him.
I remember Thuon, working to bring reconciliation to rural Cambodian communities, where trauma still lingers. Politics became so ideological and so hateful a generation ago that neighbors and family members killed a million Cambodians in the space of a few years. In the face of a loneliness that is now part of poverty, Thuon says, “The poor are lonely, but when they join together in groups to work together, learn together, and save together, they find friendship.” Thuon is an example of the social healing that can grow out of divisions caused by fear, clan, class, and race in this renewal. There is discovery in how rich the word community can be.
I remember traditional birth attendants in Bangladesh. A mother or child’s death in childbirth is a tragic, physical thing. I still don’t fully comprehend why the words of the World Renew-trained birth attendants in Bangladesh struck me so powerfully that I felt the experience something like a sign of Jesus’ Kingdom drawing closer. Each one of them simply recited how many trainings they had taken. It went something like, “Hi, I’m Pretty, and I have taken 19 trainings….” Hi, I’m Katherine and I’ve taken 21 trainings…” Then the women demonstrated how they have learned to attend to births. Just last month, the results came in from a formal evaluation of that health program–a professional estimate is that very close to 4,000 children’s lives were saved because of these trainings. Needless death is changed to the potential for abundant life in this renewal.
I remember rural rice farmers throughout Asia, where rice is daily bread. In Laos, the poorest farmers grow rice on worn-out hillsides. In Cambodia and Bangladesh, they have small to tiny plots of land where the synthetic fertilizers no longer work as well as they used to. Now they are discovering that they have a renewing, creative role to play as farmers: adding leguminous plants in their crop rotation, adding compost, taking water on/off to aerate the rice. It is a joy to discover with these farmers that scarcity can be transformed into abundance. At its best, this renewal work is a sign of God’s desire to change scarcity to abundance.
At its best, our work of renewal points to God and deepens our relationship with him. It is to his great faithfulness that we point in our World Renew work. His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning!
Team Leader
World Renew Asia
