We had just completed Course 3 in Pignon, Haiti, when two pastors (pictured with our team below) came to the door of our lodging. We welcomed them in, offered them a seat and began to talk. Both pastors had completed a PPI course in Hinche the previous week and were so excited about the training. (Hinche is the chief city of the Centre Department of Haiti, where we offered Courses 1 and 3.) They talked at length about the need for church leaders to be trained well and said that PPI courses are extraordinaire. They thanked us again and again. It was very humbling.
Why is PPI training resonating so well with church leaders? Why is God giving us such favor and fruit right now? I thought about these questions later. The larger answer, of course, is that our God delights to lavish His kindness on us to grow our love for and gratitude to Him. And it works, doesn’t it?? But I thought more about the specifics: How specifically is God using our training to demonstrate His kindness and bring such joy and growth to so many church leaders in Haiti? I jotted down key values and practices that pastors highlight when they talk about PPI courses:
- We encourage them, love them and value them as fellow church leaders
- We train them with excellence – Biblically and practically
- We speak to their hearts, not just their heads
- We require them to successfully complete the courses
This last point seems counter-intuitive in a setting like Haiti, one of the poorest nations in the world. Shouldn’t we just give Thompson Bibles to them? Can we expect them to attend each day and work hard on every assignment? No and yes.
We set and hold to high expectations for pastors who take our courses. In every PPI course, we encourage church leaders to “successfully complete” the course, and we describe what that means. “You must,” we tell them, “1) attend every day and every session of the course and 2) do your best on each assignment in the course.” Any student who fails to meet either of those requirements will not complete the course and so will not receive a certificate of completion or the ministry resources we provide. We’re strict about that though, of course, we respond with grace and understanding when church leaders have a true emergency.
Here’s what we understand from Scripture and experience:
IF we make people RECEIVERS, we take their DIGNITY and make them DEPENDENT.
IF we expect people to be PARTICIPANTS, we affirm their God-given DIGNITY and build their CONFIDENCE, COMPETENCE AND MOTIVATION.
So many people working well among the poor affirm this to be true – though it runs cross-grain to so much of our charitable and mission work. (Haven’t you wondered how the U.S. and UN could give so much money to poor countries, yet we see so little real change?!) We find again and again that church leaders in our courses are more joyful, more satisfied at the end of the course than at the beginning. “This is now my Bible,” they often say as they complete Course 1. It’s “the dignity of earned success,” as Wayne Grudem puts it in his book, The Poverty of Nations. It’s the image of God in His crowning creation – people.
As our conversation with the two pastors concluded, they pulled three bags of kasava from their backpacks. It was a thank-you gift – and very much enjoyed by our team! Kasava is a special bread made from the root of the kassava (yucca) plant. It is difficult and time-consuming to make (think sour dough bread), and is quite expensive to buy in Haiti. Our team thanked the Lord for encouraging and equipping these two church leaders in our courses – and enjoyed the kasava.
