In a class on sustainable community development that I took while studying abroad New Zealand, I learned about the importance of empowering the poor, downtrodden, and suffering rather than rescuing them. The principal of empowerment can be summed up in a simple saying:
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you’ll feed him for a lifetime.
In other words, teaching someone the skills they need to rise above their plight is much more effective than merely giving temporary aid and walking away. Furthermore, empowering others produces a profound sense of dignity. During my time interning for Samaritan’s Purse I have had the immense privilege of documenting the stories of beneficiaries who have been empowered by the work of Samaritan’s Purse.
In Cambodia, Samaritan’s Purse (SP) trains teachers in rural villages to teach with confidence and inspire their students to fall in love with learning through the Better Teachers Better Education Project.
SP Cambodia also encourages members of rural communities to join School Support Committees (SSCs). SSCs are made up entirely of rural villagers, especially parents of children who attend local schools. Members of each SSC lead the community in gathering funds and setting up work projects to improve their local school, such as building fences and study huts.
The Food and Livelihood Assistance Project teaches rural villagers how to raise chickens and build chicken coops. This allows them to earn more income for their families and avoid migrating to Thailand to find higher paying jobs.
The Water for Families Project allows rural villagers to buy water filters for only five dollars. Villagers are taught how to use the filters so that they can provide their families with safe drinking water that will not make them sick.
The Food For Life Project teaches rural villagers how to grow organic gardens without using pesticides so that they can provide nutritious food for their families and earn additional income.
The Maternal Infant and Child Health Project conducts cooking demonstrations for mothers to teach them how to feed their malnourished children nutritious food so they can gain weight.
But Samaritan's Purse does not simply empower people so that their physical needs can be met. Above all, Samaritan's Purse helps people in the name of Jesus so that their spiritual need for a Savior may be met! Through all of the projects that Samaritan's Purse carries out, the gospel is proclaimed though each and every one... because physical water only temporarily satisfies, but living water eternally satisfies.
"But whoever drinks the water I give them shall never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." Matthew 4:14