CT Article on the PEACE Plan
Dear Christianity Today and Mr. Paquin:
In your speaking out column in the daily newsletter the article by Andrew Paquin on Politically Driven Injustice tries to outline some concerns about Rick Warren’s PEACE plan in Rwanda. Mr. Paquin who opens the article declaring himself a development professional and human rights advocate treads ground over which he is not fully informed, focuses not on Rick Warren’s plan but on the political climate in Rwanda and other African countries, outlines the bureaucratic method of international development and its complexities and displays his lack of knowledge about the trade in produce.
Giving credit where credit is due, Mr. Paquin does display the love of Christ in offering a blessing to the Warrens and the need for Christians in this country to recognize the poor wherever they are.
From the sense of the article and the display of the web site of Mr. Paquin’s organization (http://www.1010project.org/) it is clear that he is a development academic and has a good understanding of the world from the research and structure that academia would provide. That does not make him a professional.
The claim that international development is complex and in that complexity is where one must tread to actually accomplish anything misses the entire point of the Warren’s PEACE plan. Bureaucratic complexity is the very set of circumstances that have brought us to where we are today in this world and to brand the PEACE plan a “top-down, Western ethnocentric approach” gives view into several items:
1. Mr. Paquin does not really understand the PEACE plan
2. It is likely that Mr. Paquin has never spoken to Rick or Kay Warren about the PEACE plan
3. It is most likely that Mr. Paquin has never spoken to anyone in Rwanda who knows about the PEACE plan
4. Mr. Paquin is more interested in the politics of current agricultural policies and with whom God’s work is done through than the work of God itself.
5. The PEACE plan which Mr. Paquin fails to define but chidingly calls: “acronymic plans” actually means
Plant Churches
Equip Servant Leaders
Assisting the Poor
Caring for the Sick
Educating the Next Generation
www.saddlebackfamily.com/peace
Let me fully disclose before I proceed further. I do not know Rick or Kay Warren personally nor have I met either one of them. I do attend Saddleback Church, which is the church that Rick Warren founded and is the senior pastor of. I am not a member there but have attended for less than one year. I have no attachment or affiliation with the PEACE plan other than I attend the church where it was started.
Having said that, and knowing as little about things as I do, let me begin to inform your publication, your readers and hopefully Mr. Paquin about the facts rather than assumptions.
First, on the subject of produce, of which I have specific experience, Rwanda is in the southern hemisphere and thus produces its agricultural products like fruits in the US and European off-season. Because of that fact, the $90 billion in annual subsidies referenced by Mr. Paquin have no effect on off season fruit. Southern hemisphere fruit is brought into the US without duties or taxes and only requires that you find someone to buy it and put it in the grocery stores. USDA and APHIS will want it fumigated like all imported fruit so that there is no spread of the dreaded (and rightfully so) fruit fly into the United States but that is the extent of the regulations on fresh fruits. Europe is similar with some small complications. The banter offered in the article about free trade is a diversion from the purpose which is to build economic benefit for people in Rwanda (which I thought was the purpose of the 1010 project also). Mr. Paquin should be shouting from the roof tops in support of this kind of effort.
The politics of either the agricultural subsidies and that of Rwanda’s leader mean nothing to God. Bringing “corruption … and colonial puppetry” in an article that wants to be concerned about the PEACE plan is again a diversion. What is it with people, and even God’s people who confuse and divert from the task at hand of sharing the love of Jesus Christ and that is what the PEACE plan really is about.
My previous comments about bureaucratic processes were to accentuate what Mr. Paquin really misses about the Warren’s plan, which I believe is inspired by God. He missed the simplicity. Mr. Paquin is about international development complexity, the PEACE plan is about doing what Jesus did, lifting people one at a time. The in-a-box development plans are about one person, working with one other person in some unnamed town in Rwanda, having them both get excited about what is possible through God, I believe that word is HOPE and then doing something together to lift each other and then others. The Western, top-down, ethnocentric approach is how to get the biggest bang to the most at one time and hope that works. The one fits all is actually the one on one, which is so simple, which is so Jesus that it is understandable how a development academic or others who are of a similar ilk would miss it completely. The PEACE plan is about lifting hope, possibilities, opportunities one at a time through the power of God.
Governments cannot do this, churches cannot do this, continents cannot do this or it would have been done. God, only God can do this. God, only God can make the 1010 project successful in the end as well. Please Mr. Paquin, research in the simple, one to one and one on one and one by one and you will see the Jesus in this effort and through the love and hope of Christ your concerns about Rick and Kay Warren’s PEACE plan in Rwanda will be released.
livingthedream
Turn the key and smile
posted by livingthedream @ 7:12 PM
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