“Millennium Villages in Rwanda are turning the page on poverty” by The Rev. Jay Lawlor

When most people think of Rwanda they recall the tragic genocide of 1994. The genocide should never be forgotten and we must always be looking to how we can foster greater justice, compassion, and reconciliation in our world so such tragedies can be avoided. Nonetheless, Rwanda has spent the past 14 years journeying from the genocide to become a nation of reconciliation and one deeply committed to eradicating poverty. Rwanda's President Kagame and its Parliament have made significant commitments toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals. A critical component of Rwanda's MDG strategy is their partnership with the Millennium Villages Project.

The Millennium Villages Project was founded by Professor Jeffrey Sachs and his team at the Earth Institute at Columbia University and is managed by the Earth Institute and the Millennium Promise Alliance (Millennium Promise). The Millennium Villages Project is based on a single powerful idea: impoverished villages can transform themselves and meet the Millennium Development Goals if they are empowered with proven, powerful, practical technologies. Millennium Villages offers a comprehensive and holistic approach to ending extreme poverty as they explicitly address all eight of the MDGs in every village. By investing in health, food production, education, access to clean water, micro-enterprise, and essential infrastructure, these community-led interventions are enabling impoverished villages to escape extreme poverty once and for all.

Rather than a “hand-out,” Millennium Villages are a “hand-up.” Once these communities get a foothold on the bottom rung of the development ladder they are equipped to propel themselves on a path of self-sustaining economic growth.

In November 2008, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a leading British think-tank, released the results of an independent review of the Millennium Villages project (the full report is available on ODI's website) In its report, the ODI states that the MVP has achieved “remarkable results” and has “demonstrated the impact of greater investment in evidence-based, low-cost interventions at the village level to make progress toward the Millennium Development Goals.” In response to the report, the Financial Times declared on its front page “Village project thrives.”

Also in the news, on November 11, 2008 the New York Times ran an article about Millennium Promise in its special giving section. In highlighting the Millennium Villages’ work to end extreme poverty, the article opens by saying, “Even amid widespread angst over withered portfolios and a rocky economy, some Americans remain committed to helping the poorest of the poor.” In the article, one of the projects most visionary supporters, George Soros, says about the MVP, “It can be a model for bringing about systemic change,” and “if it can be scaled up, it will make a very big difference.”

A shining example of this amazing project is the Millennium Village in Rwanda, headed by Dr. Josh Ruxin. The Millennium Village cluster in Rwanda is located in Mayange, a sector of Bugesera District located about 25 miles south of the capital city of Kigali. In a country known as the “pays des milles collines” (“land of 1,000 hills”), the terrain around Mayange is flatter and drier than most of Rwanda. The area suffers from sporadic rainfall and declining soil fertility, leading to endemic poverty, illness, and a lack of economic opportunity. The project began working with an initial 5,000 people in Kagenge, one of Mayange's five subdivisions, or cells as they are referred to in Rwanda, in early 2006. The population was facing impending famine because of failing rains and a poor harvest the year before, and the health center was severely lacking in staff, medicines, equipment, and supplies, and had no electricity or running water. Today, the Millennium Village in Rwanda is turning the page on poverty.

By applying targeted, science-based interventions and maximizing community leadership and participation, the villagers of Mayange went from chronic hunger to a bumper harvest in 2006. Malaria incidence has been almost eliminated, the health clinic is booming with patients who know they'll receive good care and treatment, and children now have electricity and a computer lab at school. In under three years, Mayange is being transformed. PBS' FronlineWorld has produced a segment on the MVP's success in Rwanda (watch the rough cut online here).

It is because the Millennium Village model is proving so successful in achieving all eight of the Millennium Development Goals that I have founded Millennium Congregations to help communities of faith learn about, advocate for, and partner with Millennium Villages in Rwanda. The excitement and interest around Millennium Congregations' work with Millennium Villages is building. As you may have read in his recent blog entry, Reynolds Whalen arrived in Rwanda this past December to document the stories of the people in the Millennium Village for Millennium Congregations. The videos will become powerful witnesses of all that is being achieved and all that is possible. The good work of Millennium Villages in Rwanda offers communities of faith a very practical, proven, and concrete way to develop partnerships in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Please visit the Millennium Congregations website to learn more and sign-up for news on how you and your congregation can support our work and partner with the Millennium Villages Project in Rwanda.
The Rev. Jay Lawlor is a priest and economist. He has worked with Jeffery Sachs and the Earth Institute on the MDGs and is currently living in North Carolina and founding an interfaith nonprofit aimed at getting faith communities involved in the Millennium Villages Project.

"Sent Side-by-Side Into the World" -- by the Rev. Jay Lawlor

In recent weeks, I have been thinking a lot about how the work of ending extreme poverty is such an important aspect of my ministry as a baptized person and as an ordained priest. I have been especially reflecting on the ever-expanding network of amazing people that I am blessed to be working with in pursuit of this common mission.

In my reflections I have been drawn to Mark’s Gospel on Jesus’ sending out of the twelve. This short passage from the gospel according to Mark is packed with insight about Jesus' teachings on discipleship -- what it was like for the apostles and the Church's mission and ministry for the 21st century. Jesus sends the twelve apostles out two by two and provides them with detailed instructions:

He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money for their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place does not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them" (Mark 6:8-11).

First, let us examine the significance of Jesus' instructions for the twelve apostles. Traveling in twos was common in antiquity for practical purposes. It was dangerous to travel alone due to some treacherous terrain and the threat of robbers/bandits along many of the roads. It provides a clear message that ministry should not be done alone -- even if it is to protect one another from the dangers the world may present.

Jesus first instructs the apostles that are to take nothing but a staff. This, presumably, was a staff for travelers to help traverse the countryside and fend off wild animals. But this is rich in important symbolism. Recall Psalm 23 and the beloved imagery of God's rod and staff, they comfort me. Or Jesus as the Good Shepherd caring for his flock. The staff being a longer rod that a shepherd can lean on for support and use to guide the flock is the imagery, I believe, that Jesus wants to leave with his apostles and us. Jesus is granting the disciples an extension of his authority to act on his behalf in the world. They are to become the shepherds of Christ's flock.

Through our mission we are called to continue Jesus' work here on earth. The Church today shares in the authority and mission as given to us just as assuredly it was given to the twelve apostles. The questions we need to ask ourselves are: What do we do with this in the face of extreme poverty, violence, and environmental destruction? How is Jesus sending us out into the world to preach and to heal a gospel of compassion, justice, and reconciliation?

What first need to remember is that ministry cannot be done alone. We must walk side by side with one another and always be calling upon the Holy Spirit to move in us and through us. Second, I believe that Jesus' message is for us to carry our staffs to draw people together in caring and compassion. Thirdly, we need not worry about bread, or bags for money, or an extra tunic, as ministry is not about our own profit or gain. Jesus is calling us to be his disciples as an extension of his ministry.

Most importantly, nothing that we do in ministry is of our own authority. Our ministry as Christians is an extension of Jesus' authority and ministry that he has invited us to share in. We are ALWAYS dependent upon Jesus Christ as the source of our authority in ministry. Let us see the world through Jesus’ eyes and may we answer Jesus' call to go forth into the world as his disciples, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to be powerful catalysts that build a stronger church and a better world.

“What Your Congregation Can Do to End Extreme Poverty” - by the Rev. Jay Lawlor

Next Monday (April 7, 2008), Millennium Congregation (formerly advertised as the Millennium Villages Faithful Action Initiative) will officially begin connecting congregations throughout the United States in partnership with Millennium Villages. Our initial goal is to fund five villages in the Mayange region of Rwanda and then continue to increase our support as part of Rwanda’s national scale-up of Millennium Villages across the nation -- helping Rwanda become the first “Millennium Nation” in achieving the MDGs and building sustainable village economies nationally.

The concept for Millennium Congregation is simple: 50 congregations - giving $500 a month- for five years - to empower 5,000 people to lift themselves out of extreme poverty and build self-sustaining lives for themselves and future generations. Each group of 50 congregations will support one Millennium Village in delivering practical and proven interventions in agriculture, health, education, and infrastructure that comprehensively address all eight of the MDGs by tackling the root causes of extreme poverty.

Millennium Congregation is working directly with the Millennium Villages Project in Rwanda (directed by Dr. Josh Ruxin, a regular contributor to the EGR blog) and in a formal partnership with Jeffrey Sachs’ Millennium Promise and the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Millennium Congregation is the first-of-its-kind faith organization to launch such an initiative with Millennium Villages. We hope that our efforts will draw all faiths together in partnership with one another and the extreme poor in growing the number of Millennium Congregation-supported Millennium Villages throughout Rwanda.

I invite you to read this Associated Press article, “Rwanda Genocide Victims, Killers Meet,” on the amazing work of reconciliation and transformation that Millennium Villages are doing in Mayange, Rwanda. After reading the article, I hope that you will pray about how your congregation gives to the work of advancing the MDGs and ending extreme poverty and if joining Millennium Congregation to help support the next Millennium Villages in Rwanda is one concrete way that you – and your congregation – can respond through faith to end extreme poverty.

If you would like to learn more about Millennium Congregation and our work with Millennium Villages in Rwanda, please contact me anytime at: JayRLawlor@yahoo.com and/or visit our website: www.millenniumcongregation.org beginning Monday, April 7th.

The Rev. Jay Lawlor is a priest and economist and currently serves as Associate Rector at Church of the Nativity in Raleigh, North Carolina and as Director of Millennium Congregation. He is the author of Faithful Action: How Each Christian Can End Poverty.

"Love Came Down at Christmas" - by Jay Lawlor

Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine; love was born at Christmas: star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead, love incarnate, love divine; worship we our Jesus, but where with for the sacred sign?

Love shall be our token; love be yours and love be mine, love to God and neighbor, love for plea and gift and sign.

These words, from the Christmas hymn “Love came down at Christmas” (The Hymnal 1982), are a reminder of the tremendous miracle of Christmas. Just stop and ponder for a moment, God loving the world so much that He chose to come and dwell among us in human flesh: love all lovely, love divine. In Jesus was made manifest the perfect love of God so that the world would know and share in God’s love.

The love of Christ is the foundation of Christian faith and life: love be yours and love be mine, love to God and neighbor, love for plea and gift and sign. Through our baptisms we enter into the miracle of the Incarnation as witnesses to God’s love for the world. While society may focus on “Jingle Bells” and Santa Claus (somewhat removed from the original story of St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra), Christmas still offers Christians an opportunity to invite the world to experience the miracle of Jesus’ birth.

God being born in Jesus – to free us – is the most perfect act of self-giving love and sacrifice that the world will ever know. It is God’s heart so overflowing with love for His creation that it is love that cannot be contained – even, or especially, in face of a creation that has been trapped in rebellion against God and in conflict with itself. And God chooses to express this outpouring of love in a most peculiar way.

Jesus – the Messiah; the Son of God; God Incarnate – enters the world not in power, wealth and prestige; and without pomp, circumstance and fanfare; but in complete and utter vulnerability, humility and poverty. There is no one more vulnerable than a newborn infant who is birthed homeless, to a peasant couple in a remote town where they are refugees. The best that Mary and Joseph can do is to place Jesus in the animals’ feeding trough amidst the filth and stench of a stable. Jesus’ entry into the world was rough even by first-century standards.

From the very beginning of Jesus’ life, God sets the example by which compassion becomes Incarnate. God’s love is for ALL and, nonetheless, it is to the lost and the least that Jesus most closely associates and for whom God’s compassion is most clearly revealed. And who among us, at one time or another, has not been lost or felt least? And who among us has not encountered another soul that is lost or that has been beaten down by the tempests of life? And who among us has not seen, if we allow our gaze to pass their way, those suffering in poverty in a world of plenty? It is in humility that God comes in Jesus and it is to the humble that God first reveals the good news of Jesus’ birth.

It is uniquely our calling as baptized persons to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ that came to us in The Nativity over 2000 years ago. Jesus’ miraculous birth – the birth of God in human flesh – was heralded by a star and angels to announce that love was born at Christmas. May each of us know and proclaim that love came down at Christmas by doing our part to eradicate the scourges of extreme poverty. For love shall be our token; love be yours and love be mine, love to God and neighbor, love for plea and gift and sign.

The Rev. Jay Lawlor is a priest and economist who has worked with Jeffery Sachs and the Earth Institute on the MDGs. He is currently living in North Carolina and founding an interfaith nonprofit aimed at getting faith communities involved in the Millennium Villages Project.

An Age of Hope And Promise. A Time to Say "Yes" to God's Mission.

by the Rev. Jay Lawlor

We live in an age of tremendous hope and promise. You may not feel it when you look at our world – but we live in a time of grace and we only need to realize grace’s full potential.

Bono, lead singer of the rock group U2, once commented that if the sleeping giant – which is the Church – would wake up to the reality of the new leprosy which is AIDS; it could bring tremendous healing to the world. If it did not, it would be irrelevant. A stinging comment, to be sure, but one that is spoken in truth, with love. Bono’s comment is a reminder of not only the influence that people of faith can still have in our world, but of our responsibility as people who should be committed to God’s vision of how the world should be. Bono is holding the church’s feet to the fire and challenging us to BE THE CHURCH.

Well, the good news is that the sleeping giant has awoken…and is even beginning to stir.

This is important because it matters what people of faith say. It matters even more what people of faith DO…reconciliation requires a change of attitude in relationship with others. The concept of reconciliation is primarily relational and its being relational is rooted in conversion, forgiveness and making whole that which is broken.

Reconciliation calls us to bear one another’s burdens across the divides of culture, religion, gender, socio-economic status, geography and every other barrier that humanity constructs in keeping us from being in right relationship with God, each other and our environment.

Engaging reconciliation is engagement with none other than God’s Mission in the world. The mission of restoring everyone to right relationship with God, each other and all of creation.

And at the heart of reconciliation – as proclaimed by all the world’s religions – is justice for the world’s poor…caring for the sick, the hungry, the homeless, and all those left vulnerable by the pride and greed of our world.

The poor and vulnerable are suffering greatly in the absence of true reconciliation:

The scourge of extreme poverty in our world today is more than a tragedy…it is a sin. In a world abundant in wealth, resources and technical know-how – enough so that all may have abundant life – millions die needlessly each year.

What does God say to us? How are we to respond?

There are over 2,000 references to poverty in the Bible – God, obviously, has a lot to say on the matter.

The Gospel According to Matthew gives a clear message in the scene of the final judgment as Jesus call to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, take care of the sick, and visit those in prison. Jesus tells his disciples that in caring for those in need we are caring for Christ himself. These passages from Matthew are also the only place where Jesus is explicitly judgmental with respect to how we respond -- or don’t respond -- to the needs of the poor.

Jesus is following in the great Jewish tradition of the prophets and the Jewish scriptures where the central message of the Hebrew texts is on distributive justice. This is justice rooted in communal obligation and generosity toward those in need.

Our Muslim brothers and sisters have similar teachings in the Koran where one is to give away wealth out of love for the near of kin, and the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer, and the beggars, and for the emancipation of the captives.

In fact, all the world’s religions share in common the care for the poor and vulnerable – no matter whom they are or where they live.

It is in our scriptures and in our lives of worship and prayer. The term for the Christian liturgy comes from leitourgeia in Greek which first meant for the sake of the public good. Liturgy serves as both adoration of God and service to the world that is distorted by pride and greed – especially in the midst of extreme poverty -- where we sustain the comfort of the prosperous few at the cost of God’s common resources and life for the poorest people on the planet.

For Anglicans – and many other Christians – the liturgy of the Mass / The Holy Eucharist / Holy Communion is central to our lives of faith. It is not only participation in Christ’s presence that spiritually nourishes the participant, but is for the sake of making God known in the world. One of the Eucharistic prayers from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer reminds worshipers that they come to receive Holy Communion not for solace only, but for strength; not for pardon only, but for renewal.

Each of us are called by God to be renewed so that can then send us into the world to carry out God’s Mission of reconciliation…It is mine, it is yours, it is ours together.

It matters what people of faith say because we are God’s ambassadors; God’s voice on behalf of the poor and oppressed. It matters what we do because we are God’s workers. And we are called to the work of reconciliation in the world to bring an end the scourges of extreme poverty.

I do believe that we live in an age of hope, and of promise, and of grace. We have not lived up to grace’s full potential, but we can. For the first time in human history we have the resources, the knowledge, and the technology to actually end extreme poverty.

We live in an age of hope, promise and grace because of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Projects successfully implementing the MDGs are bringing life to villages in Africa and some of the other poorest regions on our planet. They are bringing the age of hope, promise and grace to the poorest people on our planet as they bring more clearly into focus God’s vision of abundant life for all.

Yet our wealth, resources and technology are not being shared generously enough. The Millennium Development Goals offer a concrete plan. The MDGs have established a covenant for action to end the scourges of extreme poverty. But to fully honor the covenant; to fully implement the plan, we need to provide the resources. There is more than enough – if we care to share just a little of the abundant wealth and resources with our brothers and sisters in need…our brothers and sisters who are pushed over the edge of life into death because of their poverty…and our wealth.

This is an age of hope and promise. This is an age of grace. We are called to realize grace’s full potential. It is up to us. We can do nothing, or we can embrace God’s Mission and literally and measurably make this a more just world where extreme poverty no longer brings death from hunger and preventable & treatable disease.

A world where clean water flows for all;
A world where education is available for all;
A world where we become better stewards of our environment;
A world where every person’s dignity is respected;
A world where new global partnerships replace division and strife.

A world where hope and promise and grace abound and there is life abundant for all people, for all of God’s creation. We can do this, if we are willing to say ‘Yes’ to joining God’s Mission of reconciliation.

The Rev. Jay Lawlor is a priest and economist who has worked with Jeffery Sachs and the Earth Institute on the MDGs. He is currently living in North Carolina and founding an interfaith nonprofit aimed at getting faith communities involved in the Millennium Villages Project.

Tomorrow: Reynolds Whalen