President of Lutheran World Relief keynotes Symposium

A 60-hour travel jaunt takes Rev. John Nunes to the other side of our earth, to the other side of life. He witnesses the devastation of the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, still widely evident three years later. But he also detects the fortitude of a people dedicated to helping each other and rebuilding their lives. He sees the many programs and organizations – including the one he leads, Lutheran World Relief (LWR) – that continue to provide shelter, food, micro loans and training to these people beaten down by the forces of nature. Yet, at the end of all the travels, it’s the memory of people – not places or programs – that John recalls months later.

People like the Indonesian woman who is proud – and grateful – for a micro loan from LWR that is allowing her to rebuild her tofu business washed away in the tsunami and eventually move from her one-room shack into a sturdier home. People like the Colombian woman who dreams of a country free of violence even after her son was murdered by guerilla fighters. People like the hotel worker from the impoverished West African nation of Burkina Faso who made a seemingly simple request: “Please take me back to the U.S. with you. I can’t bear it anymore.”

These same people – people made in God’s own image – are the very motivation for LWR’s presence in 35 countries, spending $35 million annually to help the poorest of the poor help themselves.

“We have to examine the way we work, what our motivations are. We don’t help people because they’re needy, we help people because they’re people,” explains John, president of LWR. “I promote the disestablishment of guilt and superiority as motivations for relief ministry, and the disestablishment of neediness as the primary criteria for action.”

Getting the motivation right is the first step toward effectively bringing hope and health to any community, according to John. He cringes at what he terms “relief pornography” – shrieking babies with distended bellies batting away flies – that dehumanizes and degrades people. “That’s not God’s design. It should be a mutually affirming human community where we take seriously the commandment do not commit murder. And we understand that that means I work toward the flourishing of my sister and brother. Our God is a god of life, so we as Christians do what helps life to flourish.”

John will share how individuals can participate in making “life flourish” at Wheat Ridge Ministries’ National Symposium on Health and Hope in Milwaukee this October. His message will help move participants from overwhelmed to engaged.

“Because of our ample access to information, we are more aware than ever of the degree to which human suffering is a reality, that a billion people on the planet make less than $1 a day. For the bottom billion, life is not improving; there’s no hope of turnaround. It’s easy to become overwhelmed and maybe to become enraged that we live in such a world where justice is unavailable,” John says. “The solution is to get engaged because you can make a difference. I’m going to talk about some of the ways you can make a difference – how local groups can be involved globally.”

John engaged early in life when he became a church youth director and pastor. He spent 22 years on the urban mission field in Detroit, Dallas and Buffalo, eventually authoring the book, Voices from the City, which helps others in ministry effectively work through the challenges presented by poverty, crime and multicultural audiences. John was a professor of theology before joining LWR last year. Whether he’s in inner city America or the bush of Africa, John sees a commonality in the battles against poverty and injustice.

“People are people everywhere, poverty is poverty everywhere. The same principles we use internationally around accompanying people and helping them to determine their own solutions are the same principles that can work in any of the ministries people are involved in,” he says.
This “accompanying people” is imbued in the very spirit of LWR. To hear John speak of the accompaniment model is like listening to a first-time father describe his newborn son.

“(Accompaniment) means that we in the West don’t go to the rest of the world as if we have the solution, as if we alone possess the resources. We recognize the divine dignity of all humanity,” John says. “This organization is a broker to the people who are eager and ready to work their way out of poverty. We’re not a charitable organization, we come alongside people who already have agency and capacity and they have a plan.”

While accompaniment is the daily manna of LWR’s overseas, on-the-ground operations, it also saturates John’s life in other ways. He’s currently developing the philosophical and theological basis for the accompaniment model as part of his doctoral studies. And, he’s envisioning a future where accompaniment more fully embodies the relationship between LWR and its U.S.-based constituents. He wants to wholly engage U.S. supporters – particularly younger ones – in LWR’s work. It’s moving beyond the commonplace ministry operative of “Pay, pray and stay away” to a more accessible, participatory relationship.

It is participation, after all, that will turn each engaged American into the next “hope dealer,” as John calls it. And a world full of hope dealers is a world transformed.

Written by Jennifer Halupnik