Main YWAM Page, or to YWAM CommunicationsPRACTICAL CARE RATHER than just preaching is a growing emphasis in one of the largest missionary forces in the world, according to a new report.
Around one in four of Youth With A Mission's 11,000 worldwide full-time staff is working in an area of "mercy ministry" showing God's love in deeds as well as words, from providing fresh water for slum communities to looking after abandoned children.
More than one million people were impacted by the mission's wide range of programs, last year. The help they received estimated at a total of some $12 million - included medical and dental treatment, schooling, child care, drug and handicap rehabilitation, and food distribution.
The results of a global survey - reported to an international gathering of 300 mercy ministry and frontier missions workers in Pattaya, last month - revealed that the mission's involvement in practical care initiatives has doubled in the past decade.
"It shows that we are having a greater impact on the world's poor and needy, and that is good news," said Steve Goode, YWAM's international director for mercy ministries. He attributed the growth to "many people having much more of a social conscience than they did maybe ten years ago".
Three-quarters of the mission's $17 million annual budget for mercy ministries is for the Mercy Ships fleet, whose three vessels take medical and relief aid to the developing world. Much of the money comes from individual donations, with the rest from charity and government grants.
Of the almost 250 ongoing mercy ministry projects around the world, 57 are medical. Forty-six focus on community development programs, 32 offer educational help from schooling to student sponsorship, and 22 work with orphans or street children.
Although mercy ministry workers spend more time caring than preaching, evangelism is an integral part of their efforts, said Goode. "When you feed or clothe someone, provide them with a job or access to clean water, you are having a significant impact not only on them individually but their community, too."
Mercy ministry can practically demonstrate the gospel in parts of the world where it has yet to penetrate, for they are also the places with most of the poor and needy, he added.
"They are not just spirits, nor just bodies. They are whole people - spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally and socially. We need to approach them with the whole person in mind. For many their greatest felt need is most likely to be a physical or material issue rather than a spiritual one, which as outsiders we might perceive them to have."
Mercy ministry became YWAM's third major emphasis - alongside evangelism and training - in 1979, when the mission sent workers from around the world to Thailand to help care for some of the hundreds of thousands of Indochinese refugees that flooded into the country.
More than 800 YWAM staff helped man refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian border through the years until the closure of the last one, in 1995. During that same period mercy ministry projects began to multiply around the world, and are currently being run in 202 locations.
Goode said that he hoped the report would draw more people to serve in YWAM mercy ministries, helping make a significant impact upon the world's two billion poor.
"There are people who still think that our mission is only involved in street evangelism and creative opportunities for short-termers - but what about helping poor Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists or animists with loans to create a small business so they can meet their family needs, and see the gospel close up?
"A few years of service and partnership could bring about a great impact upon the poor."
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