'Seek the peace and prosperity of the city'
                                                                                - Mariano Avila


In the aftermath of the severe earthquake which struck Mexico City in September 1985, World Vision of Mexico began to develop an urban ministry strategy for that city. A major focus was the area known as Nezahualcoyotl, a "suburb" of three million persons on the southeast side of the city.
Nezahualcoyotl is characterized as very poor and as lacking in employment opportunities. Often called "Neza," it is part of a wide belt of misery surrounding the city.
A long-standing friendship between the World Vision urban coordinator and a key pastor in the Alianza Ministerial Evangelica de Neza (AMEN, Evangelical Ministerial Alliance of Neza) facilitated the work. For the past ten years AMEN has united and organized the evangelical ministers to achieve common goals, especially in evangelism. Through AMEN a networking process could begin.
We started with basic research. We wanted to find and describe the churches and organizations that are especially sensitive to serving the poor in their material and spiritual needs.
Our concern was that the entire process involve the local people as much as possible. Even the research should involve the churches and people of Nez a and be an empowering process. It went like this:
1. Motivational research among pastors and leaders (four "micro-consultations ").
2. A workshop of participatory investigation with those who attended the four micro-consultations.
3. A workshop on unemployment
4. A "Day of Prayer and Reflection on Unemployment"

Micro-consultations
First, the urban coordinator and his pastor friend spent many hours visiting local pastors in their churches, asking them about their ministry and community, and establishing rapport. Trust was being built. When the urban coordinator began to feel as if he was starting to understand the dynamics of ministry in Neza, he invited pastors he had met to "micro-consultations." We invited small groups of eight to ten leaders to meet over breakfast at a restaurant in their area and talk about their ministries. It was an informal meeting, yet it had a well defined, clear agenda. We asked the pastors their main concerns and priorities for their ministry in the city. The four breakfasts built relationships and allowed the gathering of information.
Life in Neza is harsh. Many people lack basic services such as electricity, water, police, pavement. Gangs of young delinquents are active. There are many abandoned children. Housing is poor.
Neza is considered by its own people as a huge "hotel" where people just sleep. Most of the adults work in Mexico City's factories, and travel two hours to their places of work. So they leave very early in the morning (around 5 a.m.) and return home at 8 p.m. Many others are street vendors who spend most of the day in downtown Mexico City.
Many pastors feel isolated and lonely. They have a strong individualism, and very little personal contact with other pastors. The majority of the pastors are also very poor. The average pastor supports a family of six on about 30 or 40 dollars per month.
We learned that about half of the evangelical church buildings were in the process of construction. We wanted to know what crucial issues stirred the heart
of these pastors. They described these concerns and priorities: Losing members. Pastors said that members of their churches were "stolen" by other churches. This explained in part why they were so closed to fellowship with other churches. Building of temples. Great efforts are carried out by the
pastors to raise money to build their temples.
Evangelization. A predominant characteristic of the fast- growing Pentecostal churches is their evangelistic zeal. Campaigns are major events on which great effort and money are expended.
Social problems. Pastors pointed out four main areas of need: drug addiction and alcoholism, unemployment, gangs and vandalism, and abandoned children.
The pastors described dramatic examples of each of these problems, and at the same time expressed the concern that the churches were not able to cope with them. For many, the only possible answer was evangelism: "If they accept Christ, some- how their problems will be resolved." Some suggested a more permanent and specific strategy, with day-care centers, rehabilitation centers, sports and work centers, as possibilities. Yet they recognized that they were not prepared to handle such projects. Even in these first meetings, solutions began to emerge. In one of the breakfasts a pastor mentioned that he had all the necessary machines and equipment to make dresses for girls, but he wasn't using them anymore. A leader of a youth organization said to him, "If you are not using your equipment, you can lend it to the ladies of my church who are unemployed. I'll train them, since I got my degree in that area." Networking was already producing results.
As a result of our meetings, we identified four groups o~ pastors and leaders who were willing to continue seeking ways to serve the poor in their neighborhoods.

Workshop on participatory research
At a "Workshop on Participatory Research" held in January 1987, we met with all the leaders who attended the previous micro-consultations, to share with them the results. Twenty-nine leaders were present.
Through a questionnaire we led them to define and clarify three important elements:
1. Needs of the people in Neza;
2. Resources for meeting those needs;
3. Concrete immediate actions which could be taken. The results were amazing, especially in the awareness they gained about their own resources and actions they could take, if they kept working together:
I. More than one hundred church buildings that could be used during the day as workshops, day-care centers, etc.
2. Hundreds of skilled professionals, members of their
churches, educated to deal professionally with the problems they encountered. The gifts were there, and the willingness, but they needed the opportunity.
Many pastors decided to begin immediately to deal with problems in their neighborhoods. The perspective among the pastors was changing from one of being poor and without resources to being rich with resources and skills.
Unemployment was identified as the most crucial problem in Neza. We placed it on the agenda as our next step.


Churches have learned to work together.

Workshop on unemployment
The next month, World Vision of Mexico organized a participatory workshop in which the subject of unemployment was analyzed and practical solutions were achieved. It was a four-day intensive workshop with 20 people of Neza from different backgrounds: housewives, unemployed men and women, underemployed, managers, pastors, a union leader, and owners of small and big industries. All of them were Christians who were concerned with the problem of unemployment.
Given the variety of backgrounds and experiences, the fact that they could sit together and share their mutual concerns, points of view and experiences, made the event a solid step towards solutions.
The richness of a participatory workshop is that the people are the ones who set the agenda and come to their own conclusions.
At the conclusion of the workshop something unexpected happened to World Vision of Mexico. Each participant was committed in one way or another to develop some projects in Neza to attack unemployment. They asked for our participation also, in the form of money that we didn't have at that moment. Our image as an organization with skills and money became an obstacle in the process. The people were being organized, but at the same time they expected from us a substantial part of "the solution" in the form of money.
How could their development be achieved without being paternalistic? Our struggle was to create a model of development without paternalism.
One alternative was to organize similar workshops in local churches, with the pastor or a skilled layman of the church as the leader of the process. The people would pour in their own resources and be more creative.

Day of prayer and reflection
A month later, World Vision invited 40 leaders of the church in Mexico City to hear what we had been doing so far, and to motivate them to a holistic ministry. We could share our vision with. others, and others shared their vision with us. Several churches were already developing specific programs to help the unemployed people of their congregations.
Then we focused on the specific groups of people already committed to do something about unemployment. Now all our dreams started to face reality; things were not as easy as we thought. We began to hear of exciting ministries to meet the needs of the people of Neza, ministries conceived, planned, and developed by the people of Neza, with a minimum of outside help or resources. Three stand out:
I. The pastors of the El Sol district committed themselves to start a rehabilitation center for young people using drugs. Also they wanted to start a carpentry workshop (one of the pastors is a carpenter). When they started to "count the cost," they decided to postpone the rehabilitation center. The carpentry workshop remained.
2. AJEN, a group of young people, wanted to care for 200 abandoned children in one of the most desperately poor areas of the city. They would provide food, health care, clothing, education and the gospel. After they considered all that was involved, they decided to reduce the number to 50 children.
3. One group of leaders that formed as a result of the work- shop on unemployment committed themselves to start two assembly shops: one for chairs and another for lamps. This was an inexpensive project with high potential. One factory owner who attended the workshop offered to market and distribute the lamps.
In October 1987, World Vision was able to provide economic support to the projects, considering them<"seed projects." In a sense this was the culmination of a process of networking. According to this methodology the urban coordinator of World Vision of Mexico is the networker and community organizer, who leads the group to a point where World Vision can financially support the group. Previously the group has taken concrete steps and even developed some projects with its own resources, without external help.
I now feel that it is better for World Vision to train the most sensitive and able pastors of the community to become networkers.
These projects must be people's projects; they must be able to detect their needs, use their resources and develop their own projects.
We are grateful to God who has helped us to start creating models of comprehensive Christian ministry in Mexico City. We are learning to seek the shalom of the city-its peace, welfare, prosperity and harmony-and we are praying to the Lord for his blessing upon it.

Mariano Avila, formerly the urban coordinator of World Vision of Mexico, is studying toward a Ph.D. in theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, USA.