Development Planning Essay

Essay on Development Planning
Type: Essay
Learning Objectives Assessed: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Due Date:
31 May 10
Weight: 60%
Task Description: Students to select an essay topic from six (6) choices. These essays will encourage students to demonstrate a critical understanding of both planning and development practice, using case studies. The word limit will be 3000 words.
Criteria & Marking: Evidence of understanding of the question and related issues (20%)
Structure of the paper, which should demonstrate logical flow and ordering of the argument (20%)
Identification and effective use of material, including material beyond that provided by the lecturer (20%)
Evidence of critical and independent thought and argument (20%)
Appropriate and consistent referencing of sources used, effectively presented (20%)

Essay topic:
"Communities are at the heart of development and should be at the forefront of development planning and practice" - critically examine this statement paying reference to both the strengths and weaknesses of community-based development. You may focus here on participatory planning, participatory budgeting, etc.

Jen Lee Teh (42263083)
PLAN 7612 Development Planning
University of Queensland
31 May 2010

Should communities be at the forefront of development planning and practice?

Development theorists and specialists have debated the role of community participation in development since the 1970s (Botes & van Rensburg 2000). The general failure of top-down approaches under the modernisation paradigm to bring about the benefits of Western-styled development to most countries had resulted in the push for a more bottom-up emphasis. Community participation is premised on the belief that communities are at the heart of development and therefore, they should be at the forefront of development planning and practice. This paper will critically evaluate this principle of participation by looking at the strengths and weaknesses of community-based development. This will be done through examples of practices associated with community-based, or participatory development, such as participatory planning and participatory budgeting.
Before I begin, I will clarify the definition of ‘participation’ for the purpose of this discussion as this word means different things to different people. White (1994, p. 16) called it “kaleidoscopic…because participation is a complex and dynamic phenomenon, seen from the ‘eye of the beholder’, and shaped by the ‘hand of the powerholder’.” Nevertheless, two levels of participation emerged in a review of development participation literature by Deshler and Sock (1985, cited by White 1994). Using concept mapping, they differentiated between pseudo-participation, which involves domestication (e.g. informing, manipulating) and assistencialism (includes placating and consulting), and genuine participation in which cooperation (referring to partnership and delegation of power) and citizen control, i.e. empowerment, is evidenced.
White (1994) elaborated that pseudo-participation is where control over a project and the power to make decisions lies with planners and administrators, along with elites from the community. People participation is limited to only being present to hear what is being planned for and done to them. In contrast, genuine participation is when people work with development agents at every stage of decision-making and they can choose what action should be taken. In this paper, I will look at the strengths and weaknesses of genuine participation as I consider pseudo-participation to be fundamentally the same as the top-down approach to development, which has been extensively critiqued since it started losing credibility in the 1970s (Melkote & Steeves 2001).



Strengths of community-based development
In her article “Depoliticising development: The uses and abuses of participation”, Sarah White (1996) noted an example in the Philippines where issues of efficiency, sustainability and empowerment were addressed when hillside families developed and managed their own projects. These three issues represent the key strengths of community-based development and I will elaborate on them in this section.
Greater efficiency comes about because people are more likely to support something that they had a hand in shaping, so there will be better outcomes. Uphoff (1997, p. 210) wrote, “development expenditures are likely to be more worthwhile to the extent that projects are planned in ways that involve the intended beneficiaries”. An example of this is in the Jamaican community organisation, the Community Organisation for Management and Sustainable Development (COMAND). Created in 1996, it comprises 30 community trust organisations (as of 2004) that provide savings plans and other services that aim to provide effective housing solutions to the poor. It has about 14,000 members nationwide and forms strategic alliances with partners including landowners and other private sector representatives, local and national government agencies and the United Nations Development Programme (Tindigarukayo 2004).
The COMAND partnership was initiated by squatter residents in a district known as Retirement, who had started community organisations to look into what was lacking in their neighbourhoods. They began by setting up community savings trusts for 112 squatter households. There was consensus to create COMAND and work collectively so that the community organisations could increase their effectiveness in responding to challenges. The partnership not only tackles the present problem of housing for the poor, but it also empowers the community groups by cultivating leadership training skills that will be needed to address future problems. Power shifts to the community residents and away from government. Total community involvement through capacity building, leadership and team management, provides communities with the skills they need to plan and execute development initiatives (Fiszbein & Lowden 1999).
Eight years after its creation, COMAND has been able to divide land in Retirement into 525 lots and also to accumulate J$5 million in savings, enabling families to purchase the lots and have formal tenure. They have also successfully provided sanitation and recreation facilities, as well as services such as advocacy of community needs to the authorities, leadership training seminars, and legal or technical assistance in savings plans and resettlement programmes (Tindigarukayo 2004). The COMAND model of integrated community development around issues of land tenure and housing was so successful that it served as the basis for the design of Jamaica’s national low-cost housing programme, Operation PRIDE (Programme for Resettlement and Integrated Development Enterprise). One of PRIDE’s policies involves participation in that potential beneficiaries under the programme must form a legal community-based organisation that will handle all facets of planning and implementing the PRIDE programme.
In my next example from Cebu City in the Philippines, I will look at how participatory planning highlights another key strength of community-based development, which is enhanced sustainability. An assessment of poverty alleviation programmes by government agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) by Etemadi (2000) led to her observation that participatory planning has been practised by the NGOs for a long time in their community-based projects. Some of the activities undertaken by the NGOs include conducting participatory rapid appraisals of communities to determine baseline information, community organising and leadership training. By involving community leaders and members, they analyse problems, set out objectives, decide on strategies, identify key players and their roles, determine what resources are needed and establish indicators that can be verified for monitoring. Such processes help people understand and improve their situation better as they may not be aware of some factors that affect their environment.
Government officials with NGO backgrounds have led the way in implementing participatory planning in government initiatives. Examples of this include the organising of area task forces and community monitors in villages (or barangays) where the Urban Basic Services Programme is being carried out and the involvement of community-based street educators in the Task Force on Street Children. Conversely, NGOs have organised community-based water users associations and trained peer educators for the AIDS Surveillance and Education Project in joint undertakings with the government. Etemadi (2000, p. 70) wrote that “(i)ntegration of community organisation and participatory planning not only enhances service delivery but also increases project sustainability. The beneficiaries are not only passive recipients but are, themselves, the principal actors in the project”.
The third key strength of putting communities at the heart of development planning and practice is empowerment. This can be seen in the example of participatory budgeting (PB), which was pioneered in Porto Alegre, Brazil, against a backdrop of neighbourhood movements all over the country in the 1970s. Residents of poorer districts protested against the government’s failure to provide infrastructure and services, linking their demands to issues of civic rights and staging high-profile disruptive actions like roadblocks. Civil society was mobilising against the military dictatorship, as was the Workers’ Party. This was the context within which the movements collectively demanded a democratisation of the budget (Fedozzi 2000a, as cited by Novy & Leubolt 2005). Olivio Dutra of the Workers’ Party, who was running for mayor in 1988, called for the prioritisation of socially marginalised groups and PB was to be the mechanism through which democratisation of the local state would take place.
The aspects of PB that enable empowerment are its participatory decision-making processes. Not only do participants suggest projects, but they are also responsible for ranking those proposed projects. The ranking exercise takes place in regional and thematic meetings, during which participants elect among themselves representatives who will be tasked to handle further discussions with the municipal government. Porto Alegre residents also contribute in making decisions on distribution criteria as there are no preset administrative or economic guidelines governing this. Review of the criteria happens annually, and modifications can be made to the procedural rules in PB, so people are empowered to learn and adapt to new conditions. With empowerment, the communities involved in PB have been able to make choices that satisfy their basic needs. For example, the proportion of homes connected to the sewage network increased from 46 per cent in 1989 to 85 per cent in 1996, and access to running water went from 80 per cent to 98 per cent within the same timeframe. Education improvements were also evident in the number of school-going children more than doubling between 1989 and 1999. Citing Marquetti (2002), Novy and Leubolt (2005) said research has shown that PB has benefitted groups, such as the women and the poor, who are usually excluded from public life, so there’s empowerment for these specific groups in particular.

Weaknesses of community-based development
While the benefits of community participation outlined above are real, the bottom-up participatory approach should not be romanticised as there are serious limitations that need critical analysis (Smith 2008). In her article, she highlighted what she considers to be the four most problematic and pertinent critiques of the participatory approach. These are (pp. 358-359):
1. tokenistic attempts at a participatory process,
2. the myths of ‘communities’ as coherent and cohesive bodies working towards unified goals,
3. the fundamental lack of financial capacity of some bottom-up projects, and
4. critical insufficiency of knowledge about the process of community participation and its complex nature, resulting in poor facilitation.
The first point refers to pseudo-participation, which is not within the scope of this discussion. Other writers have also raised the other three weaknesses, which I will elaborate on in this section along with what can be done to overcome this weakness.
Cleaver (1999) questioned the myths of ‘community’ in participatory development approaches such as the assumption that there is one obvious community in any location and that this would be linked to natural resource, social and administrative confines. This goes to the heart of community-based development because “(t)he very definition of community in development projects involves defining those who are ‘included’ in rights, activities, benefits and those who are excluded because they do not belong to the defined entity” (p. 603). He went on to say that the idea of self-evident communities persists despite evidence of the “overlapping, shifting and subjective nature of ‘communities’”. Linked to this myth is the ‘solidarity’ model of community, where power inequalities as well as processes of conflict and negotiation between people often go unrecognised or they are oversimplified.
Another myth about community pertains to the belief of their unlimited resourcefulness, that they can do anything as long as they are sufficiently mobilised. Along with this perspective is a positive view of culture, for example, Chambers (1997, cited by Cleaver 1999) attributes a moral value to the knowledge, attitudes and practices of the poor. But what if local ‘culture’ oppresses certain groups (Cleaver 1999)? The caste system in India is a good illustration of this. Cleaver believes that there is “danger from swinging from one untenable position (‘we know best’) to an equally untenable and damaging one (‘they know best’)” (1999, p. 605). Botes and van Rensburg (2000) gave two examples in Kimberley, South Africa where rivalry between different groups in the communities severely limited how much headway could be made using the participatory approach. In Tswaragano, a small squatter settlement of 270 homes, a joint housing proposal was stalled for a year and a half, and it took four mediation attempts, 10 meetings and the exchange of many harsh words before two rival community organisations would agree to work together. In Boikhutsong, a community of 780 households, things got so bad that the community centre was set on fire and two residents were killed.
These examples point to the importance of understanding community heterogeneity as a prerequisite for successful participation. Based on their study of community water supplies construction and management in Angola, Godfrey and Obika (2004) concludes that participation can bring about more locally appropriate outcomes if it includes this two-stage approach – first, identifying the different groups who have varied needs and aspirations, and then having a process of “social inclusion” involving potential leaders in the community. Enough attention has to be devoted to analysing how the complex nature of communities and their heterogeneous elements can affect outcomes of projects, policies and programmes (Agrawal and Gibson 2001, cited by Smith 2008).
Even in cases where there are communities that are well-organised and motivated, the participatory approach can sometimes fail due to a fundamental lack of material resources. This weakness is seen in the example of Sando village in Zimbabwe, which was noted for being self-reliant and having a cohesive sense of community. The villagers had built their own school, started groups to generate income and were a creative and resilient community in every sense. However, they could not get their water borehole to function and had to travel 10km to another village’s borehole. Their situation arose from their remote location in the forest (away from district offices), with the water table being more than 100m deep, their limited political influence due to their small population, constraints on the government’s financing of new infrastructure, and their low incomes. They had a fund to buy a windmill and a system to collect money from households, but they simply could not get enough money for a new pump (Cleaver 1996 in Cleaver 2001). Referring to this example in her article, Smith (2008) said one key lesson to be learnt is how the economic and social capacity of communities must always be understood and taken into consideration in community engagement projects. The participatory approach alone is not enough to overcome the limitation of insufficient resources.
The last weakness of community participation highlighted by Smith (2008) has to do with the inadequate knowledge about how to facilitate participation well. While this may not be an inherent weakness of the participatory approach, nevertheless it is important to analyse it because the participatory approach succeeds or fails based on how it is carried out.
An example of community-driven development that failed due to poor implementation can be seen in the World Bank’s Community Empowerment and Local Governance Project (CEP) in Timor-Leste. In 2000, the CEP was the key donor programme helping to rebuild community in the newly liberated country of Timor-Leste. Funds totalling US$18 million went to more than 400 local development councils that had been formed to meet their community’s development needs. However, instead of creating real participatory structures, the tight deadline imposed by the Bank to give out project funds and the bureaucratic project rules limited the council’s role to simply being “transmission lines to Bank-controlled dollars” (Moxham 2005, p. 522). One of the key elements of proper facilitation of participation is sufficient time. In Timor-Leste, training timetables were cut short so participatory training topics had be cancelled. In addition, there was widespread community confusion over the project’s elaborate rules and the council’s novel structures, as there was not enough time to explain these adequately. A district CEP worker noted the irony, “they’d ask us to finish in two months but the community would not understand the project and this would create conflict. As a result, it would end up taking four months” (p. 524).
It is also important to go through the right channels for successful community participation. The councils bypassed existing structures of governance, including those within the new government, which meant that they bypassed local sources of legitimacy and knowledge. This led to conflict or indifference among the community members and poor sustainability of projects. In particular, the CEP’s microcredit scheme was poorly run, resulting in too many women, many of them widows, setting up roadside kiosks that cannot sell enough of anything to remain viable. A World Bank researcher concluded that only 30 per cent of the microcredit loans would be paid back as the rest of the women will not make enough money. So although the project did achieve some success, such as improving access to better quality water, its failures were more prominent and very costly. Moxham (2005) cited a World Bank Background Paper to the Timor-Leste and Development Partners in 2003, which reported that 58 cents out of every dollar spent went to overheads, mainly to prevent the CEP from being derailed due to its many problems.
Preventing similar fiascos and waste of resources would require the provision of appropriate preparation for those who need to know how to engage with communities and facilitate participation. holistic approach to training should be taken, which not only includes background research and the use of information guides, but also interactive forums and open discussions with experienced facilitators who can give practical suggestions. In addition, site visits to communities who have been involved in participatory projects would give a better understanding of how the projects have worked or failed in terms of goals achievement and sustainability (Chambers 1997 in Smith 2008).

Conclusion
In their article on community participation in development, Botes and van Rensburg (2000) concludes that involving people can take a lot of time and delay decisions. They quoted Gilbert (1987, p. 75) who wrote, “the only valid conclusion that can be drawn is one of tempered enthusiasm for the idea of community participation, and then always subject to local circumstances” (p. 56). Other writers are more critical, for example, Waisbord (2008, p. 508) said participation has become a “meaningless and bland term, a decorative piece in a system that continues to keep states, agencies, and experts in control”. The limits of the participatory approach, as described above, could have contributed to this. Nevertheless, there are very real advantages from involving community in the heart of development planning and practice, and these are unlikely to be realised in any other way. As Botes and van Rensburg (2000, p. 56) writes, “Development in the full sense of the word is not possible without appropriate community participation”. The key challenge is in how to make community participation appropriate in the midst of complexity and heterogeneity. As communities are the ones who will be most affected by development projects, they should be at the forefront of development, but more critical analysis of the limits of community-based development is needed. I agree and end with Smith’s assessment (2008, p. 358):
what is most helpful and necessary is for the most problematic elements and critiques (of people-centred projects) to be clearly defined and discussed, so that they can be utilised as opportunities for learning and improvement. Only then can the participatory approach mature as a theory and a practice and evolve into the most efficient, empowering and sustainable approach to environmental management.

Word count: 3,111



REFERENCES

Botes, L & van Rensberg, D 2000, ‘Community participation in development: nine plagues and twelve commandments’, Community Development Journal, vol. 35, no. 1, pp 41-58, viewed 11 May 2010 < http://cdj.oxfordjournals.org.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au>

Cleaver, F 1999, ‘Paradoxes of participation: Questioning participatory approaches to development’, Journal of International Development, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 597-612, viewed 27 May 2010,

Cleaver, F 2001, ‘Institutions, agency and the limitations of participatory approaches to development’, in B Cooke & U Kothari (eds.), Participation: The new tyranny?, Zed Books, USA, pp. 36-55, viewed 19 May 2010,

Etemadi, FU 2000, ‘Civil society participation in city governance in Cebu City’, Environment and Urbanization, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 57-72, viewed 27 May 2010,

Fiszbein, A & Lowden, P 1999, Working together for a change: Government, business and civic partnership for poverty reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean, The World Bank, USA, viewed 29 May 2010,

Godfrey, S & Obika, A 2004, ‘Improved community participation: Lessons from water supply programmes in Angola’, Community Development Journal, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 156-165, viewed 30 May 2010,

Melkote, SR & Steeves, HL 2001, Communication for development in the Third World: Theory and practice for empowerment, 2nd edn, Sage Publications, New Delhi.

Moxham, B 2005, ‘The World Bank's land of kiosks: Community driven development in Timor-Leste’, Development in Practice, vol. 15, issue 3-4, pp. 522-528, viewed 27 May 2010,

Novy, A & Leubolt, B 2005, ‘Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre: Social Innovation and the Dialectical Relationship of State and Civil Society’, Urban Studies, vol. 42, no. 11, pp. 2023-2036, viewed 11 May 2010,

Smith, JL 2008, ‘A critical appreciation of the “bottom-up” approach to sustainable water management: embracing complexity rather than desirability’, Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 353-366, viewed 27 May 2010,

Tindigarukayo, J 2004, ‘An attempt to empower Jamaican squatters’, Environment and Urbanization, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 199-209, viewed 17 April 2010,

Waisbord, S 2008, ‘The institutional challenges of participatory communication in international aid’, Social Identities, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 505-522, viewed 26 May 2010,

White, SA 1994, ‘The concept of participation: transforming rhetoric to reality’ in SA White, KS Nair, & J Ashcroft (eds.), Participatory communication: working for change and development, SAGE publications, India.

Uphoff, N 1997, ‘Fitting projects to people’, in S Sepulveda & R Edwards (eds.), Sustainable development, social organization, institutional arrangements and rural development: Selected readings, Inter-American Institute for Cooperation for Agriculture (IICA), BMZ/GTZ, Costa Rica, pp. 209-237, viewed 27 May 2010,

White, SC 1996, ‘Depoliticising development: the uses and abuses of participation’, Development in Practice, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 6-15, viewed 28 May 2010,

Jen Lee's week 14

Hi friends,

I'm typing this email with stronger fingers, i believe, because I have started my part-time job as a masseuse, haha :)

1. I work twice a week..so far I've given a total of 815 minutes of neck/shoulder/back/whole body massage or foot reflexology - the busiest day i had was last Fri when customers just kept coming...it happened to be my birthday and my colleague was saying it was due to my birthday :P

I pray for all my customers when I give them massage, it's quite satisfying to feel their muscles relax :) My boss has given me some training, but he is supportive of going by instinct and whether the clients are comfortable. So far, my customers seem pretty happy with me, thank God :)
Please pray that I will continue to improve in my skills, and that I will be a blessing to my colleagues (mostly from China, some are from Taiwan) and clients.


2. My Body/Foot Haven boss, DJ, had a gathering at his place last sunday and I got a chance to know my colleagues better. After dinner, they used the dinner table to play table-tennis, with a little net strung across and secured with pegs - it was so interesting! One of my colleague's boyfriend was there and he turned out to be from Rantau, which is basically in seremban, my hometown! what a small world.

He gave me his name card and we corresponded via email. he asked me which day i work and i told him tue/fri although I may change as fri is when my lifegroup meets and my fingers may be too tired to play the guitar if I'm put on worship duty. He then asked which church I'm from, i told him and asked if he wanted to visit, and he said Yes. just like that. So he's coming to visit this sunday...I've asked him a couple times via email if he's a believer, but he hasn't answered...whatever the case, pls pray that he will encounter Jesus and that his girlfriend will also come to church eventually. Their names are Philip and Ying.

3. During Sun service I was prompted to pray for someone sitting beside me. It was one of the clearest messages I've received from God. Later on, via FB, she asked me why i prayed for her and we had a conversation. She said that the prayer really spoke to her as she had been having an intense time in matters of faith. Praise the Lord. During our conversation, I got an idea to share with her this song How He Loves. I didn't tell her at first, but then later on, I saw this very same song on another friend's FB posting, so I felt it was a sign of sorts. I messaged her with this link (i encourage you to check it out too if you have never heard this song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoC1ec-lYps&feature=related) and she came to realise that God's love is the most important thing.
Please pray that she will give her heart over to Jesus, the Lover of her soul, who has pursued her so relentlessly, amen!

4. I've a couple friends who have experienced challenging times recently - one friend in Singapore lost his aunt to cancer, and the other friend who is here went through a break-up. My Singapore friend is having lots of thoughts about how life is meaningless and I told him that King Solomon has written about that in Ecclesiastes. I sent him some verses and encouraged him to read the rest of the book. Interestingly, a few minutes after that Yahoo messenger conversation, the first song I started to play on my iTunes playlist was "Meaningless" by anthony evans! again, i don't believe in coincidences, so I send on a link to the song on youtube...
the other friend, I'm meeting her for brunch later...please pray that I will be able to comfort her and show her love...for both these friends, please pray I can build a bridge for them to come and experience God for themselves.

okie doke, i think that's it for me this week. thank you for your prayers!

Love,
jen lee

p.s. some of u may be wondering how i spent my birthday - besides working from 9-5pm and giving massages to 9people, i went for lifegroup and they had a celebration for me with homemade oreo cheesecake, yummy :) then when i got home, my housemates had a cake for me that had a picture of winnie-the-pooh and gang on top (see photo). i kept laughing when i saw it - it's as if i'm 13 years old not 31 :) so all in all, it was a good birthday, to be able to bless and be blessed - can't ask for more :)

Jen Lee's week 13

Hey folks!

first off, want to share the good news that I'm an aunt for the second time!

niece Jill Lyanne (first niece Joy Lynn will turn three in sept) was born at 6.59pm on 18 may - 3 days before my birthday! woohoo! praise God for smooth delivery (my sister said it "only" took 2.5 hours) - when i called home, my dad told me this: "Khim said her water bag burst, I heard water pipe burst! I said, wait I need to get my toolbox". haha isn't that just hilarious?

Anyway, pls pray for continued good health of the newborn and my sister. Also pray for strength for my mum who will be helping to take care of both, in addition to Joy Lynn.


okay, here's other things to be thankful/praying for:

1. I finished one of my assignments last Friday and met the deadline by the skin of my teeth! it was due to be submitted online at 5pm and I turned it in at 4.59pm. I really thank God that there were no computer problems or anything like that when I was uploading the file. This assignment had been very challenging, probably the hardest one I've had to do all semester, and it's worth 50% of my grade. I actually put more time into it compared to other papers, but there was just a lot to read and digest due to the topic I had chosen.

A couple of my coursemates who were not so confident of their English proficiency had asked me to read through their work - i decided to help out and I'm glad that I still managed to finish my own work. Another good thing that happened during the course of this assignment was how I managed to get this journal article that I could not find anywhere online for free. I felt prompted to email the authors of the article - it was a long shot but I just decided to give it a try and within hours, one of them replied with the article attached! I was so thankful - the article helped in my assignment :)

Please pray for my remaining assignments:
- Communications for Social Change (essay due may 24, worth 40%)
- Development Planning (essay due 31 May, worth 60%)
- Journalism and Communications research report due 8 June, worth 60% - for those of you who haven't received an email from me asking for help on my survey, pls go to http://www.question-survey.com/online/jenlee_teh/83220.phtml?eenid=ODgwLHRlaGplbmxlZUBob3RtYWlsLmNvbXw1NTcsSmVuIExlZQ==
to do it if you have a basic degree/are attending uni or an equivalent tertiary-level institution. it will only take about 5 mins. the topic is on the Effect of the Internet on perceptions of mental health. thanks!


2. My birthday is this friday and I have started to receive birthday presents - what a blessing! One of my former church sisters was so sweet to send me a bag after she read that my diary had gotten lost (later on it was thankfully returned) due to the fact that I was carrying a bag with no zip. Her gift of a bag was on my table on Monday morning - such a lovely way to begin the week :) Thanks Lingyen!
I just spoke to my family and they said they have sent me gifts too :) it's so nice to receive presents - and of course, the greatest love of all is the love of God, and He is the source of all good gifts :)
I will be having a birthday party next Saturday (29 may) and I'm inviting all the friends I have made since coming to Brisbane. Please pray there will be good mingling and connections between my different groups of friends, I always enjoy seeing that when I hold gatherings. Also, I would like to do a bit of thanksgiving sharing and also sing a song with the guitar for my guests - any ideas are welcome :)


3. So far this week I've had quite a couple intense conversations about faith matters. One was with a friend whom I met through work in Singapore, he relocated to melbourne and was in Brisbane for work. We had dinner on Mon and he was talking about "cultivating truth" rather than to align oneself with a particular faith. The other was with my housemates and my housemate's boyfriend - we were in the middle of our weekly prayer meeting when the question came up about exclusivity, heaven/hell, eternity etc. An upcoming one will be with a friend who wants to "go further than what the bible tells us".

Although these discussions are not the easiest to have, I do think it's important to talk about what I believe and why, and to be willing to stand by the Bible as God's word. I encouraged my housemates to read more into the Bible to understand Christian principles so they can compare with other faiths, and make an informed choice.

As there will be more of such interactions - please pray that I will be able to do as Paul exhorts in 1 Peter 3:15 "But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect".


4. I got my part-time job at the massage/foot reflexology place! Praise God :) I start off with training tomorrow - I will work more hours after I'm done with assignments. Please pray that I will be a fast and intuitive learner! I hope to be a blessing to my colleagues and customers at this place, it's called Foot Haven. There are two branches, I'm currently scheduled to work at the one that's quite far from my home, so please pray that I will get posted to the one nearby as much as possible :)

Okay, i think that's all from me for this week. thanks for reading!

take care and God bless,
jen lee

Jen Lee's week 12

Hey everyone...

I'm in the midst of a challenging assignment - while this is a welcome distraction, I will have to keep it pretty short...

1. Update on assignments - I have four more to do before the end of the semester, which will be in less than a month's time. How time flies (which means I will be busy busy these few weeks - please pray for good time management, smooth flow of ideas and efficient academic writing)!

Specifically, I want to thank God for a good group presentation on Thu - my group which was made up of 6 girls worked quite well together. There was one point in which we had to streamline our proposal (we were only given 12 mins total!) and my part which I had worked on got drastically reduced, which was a bit demoralising, but in the end, it worked out :)

The challenging assignment I'm talking about is due this Friday...originally it was due last Friday but thank God the lecturer gave an extension because I was spending time to help a friend out who was feeling so stressed about school work (due to language difficulties) that he couldn't sleep or eat for two days. With the extension, we all got a bit of breathing space, so my friend is much better now, but do continue to pray for him.
Pray for me too because I have trouble coming up with a participatory communications strategy based on the two reports on aboriginal mental health workers that I read. The assignment is worth 50% of our grade, so it is kind of pressurising :[ I thank God that my first assignment for this class was graded well, so that was a form of encouragement.

2. Another of my classmates has decided to quit the semester and head back to her home country due to language difficulties. She's had a rough semester - in addition to not doing well for her assignments, her aunt was suddenly hit and killed in a drink driving accident. So maybe it is better that she go back, but I am going to miss her. Please pray that we can continue to be in touch and that she will open her heart to the love and comfort of Jesus.

3. Lifegroup - I helped out with seekers' discussion last Friday. We shared about how God takes care of us and encouraged the three pre-believers (they are regular faces at lifegroup, have been coming for about a year) to try out asking God for help the next time they are anxious about anything (1 Peter 5:7 Cast your cares on God for He cares for you). It was cool to share and talk about the questions they have. One of them came to Sunday church service two days later for the first time, so praise God :)

I'm helping to play guitar for worship for the first time this Friday. Practice will be on tom night. I've not really played with a keyboardist before and there will be free worship so please pray that I'll be in sync with the Holy Spirit and the others in the worship team :)

4. Sometime during the week, I spoke to my housemate about some relationship issues. She and her boyfriend of 1-month plus are both believers, but they only began to go for things like lifegroup recently so while she gets to know a more mature believer in her lifegroup better, I offered to keep her accountable.

We had a good talk but the next day, her bf said he was unhappy that I had spoken to her without him being around. To him, it seemed that I was wanting to interfere and control the situation. Given that he doesn't know me very well, I can understand that he would be on the defensive. We clarified matters and agreed that future talks about their relationship will be when both are present. I am glad that he spoke up because he usually lets things slide and we (my housemates and I pray together every Tue) had prayed for him to express himself more.

Of course, being human, I was a bit hurt and taken aback that my intentions to help were not received as positively. This is my first time mentoring anyone in a relationship and I know there are many areas for me to grow in. I think one of the important things to learn is to be secure in how I've conducted myself (granted that I will make mistakes because all this is new to me), and not be affected by how others see me. To be committed to speak the truth in love, even if it means being misconstrued. I thank God that one of my lifegroup sisters was available on Facebook to chat with me about this after the whole somewhat intense discussion, and she prayed for me so that I would not carry any residual emotional hurt inside.

Please pray that God will give me wisdom for future interactions. Also for my housemate and boyfriend to settle into a lifegroup that they will attend regularly, not only so they can find accountability partners within that group but for their spiritual growth. It's not that I want to push away responsibility, I will always care about them as their sister-in-Christ, but I think their relationship needs to be situated within a real Godly community.

Ok, that's it from me....

hope this email finds you well...write when you're free and I will do my best to reply :)

take care and God bless,
Jen Lee

Jen Lee's week 11

Hey folks,

It's a crazy week for me in terms of assignments - I basically have to work on 4 things at the same time! would appreciate your prayers :)

I have gotten one assignment out of the way, and the lecturer said my first draft was fine, so Thank God!

Other things that have happened in the last 7 days:

1. Campus evangelism on Wed - after spending the past 2 wednesdays praying, we went out in small groups to invite people to join us for lifegroups/church...and where appropriate, we share the gospel. The way it's done is that we pray and ask God for an impression of where to go or who to look for, and we use whatever impressions we get to direct our sharing/praying.

I got the impression that I should look for someone wearing glasses or wearing purple, since that was how I looked that day...I wasn't 100% sure but I thought it would give me a way to connect with the other person. I also believe that God can use specific individuals to speak to specific others, down to what we wear, so with that, I set off with Eileen, one of the sisters in Campus Christian Movement. We did end up speaking to a lady with glasses - she was open for prayer, we invited her to lifegroup and she gave us her contact number. I sent her a text today to wish her all the best for her exams and she replied, saying "thanks, that's sweet of you". Eileen and I also spoke to another lady who was sitting by herself and we had a great conversation, we were able to pray for her and also get her Facebook contact. I'm chatting with her as I write this email :)

I'm thankful that I got to exercise my faith to step out and engage people in this manner, i've never done it before. I was also encouraged by testimonies of other people in the CCM group who were led by impressions from God e.g. one girl had a vague impression of a flower and they ended up having a great conversation with a lady and realised at the end that she did have a small flower on her blouse. I think it's a meaningful way to open oneself up for God's leading and I pray that my sensitivity will increase and I will get clearer impressions when we do this in three week's time :)

2. Helping a classmate on Friday with proofreading her paper - we spent a lovely afternoon at her home. She recently had a personal crisis and I am thankful for the opportunity to show her care and concern. We've become much closer as a result. I did share with her about the reality of God's love in my life, but she's pretty closed on such matters at the moment. Please pray that I will not be discouraged, but I will persevere to live out the gospel and trust God to bring conviction through the Holy Spirit in His time.

3. On Sunday, as part of the World Press Freedom Day 2010 activities on campus, I watched the movie Balibo, about the 1975 Indonesian invasion of East Timor and the horrendous killing that took place - 183,000 people dead, women, children, old people....and these are only the documented cases. The movie is based on the true story of 6 journalists from Australia's TV news networks, who died trying to get the world to care about East Timor - a country that had declared its independence from 400 years of colonial rule just 9 days before the brutal invasion. It was only in 1999 that Indonesia withdrew, and justice has yet to be served for the crimes against humanity that was perpetrated during those 24 years.

I was deeply moved by the film - I couldn't help crying, thinking "how can something like this happen? Did Singapore, Malaysia, other neighbouring countries know what was happening? did we just turn a blind eye like everyone else, just because it made economic/political sense to be in Indonesia's good books?"

I had a church equipping session right after the movie, we learnt about spiritual gifts...in a way, the class helped me to refocus on Jesus and not be overwhelmed - yes, it is a terribly dark world, but Jesus is our hope who does not disappoint. Through His Spirit, we as believers have gifts that can shine a light and make a difference. And when Jesus comes back, one day soon, He will right every wrong.

Later on, the message during the church service was about the value of contributing to the Hope Brisbane church building project. It's because souls will have a chance to meet Jesus there. Again, it helped me to see what can be done to prevent tragedies like East Timor's invasion from happening. It's when people are transformed from the inside out through an encounter with Jesus.

At the altar call, I thought about those who died in East Timor AND those who killed them, how darkened their souls must have been for them to take the lives of innocent civilians...Souls are precious to God, each of them meant so much to Jesus that He went to the cross to redeem them. As I read somewhere before - Jesus loves and values one human soul more than His life because He was willing to lay it down in exchange for our salvation.

I commit myself to support the building project and to exercise whatever gifts I have (according to the questionnaire we took in the class, my highest two scores were for the gifts of mercy and giving), so that the world can have a bit more of Jesus.

Oh Lord, Help me to bring Your love to a world that so desperately needs it, in whatever small thing I can do, I want to partner with You. It's not just in East Timor, or Indonesia, or other places where there is conflict. Jesus, I believe Your love is the only cure for every broken or darkened human heart. Amen.

In-Christ,
jen lee