We need to do a bit of catch-up as travels and meetings got going faster than I could keep up. The last week of March found me in Nairobi at an event I had been hoping for since the early 90's.

Have you heard of 'community development'? It's a whole field of expertise that started long ago by doing practical things for communities (like digging wells), and then found many of these wells (or whatever) were not used.

They realized they needed more ownership by the community so the thing could continue on, so they began teaching people how to do these things. Still not a stellar success record.

Over the past 20 years, they have realized that communities need to decide what they want in the first place, and so they've been developing ways of working with communities to help them in this process. In all this, one of my heros has been Mary Crickmore, who works with Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC).

From March 29-April 2, about 20 Scripture Use and Community Development consultants gathered in Nairobi for a think tank. One of the outcomes of this heady time was that we put together a draft of a mini-course in 'principles for working with communities' that we can teach to church leaders so that they can be more successful in leading sustainable change. These changes might be anything from more Bible studies to improving sewer systems--it's all a part of improving life.

Mary has agreed to be the editor of this course--an 'above and beyond' kind of answer to my prayers. We hope to pilot test the course later this year.

A side-benefit of the course is that it will help us in SIL know how to work with communities better too, so that the activities we engage in--Bible translation, literacy, Scripture Use--are owned and used by those we serve.

Photos: 1. Margaret Hill, myself, and Mary Crickmore, 2. the group.