Evangelism

World Vision's evangelistic bias appears in many forms. World Vision's aid is normally channeled through selected Christian churches, normally Protestant.

The following letter written this year by a New Zealander formerly working in Cambodia provides an insight into how the World Vision aid game is played:

"In Cambodia, World Vision was involved in a project with the Khmer Evangelical Church (KEC), to provide assistance to families for feeding, clothing, educating children, on the condition that the children attended a KEC sunday school - and then the KEC had the audacity to boast of the growing numbers attending their Sunday School.

The point is accentuated in a letter written last year by a US Volag volunteer working in Vietnam to David Marr of the Indochina Resource Centre of California:

"Most of the World Vision assistance is channeled through local churches who have agreed to follow the Christian religion. For example, they help support 1,000 children in Quang Ngai who have lost one or both parents. Under the rationale that they have limited resources only 'protestant' children are helped by these funds. It is not surprising that this has encouraged the phenomenom of 'rice Christians'. The Vietnamese describe this phenomenom with the proverb: Het gao, lay dao, nui ion (Food craved, get saved, feed your children.)

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World Vision's evangelical message is disseminated in a variety of ways. A letter from Alison Arblaster of the Australian Student Christian Movement recounts some observations made by Jean Skuse of the Australian Council of Churches:

"In the Phillipines in 1972. Jean visited a World Vision hospital - very isolated hill, very small, they had piped bible texts playing virtually all day -texts in English. The patients couldn't understand English anyway. When asked if the piped texts were ever turned off, the reply was yes, they're turned off when visiting evangelists are around to talk."

World Vision's childcare, sponsorship and adoption programme is centred upon Christianity. To quote World Vision:

"Ours is a ministry to a total need -physical, spiritual and emotional. Christian leadership.... both by example and teaching is an integrated and natural part of the programme. In no sense is Christian profession a condition of receiving aid - youngsters are helped on the basis of need; they learn about the love of Jesus.

Even in the area of extreme' need. World Vision persists in spreading the gospel. When Viet Kits (part of World Vision's Emergency Relief) are distributed, Scripture portions are included with them. We wonder if all New Zealanders who supported the Viet Kits were aware of this;

Despite the broadly evangelistic nature of all World Vision projects, the organisation has a special section specifically directed towards evangelism. Through this programme. World Vision of New Zealand provides scripture memory courses, and bible correspondence courses for approximately 30,000 people in Indonesia and Malaysia. Evangelistic kits, consisting of casette players and tapes, as well as Bible correspondence courses are sent throughout Indonesia.

Mr Renner has said that only 2% of World Vision New Zealand's budget is earmarked for evangelistic Christian leadership training areas.

The American Branch of World Vision allocates 30% of its funds to such programmes

According to official figures. World Vision of New Zealand divides its aid into the following categories:

Childcare ministries	75%
Relief and Development work	23%
Evangelistic outreach & Christian Leadership training	2%

Christian Leadership Training

Christian Leadership Training involves supporting and training indigenous Christian workers. This is done through Pastor's Conferences which strive towards "more fruitful evangelism" and through scholarships to Bible Schools, Colleges and Universities. Since the Scheme's inception in 1953, 70,000 evangelists have received special training through World Vision. However World Vision of New Zealand does not appear to currently support Pastor's Conferences and the branch supports only one student at a Nigerian Theological College

As with every other activity, the Christian Leadership Programme is undertaken in the recipient country by the indigenous (Protestant) Christian Churches."

Missionary Challenge

Among the activities that World Vision classifies as "Missionary Challenge" are: publication of World Vision Magazine with a New Zealand circulation of 25,000, buying films fro other World Vision offices, making films within New Zealand (few to date), collecting data and information from other countries (MARC) and maintaining the Asia Information Service.

Considering the claim that "no donations are used for administration costs" we are unsure as to how these rather expensive items are paid for.

World Vision is entitled to lace its financial aid programmes with a strong evangelical message. We doubt, however, that all the people who have contributed to World Vision realise how closely the two are combined. World Vision's household literature and general introductory material gives minimal attention to the role of evangelism in their work. Instead emphasis is placed upon the project of sponsoring a needy individual who is nearly always in a crisis situation.

Some people may respond to crisis advertising by giving donations. We do not object to their response. However we believe that the public should know that these donations are supporting Christian evangelism.

World Vision has been criticised because it duplicates the work of other aid agencies. The official response to this comment is that World Vision complements the other agencies. In an article in the 'Australian' (4.12.75) Max Harris criticises World Vision because it does exactly the same work as the long established Foster Parents Plan, except that it adds a Christian up-bringing. Harris' article sums up one of the major differences between World Vision and other aid schemes. Whether or not the reader believes that the World Vision programme complements other programmes will depend on his or her own viewpoint.