Even with seemingly successful development aid projects, the results can be extremely sobering: “More income > more beer > more misery”, as a development aid worker in the Peruvian jungle once summed it up. Aid efforts which change the circumstances and material conditions but not the people often do not keep what they promise and can have undesirable consequences.

This is the reason AVC emphasizes help in a “double pack”. Humanitarian aid combined with the invitation that can change people from the inside. For lasting help involves both: a renewal of inner values and, resulting from that, a positive change in the external circumstances.

The unique offer of the good news of Jesus is the invitation to come into relationship with God, whose core is love. This offer is culturally independent and can be accepted without hesitation.

 

It has been the experience of AVC that inner changes bring about new social behavior, whereby whole families, village communities and social strata are changed positively for the long-term.

 

See, for example »Cambodia, »Laos