GOD IS TRANSFORMING OUR LAND AND WE’RE PARTICIPATING!
Imagine. By December 31st, 2015, each of our 81 provinces will have a circle of leaders called PAR Communities! They would serve as the catalysts to organize PAR Teams in their municipalities or cities. These PAR Teams, in turn, would serve as conflict transformation volunteers in their respective families, churches, neighbourhoods, barangays, cities or municipalities. The PAR Teams would also get involved in PAR Programs that are relevant to their specific context.
These PAR Communities and the PAR Teams they have organized would be the backbone of a national PAR Movement. Then we can see, and we can count on, a well-equipped, efficiently-organized, and effectively-mobilized Peace and Reconciliation constituency.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
For now, let’s work on how we can establish at least one PAR Community in each of the 81 provinces in our country.
So, how do we get there from here?
1. Find a person of peace in the province. Many would claim themselves to be the person of peace in the whole province. Beware of that person! He might want to use us in his or her personal interest, be it amassing material wealth or gaining political power. We are simply looking for a person of peace.
This principle is from Jesus’ instruction to the seventy people he sent out: “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.” (Luke 10:5-7 NIV)
A person of peace must be discerned:
:: Prioritizes Kingdom values in her or his life. Righteousness, justice, peace, and mercy are very important to this person.
:: Earns the respect of people. This person’s family and community regard him or her as trustworthy.
:: Accepts and welcomes strangers. This person is hospitable.
:: Cares about your safety and security. This person becomes your protector.
:: Expands your connections to a network of key leaders. This person serves as your ‘public relations officer’.
2. Arrange an exploratory meeting with a group of leaders in a given province. These leaders must be endorsed and gathered by the person of peace. The objectives of this meeting are:
:: to present the PAR 81 by 2015 vision to the leaders in a given province
:: to get a commitment from those leaders to organize themselves as a PAR Community
:: to get a commitment from the new PAR Community to gather a minimum of 25 interested participants to go through PAR Seminar Series
3. Facilitate PAR Seminar Series among the leaders. The seminar registration fee of PhP500 per person (used for research, seminar development, administration, and speakers’ honoraria) will usually be paid for by our financial partners. The PAR Community will have to provide the board and lodging for the training team of 3-5 people, the seminar venue, printing of materials, participants’ lunch and snacks.
A digital copy of all the PAR materials will be entrusted to the PAR Community for printing and distribution. The PAR Community are permitted to ask a seminar fee of PhP250 per person to support their PAR Team organizing and to sustain their provincial PAR movement. 10% of the net income must be earmarked to help propagate the PAR Seminar Series to another province.
4. Discern and Facilitate PAR Program training with PAR Community. Each PAR Community are encouraged to discern—through prayer and research—the most important and urgent need of their province. This can be done through consultation with the Body of Christ and local government units in their province. The output of this discernment process would be a project proposal that can be submitted to appropriate prospective funding partners from the donor community.
The PAR Community, through a delegated technical working group, would oversee the implementation of their specific PAR Program.
5. Initiate field testing of the new PAR Community. The PAR Community, along with their PAR Teams, will be deployed on the field to test their newly-acquired training. This will be done through the supervision of the professionally-contracted training facilitators.
6. Facilitate Training of Teachers to expand PAR Program. Based on the evaluation and learning from the field, the professionally-contracted training facilitators will conduct a Training of Teachers’ seminar.
7. Encourage the new PAR Community to start a PAR Community in a new province. We need to reach all 81 provinces in our country by 2015. We have counted Nueva Ecija as reached, being the pilot area for our PAR Community establishment. If by the end of 2011 we have established one PAR Community in each of the first 5 identified provinces in our country, and each of those PAR Community will establish one PAR Community in another province every year, then by the end of 2015, we should have established one PAR Community in each of the 80 provinces in our country.
