(I submit this as it makes me think more seriously about this issue)
"Many lesser known missionaries have demonstrated great concern for the totality of human need. One of them was Willis Banks, an obscure Presbyterian evangelist who worked in a backward area of southern Brazil. He built the areas first brickyard, brought children to live with his family, taught them to read, and then sent them back to teach others. Using a home medical guide, he treated infections, tuberculosis, malaria, worms, and malnutrition.
(Village #1)
Banks introduced better methods of agriculture and care of livestock. He build the first sawmill in the area and constructed machinery to cut silage. An anthropologist who visited the area 20 years after Banks’ death gave a striking illustration of the resulting community development. He visited two isolated villages, both situated in virtually identical circumstances, with inhabitants of the same racial and cultural back grounds. The village of Volta Grande was Presbyterian and had benefited from Banks’ evangelism and leadership. The people lived in houses of brick and wood, used water filters and in some cases had home produced electricity. They owned canoes and motor launches for travel to a nearby city and cultivated vegetables along with the traditional rice, beans, corn, manioc, and bananas. They had two herds of dairy cattle and produced and consumed milk, cheese, and butter. They received and read newspapers, had the Bible and other books readily available, and all were literate. The community had pooled its resources to build a school and donated it to the State with the stipulation that a teacher be provided and paid. Consequently there was an excellent primary school there and many of its graduates continued their studies in the city Religious services were held three times a week even though the pastor could visit only once a month.
(Village #2)
The inhabitants of Jipovura, the other village, lived in daub and wattle houses with no furniture. They engaged only in marginal agriculture, and did not boil or filter their water. They had no canoes, used tiny kerosene lamps for light, and were mostly illiterate. A school had been donated to the community by a few Japanese families who had once lived in the area, but the people showed no interest in maintaining it and had ruined the building by stealing its doors and windows. Leisure time was filled by playing cards and drinking the local sugarcane rum. Alcoholism was common."
Virtually all missionary movements in history have been concerned about social transformation in one way or another. It has been seen as part of the ministry of communicating and living out the gospel. Major emphasis has been placed on education, health care, agriculture, and ministries of social uplift for girls, women, and other neglected and op pressed members of society.
("A History of Transformation”, Paul Pierson. "Perspectives on the world Christian Movement", 1999, William Carey Library, Pasadena California . Pg 266)
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