Juan Rivera of Nicaragua found a life-altering solution to his poverty in the Church's Perpetual Education Fund, a revolutionary program that allowed him to gain an education, triple his income, and then increase it by 833 percent. In less than two years, he owned a business, employed others and served in the Church.
But in the big picture, the Perpetual Education Fund is just one of the ways Church is meeting new needs with old doctrine regarding the welfare of members and others throughout the world — part of "one eternal round," said Elder John K. Carmack.
"The PEF is the later expression of the prophetic will to address the needs of the poor," said Elder Carmack, an emeritus general authority and director of the Church's Perpetual Education Fund.
From the earliest days of the Church, leaders have asked members to care for one another. Joseph Smith instituted the law of the fast and taught the principle of using fast offerings to care for those in need. New converts came to Kirtland, Ohio, in the early 1830s homeless, penniless and without employment. Following the example of the earliest members — who assisted one another with the building of homes and the sharing of food — Latter-day Saints have developed a willingness and an attitude to serve others that has spanned the Church's 175-year history.
That attitude of service was patterned as the early saints were forced from Missouri and again as they fled Nauvoo, Ill. It was seen again in 1849 as Brigham Young established the Perpetual Emigration Fund, in which money was loaned to poor European members who wanted to travel to the Salt Lake Valley, then repaid and loaned again. And it has been patterned again and again.
Relief Society sisters in the Salt Lake Valley began storing wheat in 1877. During the earthquake in San Francisco in 1906, the Church sent a train carload of wheat. That same year, a carload of wheat was sent to China to relieve suffering from famine. And Relief Society wheat was used to feed U.S. troops during World War I.
In the early 1900s, the Presiding Bishopric supervised an employment program called the Deseret Employment Bureau. As the Great Depression engulfed America during the 1930s, bishops storehouses helped provide for the unemployed and their families. In April 1936 general conference, President Heber J. Grant announced the establishment of the Church Security Plan, changed two years later to the Church Welfare Plan. And after World War II, Elder Ezra Taft Benson of the Quorum of the Twelve was sent to Europe to administer to the welfare of the European Latter-day Saints.
From those early roots, the Church's ability to help others has increased — allowing the organization to not only take care of its own members, but also millions of others throughout the world.
Since 1985, the Church has provided more than half a billion dollars in material assistance to those in need in more than 150 countries throughout the world. An estimated 45,000 tons of food, 58,000 tons of clothing, and 10,000 tons of educational and medical supplies have been shipped to six continents, benefiting millions of people. During recent years, Church Humanitarian Services also focused on four major initiatives: clean water, neonatal resuscitation training, vision treatment and training, and distributing wheelchairs. In a short period, the Church has become known as one of the most trustworthy and effective charitable agencies.
"We have done a very great deal of work on a humanitarian basis out across the world among people who are not members of the Church, millions and millions of dollars and vast quantities of goods and clothing and medicine and things of that kind to lift people in distress, to save them from famine, to help them," said President Hinckley during an interview with KUED's Ted Capener on Nov. 30, 1998. "We stand ready to assist wherever we can with such resources as we have. It isn't a burden for our people; it is a blessing for them."
Church members experienced that blessing this January as they fasted and prayed for victims of a devastating tsunami that struck southern Asia Dec. 26, killing at least 280,000 people, injuring more than 500,000, and leaving millions homeless. The result, said Bishop Richard C. Edgley, first counselor in the Presiding Bishopric, was a "significant outpouring, beyond what we expected." In addition to the millions raised during the Churchwide fast, "small and large" donations have been given to the Church's humanitarian aid fund, he said.
These resources will now allow the Church to match, in coming months and years, its "resources and capabilities with the most demanding needs of the people in the devastated areas."
The Church's efforts were seen again this week, as a magnitude-8.7 earthquake struck off the northwestern coast of Indonesia March 28, killing an estimated 1,000 people. Responding immediately — as was the case with the original disaster in the area — the Church diverted relief supplies to Nias, a small island off the coast of Sumatra, said Garry Flake, director of Church Emergency Response.
Wherever there is suffering, he said, the Church responds.
When President Gordon B. Hinckley announced the creation of the Perpetual Education Fund in April of 2001, he noted that the program was patterned after its forerunner, the Perpetual Emigration Fund.
"I have seen the poverty, the utterly hopeless condition of so very many who are born, live, and die without rising above the level of those who have gone before them for generations," said President Hinckley of the new fund that now assists 18,000 young people in 30 countries, while speaking to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on June 12, 2002. "It is an even greater thing to strike fire in the minds of the coming generation to walk out of the swamp of the past into a new day and a great future. The Lord being our Helper, we are making it happen. . . .
"The pattern of that success was established 150 years ago. It is now being repeated, with a different application, in our day and time."
As the early program helped early Church members, the new program is helping Juan Rivera today. Before receiving a loan from the Church's Perpetual Education Fund and completing training in refrigeration from the Fundet School in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, Brother Rivera made 600 cordobas (local currency that equals 16.5 U.S. cents) a month, reported Ted Brewerton of the Church's Translation Department after a recent trip to Guatemala.
But after gaining an education, made possible by a low-interest loan from the Church, Brother Rivera began earning 1,800 cordobas a month — triple is previous salary. Within a short time his income rose to 5,000 cordobas a month. Then — despite his good income — he left his employer and started his own business. Today, he employs others and serves as executive secretary in a stake presidency in Managua, Nicaragua.
"We are building people. That is our business," said Elder Carmack of the Church's humanitarian and welfare efforts that function in "one eternal round."
"The true Church of Jesus Christ always cares for the poor."
E-mail to: sarah@desnews.com