wfn.org | U.S. and Pakistani Presbyterians Agree on Plan

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6-December-1996 
 
96478     U.S. and Pakistani Presbyterians Agree on Plan 
          for Joint Administration of Pakistan Property 
 
                      by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LAHORE, Pakistan--Working so agreeably that they finished several hours 
early, negotiators from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the 
Presbyterian Church of Pakistan (PCP) hammered out a deal here Nov. 12-13 
that provides for joint administration of dozens of pieces of property that 
the PCUSA owns in Pakistan. 
 
     "We have come to find a way to convey to you in good will and good 
faith property that really belongs to you," the Rev. Hugh Burroughs, a 
General Assembly Council member from Santa Monica, Calif., who moderated 
much of the meeting, told the PCP delegation. 
 
     Under the terms of the ensuing agreement, PCUSA property in Pakistan 
will be transferred to The Presbyterian Property Trust in Pakistan.  The 
trust will be administered by a 15-member council -- 11 members from the 
PCP and four from the PCUSA.  After 12 years the trust will be entirely 
administered by the Pakistani Presbyterians. 
 
     The property trust was the brainchild of S. David Stoner, former GAC 
executive director who for the last three years has served as a volunteer 
in mission for organizational development from the PCUSA to the fledgling 
PCP. 
 
     "The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) needs to find a way to strengthen 
our partnership with the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan," Stoner said at 
the outset of the consultation here, "to strengthen it through the property 
we own here to further the glory of God in this country." 
 
     The memorandum of understanding for the trust lists six purposes for 
the use of the trust's assets: 
 
     *    maintenance of church services and leadership training and 
          development 
     *    propagation of the Christian faith "in a manner according to 
          Presbyterian belief" 
     *    extension of formal and informal education 
     *    provision of medical and health care facilities for the people of 
          Pakistan "and those residing in Pakistan irrespective of their 
          color, creed or caste" 
     *    agricultural ministries, vocational and technical training, self 
          development and small industry development projects 
     *    "carrying out such works of social welfare and community 
development in general as 
          may from time to time be deemed fit and proper" 
 
     The trust's council will have the authority to purchase, lease, 
acquire, hold, manage, lease out, sell and mortgage property that is 
related to the trust.  During the first 12 years (when the PCUSA is 
represented on the council), all property decisions will require an 80 
percent affirmative vote, with a 75 percent majority required after that. 
During those first 12 years, the PCUSA will have veto power over any 
transaction. 
 
     That provision generated considerable discussion, but Burroughs, for 
one, was firm.  "We will not waive the veto right," he declared. 
 
     Though it was unspoken at the public meetings, privately both PCUSA 
and PCP negotiators agreed that the veto power is a helpful safeguard.  The 
PCP has had a number of power struggles in which various church officials 
have engaged in hotly debated property deals involving PCP-owned property. 
 
     Also, given the legal complexities of Pakistani property law and the 
fact that Christians comprise just 2 percent of the population in this 
Islamic fundamentalist country, the veto power, as the Rev. Victor Makari, 
area coordinator for the Middle East and South Asia, reminded the 
negotiators, "is good protection for the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan in 
the current unsettled climate." 
 
     G.A. "Pat" Goff, director of Corporate and Administrative Services in 
Louisville, told the Presbyterian News Service that the trust makes good 
financial sense "because it is so hard to sit in Louisville and figure out 
the best way to deal with many of these property situations."  Economic 
development has been so sporadic and random in Pakistan that the PCUSA owns 
a number of very valuable properties, but also a number that are worth very 
little.  The properties have been acquired during the 150 years that the 
PCUSA has had a missionary presence in Pakistan, but there has never been a 
very systematic plan for how to deal with them all. 
 
     An increasing problem -- for the church and for all property owners in 
Pakistan -- has been the loss of property to squatters.  For those who have 
nothing, the temptation to just set up housekeeping and perhaps small-scale 
grazing or gardening on unoccupied land is too great to resist.  On some of 
the PCUSA-owned properties, said PCUSA medical missionary Eric Pulliam, "to 
do nothing is to gradually lose it all." 
 
     Pulliam presented a plan for development of a 25-acre parcel in 
Sialkot that received high praise from the negotiators.  The land currently 
houses the Christian Technical Institute, a Presbyterian school that was 
nationalized by the Pakistani governement in 1972, two dormitories, a 
church and a number of church-owned houses that are occupied by squatters. 
Half of the property is undeveloped and other squatters are increasingly 
encroaching on it. 
 
     Pulliam's plan calls initially for the construction of a residential 
community.  Proceeds from the sale of the homes would then fund renovation 
of the school and dormitories (the school is on a list of schools slated 
for denationalization by the government), construction of additional 
housing for employees of the nearby Presbyterian medical center and 
hospital, expansion of the church facilities to include a community center 
and community training center and construction of a hotel and shopping 
center. 
 
     Such plans, said Goff -- where church, mission and community 
development are incorporated into property-use decisions developed by local 
communities of Pakistanis -- is what is envisioned as the Presbyterian 
Property Trust in Pakistan takes over management of "what could be a wealth 
of resources in the country." 
 
     Members of the PCUSA negotiating team included Burroughs, Stoner, 
Makari, Goff, the Rev.  Robert Bohl of Prairie Village, Kan. (representing 
the Worldwide Ministries Division), David Greer of Omaha, Neb. 
(representing CAS), and the Rev. Marian McClure, associate for global 
education in the Worldwide Ministries Division in Louisville. 
 
     The property trust was approved in principle by the General Assembly 
Council at its July meeting in Albuquerque.  The council will be asked to 
formally approve the trust agreements when it meets in early February. 

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