Saturday, January 28, 2006

Short-term Missions

can short-term missions sometimes do more harm than good?  according to the author of a prelude article i read, YES!  that article hit me really hard since I was a veteran of two mission trips.  one strong argument was that the money spent on sending people to third-world countries to build fences could be instead used to hire local people to build fences and more.  i really understood that, because during my philippines mission trips several years ago, we did build a fence for a local church.  in retrospect, the money i spent to fly there could have been donated to the church, and the church could have used that money to hire local workers to build more fences, or maybe even add walls to their church building.  i began to see the authors argument…

the author also argued that many used the short-term mission experience as an excuse to obtain a spiritual high for themselves instead of focusing on giving themselves to the local people.  that can be very selfish.  it’s almost like Christian tourism:  you visit and watch, but you don’t really do much.  maybe build a fence, pave a walkway, or paint a building.  but the local people can do that too!  we don’t need to travel so far just to strip locals of jobs.  instead, we could give them something that they don’t have, like maybe basic English lessons.

i’ve been on two mission trips in my lifetime, one to the Philippines and one to Cambodia.  according to the author’s perspective, everything my group did in the Philippines was “wrong”.  everything we did in Cambodia was “right”.  here are some examples.  in the Philippines, we visited churches, talked to kids, organized an outreach in the public square, and ran a youth revival conference.  all of these things could have been accomplished by philippinos with some monetary support.  in fact, it probably would have been better because they understood the people and their needs. 

meanwhile, in Cambodia, my group prepared for the trip by studying the Cambodian government and religion.  then we toured endlessly from school to school, teaching the children Christian English songs and performing short skits.  we taught basic English lessons and even some math to a class that was taught by a teenage boy.  each day was exhausting.  we would get up early in the morning and travel and teach until late at night.  this happened day after day.  for further efficiency, our group even split into two to cover more group in two separate towns.

what’s ironic though is that the “spiritual high” i got from the Philippines encouraged me to travel to Cambodia.  the “spiritual high” also inspired my friend and i to start a youth group back in Hong Kong.  the “spiritual high” then opened my eyes to the power of prayer, which i haven’t forgotten and will continue to abuse.  yup, abusing prayer is acceptable!

so i guess i come to a complete circle.  i presented the author’s views, agreed to it, and used my experiences in mission work to retort everything i had to say.  or did i?

Posted by Nehe555 on 01/28 at 11:20 PM
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