Yesterday, I posted some thoughts from a missionary family currently serving in Haiti. The post I linked is a great discussion starter, one that should make people who are wanting to participate in a short term trip think before they go. It is important for people to think about if a trip uses their resources and time wisely. It's important for people to recognize why they want to go. It's important for people to consider how their trip will effect themselves, the area they will be visiting, and the missionaries who they will be working with. I have done 5 short term missions trips abroad and an assortment of small, short term trips within the U.S.. I have visted Romania once, Peru once, and Haiti three times. Each time I have grown in my understanding of mission work and each time I have come back with my mind full of questions about serving. And that's a good thing.
In the Livesay post/comments section, Tara posted about some research that was done by a friend pertaining to mission trips. Specifically she posted about a study done on short term missions work in three developing countries. "This research looked at three types of groups: groups that came to build something (school, church, houses, etc); groups that came to DO something (medical clinic, VBS, etc) and groups that came to BE with people (discovery tour, cultural exchange kind of thing). The prof did research in three countries: Thailand, Honduras and Haiti. We headed up the Haiti research. So, we interviewed different organizations in Haiti that worked with groups - a really, really small sample. We interviewed community organizations and leaders that received the groups and we interviewed families that hosted visitors in their homes. They also did surveys of former group participants. In a very small nutshell, what they found in their research was that the third type of group above (the learning type) typically remained more committed and engaged in working with, supporting, volunteering, donating, etc then any of the other kinds of groups. You know how people get all fired up right . . . and then you hear nothing, they do nothing, etc. That's pretty typical. But the third kind of group, with effective orientation and debriefing which is another critical component, remained more engaged in the long run."
I found this really interesting as the basic idea was that people who came to look, listen, and learn seem to have been more effective and once home, were more effectively in continuing to minister. It was also very interesting to me because this actually mirrors my own experiences very closely. I went to Romania when I was 18. I am not even sure how I got to that point to be honest. My senior year of high school, the last church camp attended, featured a presentation from a group that worked in Romanian orphanages. I'm not sure how it got in my heart but somehow between August and Christmastime, I decided I would apply to go. Again, I'm not even sure how or why. It just kind of happened. I did not know a single person who I was traveling with. Every person on my team was signficantly older than me except for a young, married couple. I had never flown before. But here I was, at 18, heading to Romania. There was no real purpose set in stone other than to serve at the government run orphanage. (Which was very much like the orphanages you might have seen in exposes on the Romanian orphanages.) We brought clothing and toys for the entire orphanage. When we arrived, our team leader basically asked the orphanage director what needed to be done. The women painted bathrooms. The men did some type of construction work. We all worked to clean up a play yard used by the children which was full of garbage. And we occasionally stopped to play and love on children.
I came away broken and more sure of my relationship with God. I was broken over the things I saw. Kids in metal cribs, with chipping paint, and wire sides. Disabled kids who laid in their cribs all day long with minimal human contact. And Gypsy kids who are the lowest of the low, so low that the orphanage workers told us not to kiss them because Gypsy babies are dirty. But I was also more sure of who my God was. I was so out of my comfort zone. But God was still there. And that mattered a lot. I was a fairly typical American teenager who quickly realized that if I multiplied my bedroom at home by 2, it might be fairly close in size to an apartment that was shared by an entire family.
I came back with all of those thoughts but soon fell back into the routine of life. Yes, I still was moved by the thought of kids in orphanages. But life was moving fast around me. I was in college. I got married. I graduated from college. I found my first job. It was busy.
Then our church decided to do a short term missions trip with a group called SportReach. SportReach is a well established group who uses sports clinics to share the gospel. A team from our church, including D and myself, were headed to Lima, Peru. Our goal there was to support a Peruvian church who regularly ran sports clinics, held outreach events at their church, and did street evangelism.
During the first part of our trip, the church was hosting a revival type meeting for families. One of the specific jobs I was tasked with was to organize child care and activities for the meeting times. This quickly became one of those times where I felt like I was more of a hinderance than a help. As the team leaders and myself sat down with the Peruvian leaders, it became clear that the Peruvians and I had very different ideas and expectations on what would happen. As a teacher, I was worried about having things descend into chaos without structure and activities. I wanted to know details like how many children we would have, how long of a time we would have to keep the children, etc.. If you've ever been in a country like Peru, you are probably laughing right now. Details like time and numbers are not as important. But I didn't know that. And no one told me that what I was going to be doing was essentially an impromptu "let's learn about God" moment. My vision was a mini VBS. Eventually, after the Peruvian leader's eyes deglazed and I took it down a notch, we got it figured out.
The next part of our trip was dedicated to holding sports clinics on the streets. We would pile in a bus with our sports equipment, stop at the city basketball courts, and then go door to door, inviting kids to come to a sports clinic hosted by Americans. At the clinic, we taught kids of all ages how to play basketball and volleyball, two sports most of them knew little about. And we also taught them soccer, but most of them knew a lot about that already. The kids would travel from one sport area to the next, playing with Americans. Before the kids switched to a new sport, the group was gathered on the court to hear the gospel in many different forms. (a wordless drama, a spoken message, and a painting) The salvation prayer was shared at the end of the time and the church members collected information from interested parties for follow up.
We also did some street evangelism with members of the church. This was purely unintentional. We headed to do some sightseeing near the Presidential Palace and as it would turn out, our large group of Americans, garnered lots of attention. Many people stopped to ask who we were and what we were doing. As we would share our story, the members of the Peruvian church would translate and then began sharing the gospel. The Americans had been given little cubes that depicting different parts of the Gospel story just to have for the trip since there would be a language barrier and many of the Americans pulled out their cubes and showed the pictures as the Peruvian leaders shared the story of Jesus. At some point, a large crowd assembled around us. (Like maybe 50-75 people.) We were near the Presidential Palace and the police nearby were not thilled with this impromptu gathering. I will never forget them tapping Alexis, one of the Peruvian church leaders, on the shoulder to tell him he couldn't continue due to the crowd size. Alexis put his finger up and quietly told them that he wasn't finished yet. They of course were not going to let him continue and asked him again to stop so he did but it was one of those moments where you just are amazed at what has just happened in front of you.
I walked away acutely aware that the gospel is a powerful force that can penetrate hearts in ways I had never seen. I also walked away skeptical of how much good it really did to evangelize in the ways we had done; were the people who said they wanted a relationship with Jesus really serious? It made me realize that it wasn't my job to question that or to do the discipleship part of it. God gives us each a role to play and my role was done. It was up to the Peruvian church to disciple those people who committed to Jesus.
After Peru, we literally walked into Haiti. We arrived back in the States on a Saturday, went to church the next day and were greeted by a missionary speaking on Haiti. At that point in our lives, we had explored a bunch of different options to start a family but were facing nothing by frustration. So that day I told D that maybe at this point in our lives, when we had no children, that maybe this was the time to go and do things like mission trips. So we started praying about a mission trip to Haiti. Long story short, that quickly turned into adopting from Haiti and 3 trips to Haiti.
The 3 trips we took to Haiti were twofold in purpose: spend time with our children and serve at the orphanages where our children were living. We went into all 3 trips with no real plans as to what we would accomplish other than D knew he would paint some murals. Our first trip to Haiti was when Kenson was 9 months old. We stayed for ten days. Kenson's orphanage allows adoptive parents to bring their children back to the hotel with them while they are visiting in Haiti. D and I felt it would be unfair to Kenson to completely upset his world for ten days. So we actually only brought him to the hotel with us for one or two nights at a time. We also spent a lot of time at the orphanage versus staying at the hotel. And when we were at the orphanage, we did not just hold Kenson all day long. Again, we felt like it was too unfair to have him be carried around for ten straight days and then be returned to the baby room. So we went to the orphanage and just did what needed to be done. We sorted supplies, we washed laundry by hand, we painted a mural, and we played with kids. Our next stop involved a trip to Kenson's orphanage and a trip to Conleigh's orphanage which is 40 miles from Kenson's. Again, we had no real plan. We visited Conleigh's orphanage first and came at a time when they were actually short a few people so we did a lot of caring for babies. (The orphanage often receives special needs babies as the director is a nurse so when we were there, they had just taken in a preemie and a terribly neglected little guy named Berto. Plus I think there might have been another baby that had some medical stuff going on.) D painted a mural in the baby room and I cleaned out a storage closet. We also played with the kids and I tried to do a photo shoot of all the kids so we could send some decent pictures to other waiting families. I also think we did a handprint art project to send to other waiting families. But very laid back and low key. Very much an "if it happens, it happens type" attitude mixed with "how can we help?" The second part of our trip was spent in Port Au Prince but due to the way things played out, we really did not spend a large chunk of time at the orphanage so I wouldn't count that as mission trip time. Our third trip was actually our trip to pick up Kenson. Before that, we went to Conleigh's orphanage to see her. Again, we had no real plan or project. We were only going to be there like 2 1/2 days so all we really did was play with kids and help out with kids as needed. I tried to help the teacher who was there with some ideas for her classroom but I quickly realized I was probably out of my element in offering advice. Teaching school at a Haitian orphanage in a multi level classroom is a lot different than teaching first grade in the States. I felt like any advice I would offer would be pointless and less than helpful. After our short visit, we headed to Port to pick up Kenson and then flew home so it was a really short trip.
The bottom line is I am very aware of how I felt ineffective in supporting the church in Peru when I was there. Between the whole childcare planning meeting and a few other things, I felt like I was, at times, a short term missionary who did not fully understand how her actions and words might have affected the Peruvians and our hosts. And interestingly enough, it was the most organized of the trips, one where I had something to "do." On my other trips, I felt like I was in a much better position to help and serve. In Romania, all I had to do was to do what I was asked. In Haiti, all I needed to do was ask "what can I do?" My goals in both places were simple-to make someone's load lighter and to spend time with children who are living apart from a family. So in short, my experience did match up with what Tara wrote, that those who came to be with people are often more effective. For some reason, the Livesay post has me all gung ho on this topic so tomorrow I'm going to offer up some tips on being an efffective short term missionary, based on my own experiences and the words I have heard others speak.
No comments:
Post a Comment