Umuryango Children's Network

I am sure you have heard that too much of anything is bad. It’s true. Too much of good things that you are not used to can be very bad. Let me use an illustration to make my point. Suppose that you are not wealthy but you can provide a modest living for your child. Though you would like your child to have the best, he or she has learned to be comfortable with your simple lifestyle. For few days, your neighbor gets a visitor who happens to be a very wealthy person. Feeling sorry for child, the wealthy guy in town starts showering your child with expensive gifts and love (which he needs) that makes him/her feel like he/she is living in a dream. To this child, having the rich guy around is like you having your favorite Hollywood celebrity in town with all of his attention focussed on you.

Because kids adapt very fast, he/she start asking you (the parent) the same things he/she gets from the new wealthy friend. Unfortunately, you have to say no and maybe give him/her a tough lecture on why he/she should not be asking such things that you cannot afford. Every time you say no, he/she runs to the new wealthy friend and he/she gets exactly what he/she wants. While he/she is with the new friend, he/she is given an overwhelming affection and love and every thing his heart longs for. Unfortunately not from you as the parent and you know it will soon be gone. How do you think the actions of this good Samaritan will affect the relationship with your child? How will it affect the child and how will it make him feel when the Good Samaritan eventually has to leave? Imagine if your own child start wishing he/she was born in a different family that can provide what she just tasted!

You are probably thinking: What are we supposed to do? Leave a child hungry if we can easily feed him? I am not suggesting that. What I am suggesting, though is that handing money and things simply because people need them and we can easily afford it may not always be a wise decision. At the same time, giving or showing a child more love and affection than he/she has ever gotten from his/her own parents may not be a good thing. I have realized that different cultures have different ways to express love and emotions. It is important that we learn and try to stay within local cultural boundaries.

I think that we, short-term missionaries do a great job in learning about what is accepted and what is expected in order to be respectful and mindful of other cultures. However, many of us have a hard time controlling our “well-intentioned” emotions. All short-term missionaries that I have met have something in common. They are equipped with so much love and passion for the people they serve yet they only have two weeks or less to pour it out on the people. So, if they simply let it out, it can be a little too much. In this situation, corporate love (I don’t even know if this exist but I mean loving a big group as a whole) works much better than focusing all of the attention and affection on one person/child

Let me reiterate that I believe God wants us to love and bless them but we have to do it in moderation so to not overstep on their cultural values. As I mentioned in my previous post, we must first meet the person before meeting his/her needs. Thus, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we will discern how to best love and serve them in ways that do not conflict or compromise their cultural values and belief. If not controlled, our passionate expression of love and affection can lead to an emotional corruption that will do more harm than good. It can unintentionally turn a much-needed cultural exchange into a cultural change.

With everything that can go wrong, how do you even prepare for a mission trip? Well, there are things that you simply cannot plan or prepare for. The best you can do is to continuously seek God’s help and wisdom while you are serving. At the same time, you will need to work closely with a local mission partner. This local partner cannot be someone you just hire. He or she must be someone you have gotten to know and trust; someone who knows and trusts your ministry. Through a stronger relationship, your partner will be empowered to guide you and to tell you everything even when it is not what you want to hear (as long as it glorifies God). Just as much as missions can be challenging and complex for the mission-goers, the same is true for the local partner hosting us. Next time, I will share something I have learned as a host.

God’s mission is a two way street and it’s not just about them; It’s also about you.

Do not just focus on building houses. Build relationships

The first thing that often comes into our minds when invited on a mission trip is: What will we be doing there? Oh no! I am the wrong person to ask. I have never done this before and I don’t think I know how to do anything that can be useful. We quickly associate our usefulness and qualification with what we know how to do. This is partly due to the fact that, the companies we work for value us based on what we do; not who we are. Understandably, how we feel about ourselves or how valuable we feel is based on what we can or cannot do. Living in the world of “doers” can quickly make us forget that God is more interested in “who we are” (our being) than in what we can do (our doing). Call me lazy but I kinda love going on a mission trip and do nothing. It gives me a warm feeling to finally realize that there is a place where I can focus on “being”; not on “doing” and still accepted?

Think about it. If it were about what we can do for our mission partners, going on a mission trip could hardly be financially and logistically justifiable. First of all, the monetary value of what we can accomplish in two weeks is far less than how much we can earn from our highly paying jobs. Secondary, there is not much you can do that will outweigh the time away from your friends and family. Thirdly, it can be more helpful to pay the local people who often need to job and can do it more effectively. Besides, they can do a follow up if anything goes wrong later.

I am not against doing things and building houses for the homeless but I am against making it a central focus of the mission. Doing things should only be a part of the fellowship with our local mission partners. I think it is totally OK to come back home from a mission trip without having built a house for a poor orphan or a widow. However, I think it defeats the purpose to come back without realizing that the poor woman or child who used to come by to say hi is a widow or an orphan. I think the mission trip should be an opportunity to grow our horizontal (interpersonal) relationships while deepening our vertical (with God) relationship.

Imagine that you have a son who has gone to college and achieved great things for himself. Due to his busy school schedule, unfortunately, he never got a chance to be close to your parents (his grandparents). In fact, they barely know him. Knowing about how much he can learn about you and life from them, you suggest that you and him go to spend few days with your parents. Will you be happy if your parents mailed you a to-do-list that you have to complete before you return home? Do you think that his grandparents will want him to spend all of the time working on every thing that they haven’t been able to get done around the house or will they want to spend time doing spontaneous things that help both of them to get to know each other better? Imagine how memorable and beautiful it would be if everything they did was a spontaneous result of their fellowship instead of a planed list of activities and duties.

God’s family is much bigger than our biological families, our churches and our countries. I believe that he introduces us to each other one at a time. He is not sending you on the mission trip so you meet all of their needs. He is sending you so you can meet “THEM”. So, do not allow “doing” things get in your way for “being” who he wants you to be with them. By getting to know your hosts and letting them get to know you, you will both learn something about God that none of you could have learned otherwise.

God’s mission is a two way street and it’s not just about them; It’s also about you.

Love them but do not emotionally and/or materially corrupt them.