Disenchanted with short term missions

Looking back, there are core memories, experiences that caused me to ruminate and wrestle with calling, potential contributing factors of poverty, and what it means to help (whether at home or in another context). All these memories and subsequent reflections have contributed to who I am today and what I do with my time and talents. I love to talk about aid, development, helping, faith, and calling! I am not an expert, but experience and education have been my teachers along the way in considering how we live out our calling as believers to care for poor. We are all confronted with poverty and charity and often challenged to do so something, no matter our belief system. Helping is a moral imperative, isn’t it? But what does it mean to help and why do “things” not seem to get better?

So, I begin this account by sharing some of those core memories, a few highlights that float to the top of my memory when I ponder this braod topic.

Long before mission trips and international aid and NGOS (non-governmental organizations) were something I understood or even knew about, my mother instilled in me that each person lives a life of value, everyone has an important story to tell. The first time I really was able to apply this concept was when I was about twelve. There was a couple from my hometown in South Dakota who biked around the world. I was in awe watching their presentation and I vividly remember one slide (dating myself!), a picture of a woman sitting in the dirt of the mountains, breaking rock into pebbles. This was her job day in and day out. It was then that I thought outside of my own “world,” realizing her life though seemingly small and insignificant, was of great value. This moment did not propel me to serve or set my sights on being a missionary, but I believe it was a fundamental moment in God opening my eyes to His world and to the value He places on each person.

Fast forward to my late twenties/early thirties. My first two short term mission trips were the standard experience of leading a group of youth to build houses for people who probably knew how to do it for themselves. But it was on those trips God built upon what He had already been teaching me. He is the God of the Nations, caring about all people, all the time, and that He is at work everywhere; certainly before, after, and despite, me being in Mexico.

Jumping ahead a couple of years, I went to Uganda with a group of young adults, and it was there that I began to understand the layers of issues contributing to poverty. These were and are issues that hand outs, i.e. our general approach to “helping,” are not going to fix. The “problems’ are systemic. And it was hard to talk about it at home but I was becoming disillusioned. Maybe a year or so after that, I started to pray about what “missions” should look like.

I participated in a Vision Trip with World Vision that rocked my world! I saw a method of “helping” in community development that honors the local person, restores and maintains dignity, and wasn’t just a handout. I launched a partnership at my church as I was the Director of Missions by then, I read books such as Dead Aid by Dambisa Moya and God’s Foreign Policy by Miriam Adeney during that time

I enrolled in a graduation program, a Master of Arts in International Community Development. These were my people, and this program was transformative for me. But I also finished that degree with plenty of new questions about the world of aid and where do I (and even do I) fit in? I wanted to help more than ever, and thought maybe I knew a little better how to help without hurting but the when and where were unclear.

Fast forward again, along with dear friends, I started an NGO (or non-profit as we might call it in the United States) called Covenant Internationl to help some friends in ministry in Liberia. I thought I had experienced and learned enough to do this (or at least learn and create as we go). Partnering, helping, walking alongside, supporting, maintaining dignity, staying out of the way of what God is doing as well as what our partners are doing locally. They know best! I don’t want to tell them how to do things. So, tt has been, and continues to be, a journey learning what we want to do together and how the Lord is leading this partnership. But it is hard as my tendancy is to try to solve things quickly or insist on my way. But that is not what leads to transformation. It is not empowering.

Covenant International partners with community organizations to strengthen their local programs in which people can thrive with dignity. This mission statement has been written and rewritten and prayed over for more than a year. We are currently working cross-culturally (with our partner in Liberia) and oftentimes at a distance to build a partnership and build a school. Though we are small right now, it is an enormous undertaking. This is a marathon not a sprint. And who knows how God will use it? But even today, celebrating our two-year mark, I am still stretched in numerous ways, not least of which is in my own personal faith life.

I hope you will stick with me and share your thoughts.