Pet Peeve about "Mission Trips"

[jenny_islander]

I wonder if there could be a place for some "mission work" by young people from well-to-do congregations. Perhaps it could be presented like this:

Dear Pastor _____ of St. Money'stight, Recessionville, Appalachia: We have some young people in our congregation who don't need to get summer jobs. We would rather not have them sitting around on their tuchuses all day during the summer; as you know, the Devil makes work for idle hands. Do you have any members who could use some extra pairs of hands for a week? Our kids can pound nails, saw wood, chop down poison ivy, haul stuff, mind burn piles, mind children, and scrub things. They can be paid in money, lemonade, or good advice. One adult supervisor will be provided for every half dozen young people. Please let me know at 555-GOT-MONY.

Sincerely,

Pastor ________ of St. Lexus-on-the-Beach, Bankville, Beltway

[miffy]

He is talking about a very specific phenomena, that occurs mainly with "gap years kids" and on the backpacker circuit. "Volunteer tourism" is targeted at rich, western kids who want to salve their guilt. 100% no questions. Yes, there are other groups - but what he's talking about is a subset of a whole. And a very large, very wealthy, very distorting subset. The mission stuff is problematic, but at least they're honest in their impart their worldview crap.

I have no context for what YPestis has posted, but no questions - he has a point. It may be the product of a distorted view point (ie: he's a conservative kook, and thus wants to find things wrong with liberals); it doesn't make him wrong. There is a whole industry built up around this, and it doesn't target conservatives.

From my point of view, the problem is that "western liberals" are egregious in their hypocrisy. Most conservatives aren't going to explain their trip or experience in the language of post colonialism, anti-racism and international development. Liberals do.

Separate out volunteering trips, that are intended to be *all about* helping locals, from mission trips, which necessarily have a touch of saving heathen souls via a bit of house building. If you were to tell a rich liberal kid that they were going to civilise the barbarians by giving them the truth they'd recoil at the suggestion. Skydog forbid you suggest that some "human rights education programs" are exactly.the.%&^.same. And therein lies the problem. (the whole atheist education thing in Cambodia being promoted on Dispatches from the Culture War makes my skin crawl. Really, atheism is going to help the Cambodian's shed their barbaric Buddhist practices? I mean, it's not like the genocide in Cambodia was a genocide conducted by those whose beliefs were proudly atheist [see])

I think short term volunteering programs, esp. any program that takes work away from local communities (see house building; distributing those stupid shoes etc... ) are deeply, deeply problematic. No matter what, volunteers end up getting more out of their experience than local communities (see notable exceptions like doctors training others to do cleft palette surgery and the like.. but these exceptions are so rare they make the case, and the volunteers themselves still get massive amounts out of their trip).

Volunteering (short term, anyway) makes poor people a prop for the emotional development of rich people. And short term volunteers fundamentally distort local practice - they put people out of work; they "create" need which results in increases in child trafficking; projects have little long term benefit; money is wasted etc..

I really like this article: http://www.sallyhetherington.com/?p=5015 and http://goodintents.org/staffing-or-empl ... d-go-wrong

fwiw: Good intents is a great site.

I know somebody who went on a volunteer holiday in Africa during her gap year & then went back again a couple of years ago. Between that & some slackivism on Facebook, she seems to think she is a flipping saint now. :roll:

She is so keen on supporting the rights of people who aren't affluent & straight, yet she judges a friend & I harshly because we happen to vote for a centre right party instead of a centre left party.

[Shirley MacLaine]

He is talking about a very specific phenomena, that occurs mainly with "gap years kids" and on the backpacker circuit. "Volunteer tourism" is targeted at rich, western kids who want to salve their guilt. 100% no questions. Yes, there are other groups - but what he's talking about is a subset of a whole. And a very large, very wealthy, very distorting subset. The mission stuff is problematic, but at least they're honest in their impart their worldview crap.

I have no context for what YPestis has posted, but no questions - he has a point. It may be the product of a distorted view point (ie: he's a conservative kook, and thus wants to find things wrong with liberals); it doesn't make him wrong. There is a whole industry built up around this, and it doesn't target conservatives.

From my point of view, the problem is that "western liberals" are egregious in their hypocrisy. Most conservatives aren't going to explain their trip or experience in the language of post colonialism, anti-racism and international development. Liberals do.

Separate out volunteering trips, that are intended to be *all about* helping locals, from mission trips, which necessarily have a touch of saving heathen souls via a bit of house building. If you were to tell a rich liberal kid that they were going to civilise the barbarians by giving them the truth they'd recoil at the suggestion. Skydog forbid you suggest that some "human rights education programs" are exactly.the.%&^.same. And therein lies the problem. (the whole atheist education thing in Cambodia being promoted on Dispatches from the Culture War makes my skin crawl. Really, atheism is going to help the Cambodian's shed their barbaric Buddhist practices? I mean, it's not like the genocide in Cambodia was a genocide conducted by those whose beliefs were proudly atheist [see])

I think short term volunteering programs, esp. any program that takes work away from local communities (see house building; distributing those stupid shoes etc... ) are deeply, deeply problematic. No matter what, volunteers end up getting more out of their experience than local communities (see notable exceptions like doctors training others to do cleft palette surgery and the like.. but these exceptions are so rare they make the case, and the volunteers themselves still get massive amounts out of their trip).

Volunteering (short term, anyway) makes poor people a prop for the emotional development of rich people. And short term volunteers fundamentally distort local practice - they put people out of work; they "create" need which results in increases in child trafficking; projects have little long term benefit; money is wasted etc..

I really like this article: http://www.sallyhetherington.com/?p=5015 and http://goodintents.org/staffing-or-empl ... d-go-wrong

fwiw: Good intents is a great site.

well put, and I completely agree with everything you said (I'm very aware of volunteer tourism - I went to liberal arts college ;) )

[JesusFightClub]

I said about my atheist mate who's an engineer. I won't tell what group she went out with to spare their blushes, but she told me a bit about what went on over there. There was a US army presence in the place where she was, for unspecified reasons (training for harsh conditions or something?) and they used to trade with them - blowjobs for beer.

I wouldn't have fancied that myself, but she thought it was funny :D All I can say from her accounts of her work there is that any liberal rich kid who went over there would have had their eyes opened quick smart.

Do generally agree, however. One of the least edifying things I remember from university was rich kids boasting about how many warzones they'd visited on their gap years. And don't get me started on "Kisses from Katie" - if you haven't read that you really should, while keeping a bucket handy. Katie felt like Jesus when poor Africans crept close to touch the hem of her garments. She constantly praises herself for being able to love dirty black kids. And everyone else praises the great sacrifice she made, living like a poor person when she's a rich beautiful *white* American. (Being white is stressed throughout the book).

I swear, even if you hadn't got a gag reflex before, you'd have one after reading that piece of disgraceful shite.

[Gwen]

I don't get why anyone would take a mission trip to South America? Are you trying to convert Catholics to Christianity?

[miffy]

I don't get why anyone would take a mission trip to South America? Are you trying to convert Catholics to Christianity?

Thats exactly what they are trying to do.

[DifferentGurl]

Thats exactly what they are trying to do.

Yea, exactly. Some people don't believe Catholics are Christians or at least "Good Christians".

[Palimpsest]

This tract might explain the phenomenon of Catholic conversion by Fundies:

Posted by Alchemy on the Why KJV Only? thread a few days ago.

I think this Chick tract chick.com/reading/tracts/0031/0031_01.asp expresses a lot of the beliefs I was raised on.

Sorry to do this by cut and paste. I still haven't mastered a direct link on my Kindle.