Jump to content
IGNORED

Miss Raquel: Saving the "Natives" One Latte at a Time


nelliebelle1197

Recommended Posts

My friend’s Methodist church goes on annual mission trips to Nicaragua, but as a *partnership* with a local church there, not as “white saviors.” They help with construction and health initiatives like well drilling and support for schools.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, AliceInFundyland said:

Oh this isn't a good turn of events.

FUCK YOU RAQUEL.

You seriously need to go to Cambodia to help someone? Have you ever opened your faux hipstered little eyes up to what's happening in our mutual community? Our homeless crisis?

I hate her. She wins my internet rage today. I wish I knew where she lived so I could do something like egg her doorstep.

That would make me feel very good.

She's a barista.

More useless in a foreign country than Lawson Bates. (there's a thread title)

Yeah, I was gonna say... she lives in FUCKING PORTLAND. Raquel is a disgrace of a “Christian”. If she really gave a damn about people in need, she’d raise $3,000 for a local shelter.

  • Upvote 6
  • I Agree 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Hane said:

My friend’s Methodist church goes on annual mission trips to Nicaragua, but as a *partnership* with a local church there, not as “white saviors.” They help with construction and health initiatives like well drilling and support for schools.

If these are experts on drilling wells or construction and there is no local option, that is one thing. But just white people flocking to foreign countries, taking jobs away from locals by doing stuff for free is white saviorish. It is much better to use that money to pay locals to drill wells and do construction jobs. I think this white savior mindset is so ingrained in American churches that it is very difficult for people to grasp that they this sort of thing isn't okay. 

Even in partnership with local churches, I can't help but wonder if they do this because they know people will plop down thousands to go on a trip and do stuff but won't put that same amount of money towards hiring locals. 

 

 

1 hour ago, AliceInFundyland said:

I hate her. She wins my internet rage today. I wish I knew where she lived so I could do something like egg her doorstep.

She is a terrible human being. It makes me angry that these mission organizations let someone like Raquel go on trips. A pretty easy look at her blog will show her last "mission" trips were all about her preying on at risk teen boys. 

Fuck all these groups that let the Raquels of the world go play white savior. 

  • Upvote 7
  • I Agree 8
  • Thank You 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@formergothardite, we’re not talking megachurch dollars here—we’re talking a small congregation of maybe 50 members, tops, with a half-time minister. The congregants who go on these trips pay their own way. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, AliceInFundyland said:

Oh this isn't a good turn of events.

FUCK YOU RAQUEL.

You seriously need to go to Cambodia to help someone? Have you ever opened your faux hipstered little eyes up to what's happening in our mutual community? Our homeless crisis

For sure. I’m in the same area as you, and the homeless and housing-vulnerable problems are freaking huge here. There are homeless camps everywhere, all over the city, if she truly wanted to jump in and help people. That $3k could pay for a lot of portable food, personal hygiene items, blankets, etc, etc, etc. 

  • Upvote 3
  • I Agree 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, formergothardite said:

 

She is a terrible human being. It makes me angry that these mission organizations let someone like Raquel go on trips. A pretty easy look at her blog will show her last "mission" trips were all about her preying on at risk teen boys. 

Fuck all these groups that let the Raquels of the world go play white savior. 

Well her current blog is scrapped of all of that, but I found all of the grotesque photos on the wayback machine. I am compiling an email to the organization with what I find. 

  • Upvote 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Hane said:

@formergothardite, we’re not talking megachurch dollars here—we’re talking a small congregation of maybe 50 members, tops, with a half-time minister. The congregants who go on these trips pay their own way. 

Like I said, it is so ingrained in American society that these mission trips are okay, that people(including me when someone first discussed it with me) struggle to see how these trips are really not good. 

The way I was told to think about it is this. Imagine you are a construction worker and a school needs to be built. But instead of you getting paid to build it, people from another country show up to build it. Then they show up again and again to build the things that need to be built. There goes your income, so you are plunged into poverty. These people might raise some money to give you food, but they won't stop coming and taking your job.  How depressing would that be? Same for lots of other jobs that short term missionaries do. Almost all these jobs are jobs that locals can do, they don't need Americans to come do them. 

The idea that we need to send white people(who are typically untrained) on a regular basis to do construction work is very white saviorish. It is implying that no one there could learn these things or already knows how to do them. It is one thing sending in experts to help out and assist locals in learning if they need to be educated, but if people are going yearly then that is an problem. If people can raise money to fly to another country to dig a well, then they can afford to send that money to local churches so they can invest it in the community by hiring people to do the things they need done. It is probably way cheaper to do that. 

There are articles discussing the long term damage this sort of mission trips cause out there. I think more and more people are starting to gain awareness that maybe people in other countries don't really need us to send people to do jobs they are just as capable of doing as we are. 

 

1 hour ago, dripcurl said:

Well her current blog is scrapped of all of that, but I found all of the grotesque photos on the wayback machine. I am compiling an email to the organization with what I find. 

I did not realize(or possible remember) that she had wiped her blog clean. I wonder if she got in trouble or at least lectured about her behavior and that is why she removed the posts.  I emailed the Peru organization when she was talking about going back there. But I don't know how much good it did. Raquel is such a creep she really doesn't need to be going on any sort of a trip like this. 

  • Upvote 13
  • I Agree 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Palimpsest recommended the documentary Poverty Inc. It is available on Amazon Prime.

I highly recommend it. It's incredibly eye-opening to see how everyone's (by which I mean generally "Western nations") intervention (secular, religious, disaster related and otherwise) has come to create a systemic problem.

For instance, in Haiti there is a man who has a company building solar panels for street lights. He was able to hire on a number of workers who otherwise would have likely had limited opportunities/street life. After the hurricane people came in and donated a bunch of solar panels. It left his men out of work and at odds.

A ton of weird out-sourcing stuff is affecting people in Africa. They are ending up as middle men to companies based in China.

We need to let our neighbors have a modicum of self - sufficiency going forward in the new global arena. In a crisis we should offer assistance and help with what is asked for, if possible. That's the way forward to a global community.

... Also, that's how we get the "good aliens" to talk to us ?

Edited by AliceInFundyland
  • Upvote 9
  • I Agree 2
  • Thank You 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What are your thoughts on groups in the southern US rebuilding structures destroyed by tornadoes in the southern US, i.e. across the state?  I did that when I was a teenager with a group.  Most of the people serviced were white.  Classism?  Maybe.  I remember the area I lived in had a lot of buildings rot for too many years after storms.  I wouldn't have minded help.  I know we had construction workers, but they were busy with what the small town mayor wanted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, raspberrymint said:

What are your thoughts on groups in the southern US rebuilding structures destroyed by tornadoes in the southern US, i.e. across the state?  I did that when I was a teenager with a group.  Most of the people serviced were white.  Classism?  Maybe.  I remember the area I lived in had a lot of buildings rot for too many years after storms.  I wouldn't have minded help.  I know we had construction workers, but they were busy with what the small town mayor wanted.

 Would I want a bunch of teenagers building my house? No. If the community doesn't have people available to build, maybe don't send teenagers? Send actual adults who know what they are doing. It is just sort of icky sending untrained teens to build houses for people in need, when most of us wouldn't let a bunch of teenagers do construction work on our house.  

I read an article once where in the 90's someone actually studied sending people to build stuff following a disaster in another country. They compared groups who arrived from America to rebuild houses to local groups who were just given money rebuilt the houses. It ended up it cost way, way more money per house for people from America to build them and that the local people would prefer people just stayed home and sent money. In this particular disaster event the Americans claimed it changed them deeply and they were going to help more in their own communities, but a follow up showed it didn't do that. This trip had no real impact on their lives. It just cost a ton of money that could have been used building more houses for those in need. 

 

  • Upvote 15
  • Thank You 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Hane said:

My friend’s Methodist church goes on annual mission trips to Nicaragua, but as a *partnership* with a local church there, not as “white saviors.” They help with construction and health initiatives like well drilling and support for schools.

My church has a partnership with a church and school in El Salvador. Every year or two a group goes down to see what they are doing with our money. We can sponsor kids in elementary school through college, or give money to their health clinic, etc. The people that travel down there take extra supplies to give (on top of the money that is sent) the supplies are typically health items they can't get readily in their area (tums, triple antibiotic, tylenol, etc). The people that go are given tours of the schools and the health clinics. They don't go to volunteer but I bet some do in their soup kitchen or what not. All the building of new stuff and staffing of the clinics and schools all are local people. Our parishioners that go are literally there to see where and how our donations are being used. My parents church has a similar relationship with a church in Haiti. Currently they can't get the money to them so for now the money is being sent to another project in their own community (in the US) for the poor. 

  • Upvote 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, quiversR4hunting said:

My church has a partnership with a church and school in El Salvador. Every year or two a group goes down to see what they are doing with our money. We can sponsor kids in elementary school through college, or give money to their health clinic, etc. The people that travel down there take extra supplies to give (on top of the money that is sent) the supplies are typically health items they can't get readily in their area (tums, triple antibiotic, tylenol, etc).

Why do they need Tylenol specifically? The same drug is available in El Salvador under several different brand names according to https://www.drugs.com/international/paracetamol.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Medical missions, with registered doctors, nurses and specialists is one of the only short term missions I can think of that has the potential to be truly helpful.  TCK of 16 years here.  

Our local church has no foreign missions.  It does run a daily drop in Center and meal program in our parish hall for the homeless in our city, and is working on a partnership with several other organizations in our community to address homelessness from streets up and out.  

The most effective missions will always be local.  You know your community and don’t have to struggle with cultural differences as much.  It is also more efficient with less waste, both monetarily and environmentally.  @formergothardite did a great job of breaking down why short term mission trips are more harmful than not. 
 


 

 

  • Upvote 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Why do they need Tylenol specifically? The same drug is available in El Salvador under several different brand names according to https://www.drugs.com/international/paracetamol.html

Maybe it isn't Tylenol, I can't remember the full list of drugs. I know that the church/school/clinic has been shaken down (extortion) by bad groups in the area. One of the priests was beaten pretty bad last year. So I don't know if these bad groups steal or make the organization give them some of the items as a "tax" to operate. 

Sorry, I shouldn't have stated the drugs specifically. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My best friend in high school is/was Southern Baptist. They'd do yearly mission trips a la the Duggars. I cannot tell you gratifying it is to see that she's shifted her efforts with her own children locally. They do a ton of work with an animal shelter. Her elder daughter, especially. Walking the dogs, playing with them. Lots of pit bulls, in particular. I didn't realize there was a religious bit till recently when I saw some prayer warrior stuff ... and was like 'huh?' But ok... pray about the dogs. Fine by me!

There was a lot of crap that led her away from that church. We've never discussed it as adults. I know she's kept a strong faith and I do recall that animals were a thing we bonded over. ? It's wonderful to see them doing that together.

  • Upvote 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, formergothardite said:

 Would I want a bunch of teenagers building my house? No. If the community doesn't have people available to build, maybe don't send teenagers? Send actual adults who know what they are doing. It is just sort of icky sending untrained teens to build houses for people in need, when most of us wouldn't let a bunch of teenagers do construction work on our house.  

I read an article once where in the 90's someone actually studied sending people to build stuff following a disaster in another country. They compared groups who arrived from America to rebuild houses to local groups who were just given money rebuilt the houses. It ended up it cost way, way more money per house for people from America to build them and that the local people would prefer people just stayed home and sent money. In this particular disaster event the Americans claimed it changed them deeply and they were going to help more in their own communities, but a follow up showed it didn't do that. This trip had no real impact on their lives. It just cost a ton of money that could have been used building more houses for those in need. 

 

Most people on the trip were not teenagers.  I was one of the youngest people there.  All the teenagers were supervised by adults.  I helped fix up daycare playgrounds.

We weren't paid and traveled on our own dime.  This was about four hours away from where I lived.

Edited by raspberrymint
Cost and travel
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yesterday I was at a local Puerto Rican restaurant at a fundraiser for Puerto Rican disaster relief. Anyone making a financial contribution got a delicious plate of home-style food. The owner, an evangelical Christian, was talking with several Latino construction workers about their plans to take equipment and skilled laborers to the island. It was clear that they wanted to help their own people and didn’t think of themselves as foreign strangers swooping in. (At least in this area, there’s a huge connection between the Puerto Ricans living here on the mainland and those “back home” on the island.

  • Upvote 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well Raquel decreased the amount of $$ she is raising, no one else has donated. She still has only $25. The org is playing dumb with me about the blog posts I sent from the wayback machine that she has made about one of her Peru trips where she was pretty obvious about her behavior with the boys.

 

Side note! Looking at her current social media posts and also looking at things from 4/5 years ago, I really can not understand her fixation with having brown eyes from a personal level, let me explain:

 

I am Latina as well. Coincidentally, part of that is being Peruvian. I too have brown eyes. But I am an extremely pale ginger. I was teased about brown eyes by white kids as a child, along with my hair by both white and non-white kids, and I rarely came across another brown eyed redhead. I did want green eyes for a long time, as that was what was presented by media as something that makes redheads extra beautiful. From my experience I knew I was an oddity. So Raquel, someone with a darker complexion and having such dark hair and being a full half Peruvian constantly making the case that she is special for having brown eyes perplexes me beyond belief.

 

After some maturing, I got over my eyes by the time I was an early teen. Some research helped too, supposedly on a global scale, brown is the most common eye color for gingers. I think part of this is because it is the most COMMON EYE COLOR IN THE WORLD - another reason Raquel’s obsession seems completely ridiculous. Notice I said I got over it by the time I was a young teen. I got over a lot of things then that Raquel still has not. So have most people. She seems to be stuck at the age she was when she started that blog.

  • Upvote 8
  • Love 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, dripcurl said:

The org is playing dumb with me about the blog posts I sent from the wayback machine that she has made about one of her Peru trips where she was pretty obvious about her behavior with the boys.

At least we know that they have been informed of what sort of a person they are allowing on their "mission" trip. Thank you for doing this. It really sucks these organizations allow people like Raquel to go on trips, but it isn't actually that surprising. 

3 minutes ago, dripcurl said:

I really can not understand her fixation with having brown eyes from a personal level, let me explain:

I have really dark brown hair and brown eyes and it makes no sense that she acts like this makes her unique. Lots of people have the exact same color eyes.  I guess she is so fixated on the idea that everything about her is super special that she can't deal with having a very common eye color. 

  • Upvote 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Where are you reading about her eyes?

Below is the latest example, but I regularly watch her insta stories and it is definitely reoccurring content there. And when I was looking at the posts on the wayback machine about her missions trips from the past, she had a long post around the same time all about her eyes. I think there might be multiple blogposts about it. I’ve been reading her blog since 2010. 

77551148-1D77-47F8-AB05-0130C37BDF1F.png

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Remember her bucket list? I still can't figure out how a child with colored eyes differs from a regular child. 

(She's figured out by now how to get pizza delivered.)

Screenshot_20200122-212637__01.thumb.jpg.de03d4602cafde46400f2b78f1e990f3.jpg

  • Upvote 1
  • Haha 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Remember her bucket list? I still can't figure out how a child with colored eyes differs from a regular child. 

(She's figured out by now how to get pizza delivered.)

Screenshot_20200122-212637__01.thumb.jpg.de03d4602cafde46400f2b78f1e990f3.jpg

She must be afraid of birthing a child like this

AD92A909-0537-4676-BEBA-971EC832808F.jpeg

  • Haha 5
  • I Agree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

She's figured out by now how to get pizza delivered.)

And she finally made a cheesecake and figured out how to buy something from Etsy! Sadly no baby polar bear hugging, yet. 

Her bucket list is one of the most ridiculous things about Raquel. They leave so many question. Like why exactly 16 scarves? 

  • Upvote 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



  • Trending Content

  • Recent Status Updates

    • Kiki03910

      Kiki03910

      https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/03/finally-engineers-have-a-clue-that-could-help-them-save-voyager-1/
      GO SCIENCE.
      · 0 replies
    • Kiki03910

      Kiki03910

      I love baseball but I'm dreading the new season because the White Sox ownership is THE FUCKING WORST. I watched Dominican League Baseball (Lidom!) over the winter and fell in love with their joy, spirit, and exuberance. The broadcasts were in Spanish and my Spanish is pretty weak but I loved catching phrases and repeating them. Bombe! I'm sad about MLB and Commissioner Idiota's busywork rules. But I love baseball, always and forever.
      I guess I don't have a point. Just bitching. Te amo mucho, Lidom!
      · 0 replies
    • WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?

      WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?

      Happy International Women's Day!

      Humanity may have some work to do, to improve gender equality, but I was glad to hear that France has taken an important step to protect healthcare for women (and people of other genders who can get pregnant). 
      (The links are just to a UN page and the AP News.)
      Anyhow, love to y'all!
      · 0 replies
    • Giraffe

      Giraffe

      Feeling ragey this morning. I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon in the hope of getting help for an ongoing injury. I went to a (different!!) doctor late last year who completely blew me off. He wouldn't do diagnostic testin, he refused to send me to a specialist, and he just told me to "take it easy" and "take ibuprofen." I'm hopeful for today's appointment but I'm also feeling a SEVERE amount of rage at that doctor from last year! 
      · 6 replies
    • BlackberryGirl

      BlackberryGirl

      Well, the rash is back with a vengeance. It never completely cleared up. I saw the derm yesterday and they did another swab and yup, raging infection again, still? It is definitely strep skin infection. I am getting so damn tired and run down from this. Who the f would immagine being hospitalized freaking TWICE for a rash? 
      · 2 replies
    • 47of74

      47of74

      So angry right now.  If I could return to Luxembourg tomorrow and renounce my citizenship in this stinking shitpile of a country I would.
      · 0 replies
    • PennySycamore

      PennySycamore

      My niece is going to be a seat filler at this year's Academy Awards.  Seat fillers are asked to wear tuxedos regardless of sex/gender.  If you see a pretty young woman with very curly hair, it could be my niece. 
      · 2 replies
    • 47of74

      47of74

      Yeah, that's me.  Though to be fair I am trying to learn Italian and Spanish.

      · 0 replies
    • Kiki03910

      Kiki03910

      IT'S BASEBALL SEASON!!!!!
      ⚾❣️
      · 5 replies
    • mango_fandango

      mango_fandango

      It’s not supposed to be mosquito season right now but I still appear to have been bitten twice on the side of my foot. Bastards. I know I shouldn’t scratch but it’s so tempting… 😑
      · 0 replies
  • Recent Blog Entries

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.