Mandate eNewsletter, 2007 - Issue No. 3

Short-Term Missions Can Create a Long-Term Mess

Almost twenty years ago, I went on my first short-term missions trip to Jamaica. I do not remember the people I met there, nor much of what we did besides running a vacation Bible School, painting something, and going to the beach. However, I do remember that this trip was part of what the Lord used in my life to shape my passion for helping the poor in the Two-Thirds world. I now live in a poor country in the Global South and work full-time with an organization here that is trying to alleviate poverty. Short-terms mission trips can play a significant role in giving people a vision for God’s work. I am proof of that.  

Most Christian organizations working in this country receive at least a dozen short-terms mission groups a year. These groups usually engage in building projects and conduct vacation Bible schools. Their passion for the Lord’s work is admirable. Unfortunately, most of these groups are doing “relief” in a context in which “development” is the appropriate intervention. Relief is a handout to the poor, and it is the appropriate intervention when the poor cannot help themselves. But the poor in my country are not helpless! They are capable of working to improve their lives. The appropriate intervention in such a context is “development,” walking with the poor in such a way that they are empowered to enjoy proper relationships with God, themselves, others, and creation. 

An important part of development work is to build the esteem and capacity of the poor by including them in the planning and design of any intervention. This does not seem to be the approach of most of the short-term teams, and this can have very negative effects. For example, one team came here to build the house of a low-income pastor of a local church. In the design of the house, the team put the bathroom in the middle of the house, which runs counter to local culture in which bathrooms are located in the back of the house. The pastor had not seen the plans of the house in advance. When he discovered this mistake while the team was building the house, he objected to the team leaders to no avail. The short-term team felt happy that they gave the pastor a much needed house, but the pastor is ashamed of his house and is not sure he wants to live in it.   

The approach of most short-term mission teams seems to be to do things to the people instead of with the people. This approach exacerbates the feelings of inferiority that already paralyze the poor in my country and the feelings of superiority that often characterize those of us from wealthy countries. This dynamic is particularly problematic here. The government and the church have such a long history of paternalism that the people often believe they cannot do anything without the help of money and resources from others. For example, at the end of one meeting I facilitated in a poor community, an elderly farmer told me that he and the other participants were like kids who were just beginning to learn. He said that they needed people like me to come help them. I was ashamed that his poverty had been deepened to such an extent that he felt it necessary to have a young, American woman like me to help him when I know that there is so much more that he could give and teach me. 

Local organizations can also be damaged by the relief efforts of short-term teams. The indigenous staff in my organization lead weekly Bible studies with children in low-income communities. These Bible studies are just one aspect of my organization’s overall attempts to bring long-lasting development in these broken communities. After a short-term team conducts a Bible study in one of these communities, the children stop attending the Bible studies of my organization. Our indigenous staff tell me that the children stop coming because we do not have all the fancy materials and crafts that the short-term teams have, and we do not give away things like these teams do. The children have also come to believe that our staff are not as interesting or as creative as the Americans that come on these teams. Short-term relief is undermining our organization as we attempt to bring long-lasting change to these communities.

After spending four years building relationships with people in one community where I live,   I have learned more than anything that the development process is slow, takes time and patience, and is highly relational. My primary work here is in helping churches to help the poor to own and manage their own savings and loan groups. Even after three years of training one particular group, they still need assistance in calculating loan interest. And the feelings of inferiority on the part of the illiterate, elderly members of this group still prevent them from sharing their knowledge with others. It would be much easier for me to just give out money to these people, but that short-term “solution” would not build these people’s capacity to help themselves, and it would only exacerbate the feelings of inferiority that are so rampant here.

Despite the struggles in my development work, I have seen small steps towards positive change. Some of the group members who never wanted to speak at group meetings now feel more confident to share their opinions. Many of them have been able to save money in order to purchase things that they would have earlier wanted others to just give them for free. One member of a group said, “I could not save before joining the group, because whenever I had it I would spend it. This group has taught me how to save.” Another elderly group member said that she would have had even more severe health problems if she had not been able to save her own money to purchase medicines and to pay for doctors’ visits. All of the groups say that they feel that they have better relationships with people in the church after coming together in the savings group. One woman said, “I did not really talk to or share with people in the church before being a part of this group.” She went on to say that she knows she can look to the other group members for any need that arises. Two of the groups have expressed to me that they are confident that if I were to leave tomorrow that they could function without me. One group said that they could even help start groups in other churches. These glimpses of God’s restoration of people give me hope that—despite the struggles—a developmental approach to the poor does work.

As discussed earlier, the relief approach of short-term teams has undermined my host organization. In contrast, by God’s grace alone, the developmental approach used in these savings and loan groups has built the capacity of my organization. The staff have been empowered to start savings and loan groups in their own churches, and the majority of the staff have told me that they did not know how much they could do with their own savings.  In one field office, the staff even started a small savings group for themselves, and in the central office the management opened a small credit union for the staff of the organization. 

My primary role through this process has been as a facilitator and encourager. Although I have offered many formal and informal training sessions, I have spent even more time just being with people, visiting them in their homes, and allowing them to teach me. Through my time with them, I have been able to see so much of my own poverty and my need for the comprehensive healing that the Lord brings to us, especially through the people we want to serve.

Editor’s Note:  The author of this article received training from the Chalmers Center to start  church-centered savings and credit associations.  She has been working for a number of years with an organization in a low-income country in the Global South that is seeking to bring long-lasting “development” in low-income communities.  She has asked to have her identity withheld.

For more information about the Chalmers Center, visit us at www.chalmers.org.

12/5/07