(no subject)

[jianantonic]

My first comments on the hurricaine...
George Bush is quoted as saying "Recovery will take years." Funny, he never mentioned anything like that during plan bomb the crap out of every other country and finish in six weeks tops. Maybe he learned, though?

And at work yesterday, we were all standing around Melinda's computer looking at pictures, and Cassidy says, "How many fucking relief concerts will there be for this? One? None?" She has a great point. It's like it's fucking trendy to want to help foreigners (which is okay, we SHOULD want to help ANYONE that needs it), but problems on the home turf are not our problem? Okay, so it's no tsunami, but the damage is tremendous and will take more than a local church outreach program to repair. I hope I'm wrong about this, because it's total speculation, but it seems like natural disasters in the US are treated more as local/regional issues with the occassional help from outside, whereas most Americans are more apt to pitch in when the disaster is international or othernational.

And this brings me to my big gripe with missions work. I've mentioned it before, but it's worth mentioning again. Churches spend thousands of dollars to send their youth groups or teams of missionaries to places like Africa and New Zealand (two trips my church youth group offered when I was a kid) when that money could go so much further locally. Think about it - for kids to go to Africa for a week-long trip, the church has to raise $10,000 or more per kid just to get them there and back, not to mention supplies for their work. (Whether or not these missions trips are really just an excuse for a church-sponsored exotic vacation will be a discussion of a later post.) Think how much further that 10K per kid could go if they stayed local. They could build houses, medicate the sick - there are plenty of not-even-homeless people who can't afford medical care that they need - I'M ONE OF THEM.

Some will argue that the point of going abroad is to bring Christianity to people who've never witnessed it. Personally, I think that is gross cultural arrogance and ignorance, but there are some people who really believe that in order to get to heaven, people must accept Jesus into their hearts, and therefore they must go share Jesus with others. Well, okay, good intentions, I guess, BUT what about all the people suffering in your own home town? Are the folks sleeping in gutters content to know that Jesus will deliver them from their suffering whenever they die? I'm going to guess most of them, even those that are Christians, are not happy with their situation. So what's more important: bringing Christianity to people who are already content with their own culture, or bringing Christian love to those in your own neighborhood that are extremely discontent? And for those groups in Africa that may not be content with their spiritual situation, write them a damn letter. Correspond. A week of a bunch of kids running around their village isn't going to make them Christians. Write to them if you must - it's practically free and if they're open to the message, they'll get it that way. Maybe send a representative to further discuss the message, but for crying out loud, don't waste the money on another missions trip when it could go so much further right where it is.

Now, I don't agree with evangelicalism at all. But I won't say that being evangelical makes you a bad Christian - some do it with the purest of intentions (Felisa Barredo, who I saw singing in a commercial the other day!) - but it does make you a bad representative of the religion if you are only going to reach out when it's a big issue - international disaster, a huge trip to Africa with all kinds of publicity - and not reach out when there's no TV camera or even another human being to biblebeat. All I'm saying is you should be the same Christian whether anyone's watching, listening, or not.

Peace.

Comments

[harri-cady.livejournal.com]

I do think more attention (and resources) needs to be directed to domestic issues. In every county there is poverty, hunger, and lack of education. I see the same point you made about international disasters gaining more attention and money from U.S. citizens. I think it's snooty and sad.

At the same time, I understand that world issues cannot and should not be ignored. How callous would we be? But the scale should be tipped in our own favor when it comes to human rights and care, IMO, and I don't believe it is.

[flamingophoenix.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what my parents said when I was in high school and my church sponsored a trip to Haiti--that thousand dollars you spend on a plane ticket would be MUCH better spent on a clinic, for example. So I saved up my allowance and my babysitting money (and I think my Staples money too, but I'm not sure if I've got my time period right there) and gave my church a check for $1000, designated for our twin parish in Haiti. And I'm damn proud of that, if I may be un-Christian for a moment. And I am also, now, of the opinion that missions trips (especially for children) are kind of bullshit. At least, the ones that go far-away are. The ones close by, where you don't spend a fortune getting there, are DEFINITELY the way to go. Helping at a soup kitchen, or whatever.

p.s. Where did you get the number 10K? That seems a bit more than you'd need to spend, especially in a third-world country.

[jianantonic.livejournal.com]

That's how much it cost my church per kid to go to New Zealand. It's mostly in the plane tickets.

[flamingophoenix.livejournal.com]

New Zealand is a fucking first-world country. This is making me sick.

[jianantonic.livejournal.com]

Yep. My thoughts exactly.

[flamingophoenix.livejournal.com]

And wow! Felisa singing in a commercial! What's up with that?

[jianantonic.livejournal.com]

It was for her church. It shows her choir singing, but she's the soloist.