So, I must preface this post by saying I’m in no way against doing foreign mission or short term mission, but I do think there are very important things to remember when doing so.
In one of my previous jobs I worked in an inner city assisting, housing, feeding, etc, homeless youth. I worked the night shift, and while the day shift people were generally very busy with day to day routines, the night shift was generally spend dealing with more exciting emergencies. So my shift was often the preferred shift for (usually well intentioned) volunteers. These volunteers usually had one of two reasons for volunteering with us; to help or to get experience. I know many people reading this will say “Well what’s wrong with that? Shouldn’t people want to gain those kind of experiences?” I’ll explain why this is not the case.
I had one particular volunteer; he was a Christian, a fantastic fella who became a good friend. His kids had grown, and he was almost to retirement age. When asked why he volunteered his response was “Well I had some free time and I thought it would be better for me to use that time helping people”. This volunteer was consistent and he was in it for the long haul. He made genuine real relationships with the young people, and he was always there to help. When we was volunteering I was able to get on with the jobs that needed to be done and he was able to help without a lot of instruction. He didn’t ask too many questions, but was in careful observation and was always willing to listen in order to learn.
The other volunteer (there were many more than two but these are given as examples), was a young Christian in Uni. His University required him to get experience volunteering in the Community. Each night I had to fill out paperwork for him for his class, the rest of the night was spent answering irritating questions like “So how many of these guys ‘Choose’ to be homeless”, or “Where do they shower”, or “Why can’t they just go to the shelter”, my answer was always, “keep volunteering, pay attention, and talk to people, and you’ll learn.” But knowing that this fella was probably not going to show up after his Uni obligations were fulfilled, I ended up answering every one of his questions, and spending my entire night, showing him around and giving him enough “experience” so he could write his report. He had a list of certain things he wanted to see, and it was my job to make sure he got to see those things. I was unable to do what I would normally do, because the sensitive nature of the job meant most of my clients would probably not want to have their stories written about in a Uni paper or pictures of their homes posted on facebook (as this volunteer was prone to do). After he met his required hours I waited for him to show up, and instead I received a text, with an excuse. This continued for three weeks until finally no volunteer and no text. The most irritating thing was that if you looked at his facebook you’d see pictures of him handing out food at our meal site, stacking shelves at our pantry, and playing with the smiling children of our clients as if he really cared for them. The reality is that he got what he needed and then vanished.
The unfortunate reality was that the second example of volunteers were the most common, from uni students to Church groups from all over the world, people came to “help” in some very unhelpful ways.
So how should we help?
Get your experiences elsewhere: If you really want to experience something different, change your daily life. Go do your laundry at the laundry mat once a week and talk to the people there. Instead of hanging out at your usual coffee shop or wherever, spend an hour each week at the local bakery or takeaway with the old townies. Go spend time at the nursing home. Learn to skate and hang out at the skate park. Make another reality your reality. Put it this way, just because you attend a football game it does not mean that you’ve experienced what it’s like to be a footballer, even if you get to go talk to the guys in the lockerroom, sit on the sidelines, even if you put on a uniform, you can’t experience what it is to be a football player unless being a football player is your reality.
The people you are helping are not “less fortunate”. This one holds a special place of irritation for me as a Christian. As a believer, I do not and cannot believe in luck, fortune, or cosmic fate. In reality the people you are working with are just like you. There are things that they lack in their life and things they have in abundance. Resist going with an attitude of “they are less fortunate and you are the only one who can help them.” This causes a division that will make it difficult to build genuine helping relationships.
Don’t over idealize people groups. There is another side to this. There were some volunteers who after a day of volunteering would think of themselves and superheros. They would be the ones who would constantly ask me “why I didn’t just take some of them home, let them sleep on my couch.” I had two volunteers who couldn’t understand the answer to that question which was “should you let any stranger, homeless or not, sleep on your couch?”. They both went ahead and invited clients to their homes , both got robbed. Any population has the same reality, within any population there are people who do good things and people who do bad things. There are nice people and angry people, but never the less they are people.
Throwing money at the problem is OK!!! When solving the world’s problems people often say something that is entirely incorrect; “Writing a check never solves anything”. Look at it this way. We had Church groups that would come, those Church groups would hire a bus ($200), go out for tea ($15pp/$300/20p), stay in a hotel if they were from out of town ($1000), that $1500, could be 30 weeks accommodation at the YMCA, 2 apartment deposits, or one training to work program. This is why so many non-profits rely heavily on wooing corporate donors or wealthy advocates because money does help. So consider, honestly, giving money as a means to help. If you don’t have the ability to travel, or to the time to volunteer, but are able to give financially, don’t consider yourself to be less valuable if all you do is donate money. If your objective is simply to help where help is needed than this is a very simple way to do so.
Go to help not to be helped. If we realize that all of us at some point need the help of others it makes this easier. Many people volunteer or do mission with saying that they “get more out of it than the people they go to help”, while they often say this with good intentions and with humility, it isn’t necessary. It’s Ok to go and help and not get anything out of it for yourself. In fact, if you go to help, and you do something that is truly helpful to someone, what you get out of it is irrelevant. You simply helped and did something good for someone, it’s OK to leave it at that.
Do not take selfies. There is a question of dignity and respect here, especially when the selfies are followed by statements and hash tags that are all about self promotion. First off, if there is any possibility that you could be putting people in danger by posting pictures of them on facebook, don’t do it. If you are helping the homeless, orphans (or kids in general), Christians in countries where Christians are persecuted, or people in war torn countries, posting pictures of them is probably a bad idea. Moreover, the issue is one of dignity, when you post a picture of yourself helping the “less fortunate” you label those people as “less fortunate” not only to yourself and the team you are serving with, but now to the entire world. If you must take pictures of those around you, why not take pictures of the locals doing amazing things (with their permission), promote them rather than yourself.
We have to ask ourselves why we are helping. Jesus makes a statement in Matthew 6, he says when you give do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. We have to consider where our heart is when we want to help. When we do so we realize that helping is our number one desire. This means that we throw off self or church promotion, we throw off wanted to get something out of it for ourselves, and we simply go to do what needs to get done.