Conversa Postar Comentário

Responder Bandeira 0 Gostou Não Gostou Mariusbrand (0)
África do Sul

Community farms:

  4 land & wealth redistribution, to evangelise the community: To train, educate, work,  live and have a base from where to launch missionaries into the community. A community farm is where the Christians in the community corporately owns the property. Our corporately finances provide cost of the farm, infrastructure & accommodation for those working on farms.  Investors, invest directly in the crops to secure food for the people. Thousands of jobs will be created where people could be evangelise, reconciled, unity restored and worldviews changed to Biblical. Farms will act as a place of employment, a basic income, a missionary training School, an orphanage and launching pad to send trained missionaries.

 Three legs:

1.   Accommodation and employers Lodges/Hostels on farms with infrastructure:

2.   Education, “Skills” development, Discipleship training & orphanages.

3.   Agricultural projects – investment arm. (Project financing). Outside investors.

 Shammah Foundation: Marius Brand: Cell 082 9210 275, e-mail - mariba@zsd.co.za.  www.koevoet4christ.co.za

18.10.2010

Responder Bandeira 0 Gostou Não Gostou Michelle_Marie_S (1)  
China

I appreciated your perspectives in your article because I have often tried to find a way to articulate my own similar thoughts on the matter

I think short-term trips have less to do with the national people for whom the ministry is supposed to benefit (be they African, Chinese, or whatever)- and more to do with the short-termers themselves.  And I think there could be value to that.  Yes, there are little projects the short-termers can be involved with alongside the local peoples(orphanages, construction, build a well, etc.), but the other value is that these short-termers are exposed to life in other cultures, worldviews, poverty, etc. and gives them a better appreciation for the role of the western church in eradicating these things from a long-term standpoint. They now know how to intercede for these people better.  Exposed to things they may not have otherwise been exposed.  So, in effect, it is more like a vision tour for the short-termers, and oftentimes they come back to live in these communities for a longer period of time.  I think there’s value to that.

I was a student at Daystar University in Nairobi for a semester while in college.  While this was merely a short-term endeavor it also changed me.  Now I am in a different context as a long-termer in mainland China for the past eight years- though I never originally set out that way.  But when I finally was able to switch to a long-term mentality it completely changed my perspective and thus my potential for impact in my community.  I was there to stay until God called me somewhere else.

Thank you for this article.  It was a good read.

10.10.2010

Responder Bandeira 0 Gostou Não Gostou djmiller777 (0)
Estados Unidos

My contribution to this conversation is a very non scholarly article I wrote for a mission magazine published by my mission agency a few years ago under the category of "Helping Without Hurting". It is strictly from experience as a mission pastor in my local church at the time. Here is the article:

My first experience going on a “work camp” was a trip to Crow Agency, Montana where a team from Mt. Scott spent a week doing some work on the church building there. It truly was a “work camp” in every sense of the word. We camped out in tents in the church yard (with the horses) and worked during the daytime hours on the church. I don’t recall any time spent building relationships with the Crow people or doing anything additionally that would be recognizable as ministry. We didn’t do anything wrong, we just did what we knew to do at the time.

20 years later, having been on trips either as a participant or a team leader to Jamaica, Mexico, India, Kenya, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Egypt, Russia, and Uganda, my philosophy of ministry has led me to change my thinking from a trip being a “work camp” to a “short term ministry trip”.  Just using different words helped us to change our focus from building buildings to building relationships. These short term ministry experiences have shown us that there are four critical parts to being seen as helpful instead of hurtful by those we go to serve.

First of all, we go as learners. No matter how tempted we are to show our hosts the “right” way of putting on a roof or doing a ministry to children, we have found that when we show a sincere desire to learn, relationships come much quicker. Sometimes we learn by our mistakes and if we have developed a rapport with our hosts, they are gracious enough to point out our mistakes instead of allowing us to just blunder along repeating the same mistake over and over. I now know that when I’m staying in a home in rural Kenya and someone knocks at my door at night, I go to the door and invite them in, not just stick my head out the window and ask them what they want. Maybe everyone already knew it was bad manners to do what I did, but I had to learn that and again, due to some relationship building, I was corrected very gently and no further hard feelings were generated.

Secondly, we have found it is very rewarding for everyone on the team if we can work together with our host people on any project we do. Working side by side with our Indian hosts feeding a family with Hansen’s disease in South India gave us a new respect for those ministering every day in that situation. We also were able to see the respect that our hosts displayed to those people that the world considered as being at the very bottom of their society. We were privileged to offer food and water in Jesus name right alongside those we went to serve with.

A third benefit to going on a trip that is described as a ministry trip is that everyone is expected, and is expecting to, do more than what they are comfortable with. Getting out of your comfort zone in another culture is a given but then when you feel your gift is construction and you are assigned to visit a hospital or be available to pray over someone after seeing the Jesus film in their language it can really stretch you. Generally the blessing received far outweighs whatever awkwardness or fear from doing what we don’t feel we are equipped to do. We also find that a person is much more open to ministry back home after having been “put on the spot” in a different culture. If we stay isolated in doing only the ministry we are comfortable with we may end up no different than when we left home and a potential relationship with someone from another culture may never develop.

Finally, whatever we do on a short term ministry trip should never build dependency in the people we are going to serve. We help ministries in other cultures by teaching Sunday school teachers some new methods, but we try very hard to only teach concepts and not cause someone to rely on a tool or resource that will not be available after we leave.  We have been able to teach seminars on church management, giving, living a Christian lifestyle, and discipleship. But, what we taught did not rely on technology or materials that would not be available after we left. 

Whether we go and build a building or a barbecue, do a puppet show for street kids or show the Jesus film on a mountaintop, we go with the hope that God’s grace will sufficiently cover the mistakes we make, and give us insights ahead of time to make as few mistakes as possible. On top of everything we minister in love because “…love covers over a multitude of sins”.

Fazer download de anexos

• Helping_Without_Hurting.doc
• helpingwithouthurting.doc

29.09.2010

Responder Bandeira 0 Gostou Não Gostou Pete_Houston (7)
África do Sul

Very insightful blog.  I could expand on some of your points - "short-termers "go" because they believe they have wealth or knowledge of value to share."  They also go for fun and adventure, a sense of risking ones faith, for the sense of team, for seeing a new place, new place and new people, for getting away from home troubles, for exploring a call to long-term mission... I think the multiplicity of reasons makes it hard to weigh the pros and cons of short-termers.

I agree with you that "renewed vigour, innovative ideas, different perspectives and the enthusiasm often engendered through novelty are not to be scoffed at."  This can be used to give a boost to a local initiative or a local church or a long-term missionary.  But this is only of strategic value if there are solid links with the receiving church, otherwise it just becomes something hit-and-run.  

The other advantages you mention are often more in the minds of the senders than the receivers.  I’m not sure how often "strengthening links with their place of origin" truly happens. I’ve been on several short-term missions and while I hoped links could be maintained, in reality they are long gone.  After a few such interactions, I’m sure a receiving church just takes short-termers with slightly more cynicism and pragmatism!

Your last advantage is probably the smallest one, that of filling a vacancy.  It takes a while to really get into any job, whether missional or not, local or abroad.  Often temps of any description add to the burden of the established team or local church because the short-termer needs to be babied, or shown the ropes, or continually supervised.  (This is why many mission organisations have a receiving short-term co-ordinator.)

Your discussion on the problems of short-termers as well as on finances is certainly sobering.  My hunch is that the greatest work of God is often done in the lives of the short-termers and not in the people they go to.  In that respect, short-term mission are highly effective (I’ve seen this demonstrated over and over again).  

And sometimes the short-term experience sows the seed of a long-term commitment. I have a friend who came on a short-term mission to Bolivia with me; he returned home, did various studies (including learning Spanish) and is now a long-term missionary/teacher in Peru.  

God uses one to get to the other. God uses us despite ourselves!

18.09.2010

Você deve estar logado para postar um comentário. Se você não tiver uma conta, você pode se inscrever agora (é gratuito e fácil!).