It is January 6th, the day that Mexican children expect a visit from Los Tres  Reyes Magos and also the last day of their winter vacation. Tomorrow signals the start of classes in government schools here and on the whole a return to normal. I am , somewhat glad for that.

Each passing year here seems to offer more and more visits from groups of American Christians and these groups have been abundant this year.

Americans are in my experience the most tender hearted and generous people in all of the world! I am humbled by the goodness of my countrymen and at the same time proud to be one of them-quite a paradox!

I am however saddened and frustrated by what unfortunately appears to be a growing problem .

This issue is what is born when well intentioned folks decide that they want to “bless” the poorer persons in a foreign country but forget that any successful Christian endeavor must be born of prayer and set firmly in God’s Will for today.

Let me just share with you something that I witnessed recently-

A group of approximately 25 Americans aged 18-45 organize a mission trip to the area where I live and minister. On a December Sunday they arrive at a local “Missions Center”- a place which they apparently found through their denomination. The Center has provided them with transportation from San Diego into Mexico aboard sleek new shuttle buses. It all looks so professional……. They arrive at the Center in a rural area and unload much of the donations that they brought down at the Center. Then are told they are going to a “mission” of the “Mission Center” just down the road. They are then bused to an indigenous work camp and shown the deplorable living conditions. Children rush out to greet the bus and Mission Center workers deboard everyone and begin to set up the activities planned for that day. Most of the ladies in this group happen to be cosmeticians and it has been decided that they will share the gift the Lord gave them with these indigenous people. As they are setting us, the local church van shows up to pick up it’s members for service, of course not many will leave due to all of the excitement in their camp, so they miss church. The visitors begin to give haircuts, even to people with whom they cannot communicate due to the language barrier. They also cut the hair of many little girls. Obviously, this happens without parental permission because they cannot communicate or because the parents are absent. The Jesus movie is set up and shown in English with Spanish subtitles but these people do not read or speak English or Spanish. The visitors have a great time , shampooing for lice and cutting hair. They bar-b-q and play with the children. A few hours later everything is packed up and the visitors are bused back to the accommodations which are included in the fee paid to the “Mission Center.” The next day they rise and repeat the above in another location, unaware evidently of the havoc they have wrought.

I am the full time missionary who lives 200 yards from the first work camp. My husband pastors these people and I cook lunch fr them and teach them every day. Monday morning I am awoken early-at dawn-by a crying woman from the camp. Her eyes are blackened and her lip is bloody, she wears a huge scarf covering her head for some reason. I go downstairs to talk to and attend to her -wondering what has happened.

She tearfully relates that she was badly beaten by her husband the night before. Why did this happen ? She tells me how she didn’t understand what the visitors were doing to her hair until it was too late-after the scissors had taken away what for a Trique woman is her crowning glory. The cutting of her hair was viewed as rebellion and disrespect by her husband, hence the beating. Even sadder I find that a 15 year old  who was 8 months pregnant was also beaten -to the point of losing her child and being hospitalized- due to these culturally inappropriate haircuts that they were “blessed” with. And this is just the beginning, as some 27 little girls received these hair cuts that day.

Now I am obviously not condoning the spousal abuse! But I pray that who ever reads this can see how this could have been avoided!  Of all of these “visitors” not one took a moment to consider the possible consequences of such a total ignorance and disregard for the culture of the host country and its people! If this is so, then how much are they really thinking about others? It seems that they were just totally self-absorbed and determined to make themselves feel good……..

For weeks now, our and other ministries have dealt with the fallout from this particular “visit.”

Then, sadly it seems , as we recover from one of these debacles, here comes another group and I literally cringe.

In the week following this tragedy, my husband and I visited the “Missions Center” which was connected to the visit. After much prayer we sought out the leader of the Center to see if we could work out a plan for avoiding more of the same. We were met with total resistance. The “Pastor” of said center literally screamed at us that this was “HIS MINISTRY” and he would continue to do “WHATEVER HE WANTS!”  We explained who we were and that we just wanted to work together for the good of the community. We asked him to please respect the culture(he is a foreigner) and to please respect church service times and school schedules when planning these mass “visits” from America. Again we just met resistance. We tried our utmost to contact anyone else with authority in his organization but he is the absolute leader.

Needless to say, the problems continue with this particular “Missions Center” and sadly with other organizations like it.

Apparently, having found the “short term missions” business to be quite lucrative, unscrupulous people are purchasing sleek tour buses and hastily building more of these centers which offer either a flat rate or a daily rate for their trips and they are popping up everywhere. These organizations have lovely buses and slick web-sites but have NOTHING to do with extending the Kingdom of Jesus!

Understand that these so called Mission centers in reality have no ministry of their own. Many do not work at all with actual established missions. They have identified the most impoverished areas in our community and show these areas to visitors while verbally claiming these areas and people as “their mission.” They apparently exist solely to make easy money by providing travel arrangements for unsuspecting Christians.

The problem that I see recurring is that we see many “Rogue Visitors” who go through these agencies which have absolutely no contact or involvement with any established mission in the community and are visiting with little or no counsel from their home church leadership. We also see groups who have just evidently planned their own trip to the area-again with no respect for or attachment to any established area ministry. Often they come down with the idea of just visiting poor areas and indiscriminately “playing with the children”  and just having “fellowship” with the indigenous peoples.

Although this sounds harmless, it poses several problems. Because they are not aware of what is actually going on locally they often interfere with established ministry. An example is in the poor camps around here where several missions actually offer daily feeding programs at a scheduled time providing much needed nutrition to very impoverished people. The visitors show up to “play and fellowship” during feeding time and many people will miss their only meal that day. Now what do you think is more important, getting nourished physically or spending an hour playing soccer with someone you will never see again? Some visitors will say, “Well, let the person individually make the decision.” But, a child will often prefer to play ball immediately and not grasp the fact that if they miss lunch then their tummies will hurt that night. I see visitors not respecting established church services as well. Wouldn’t it just be better to work WITH those who are here every day? It just makes more sense for all involved. Why not find out when feeding time is held and work with that? Why not participate in the local church services? It is just so simple if we stop and really consider what is best in the long term. Sadly enough, a lot of it boils down to a general lack of submission to any type of church leadership. It seems that American Christians have thrown the baby out with the bath water and are beginning to reject ALL organized church, with a special aversion to the leaders that the Lord has placed in their lives. Submission is a good thing and a Godly thing and a lack thereof will ALWAYS bring bitter fruit in one form or another! Hear me, as this is something I learned the hard way, having taken a turn or two around the mountain my self!

I also see small groups that come down  a couple of times a year. They actually go into the camps , choose a child, take him /her to a hotel where he/she is cleaned up dressed in new clothes and taken out to Walmart and McDonalds. This makes me shudder. Who are these people? Who are their leaders and who are they accountable to? IN the USA you would never, ever, even contemplate cruising into, the projects and haphazardly picking up a child whose parents are at work, putting him in your vehicle and taking him to a motel- bathing him, redressing him and taking him to the mall!!!! Come on! If you did, you would be in jail so fast your head would spin! This is not “God’s Work” and it isn’t a “Mission”, I do not care how many times they say it is. I have asked these people these very questions and thankfully I do not discern that they are bad folks and they probably are Christians. BUT they have absolutely no respect for leadership in the area and I do not think they understand just how much they are endangering themselves with this prideful foolishness. And that is what it is. Coming into a strange country and immediately presuming to make these drastic changes in the lives of people with whom you have NO relationship is nothing if it is not born of a spirt of pride. I fail to see what kind of lasting change they are trying to effect by doing this. In general, one rule to follow is that if you cannot or would not do something in the USA you probably should not do it in Mexico either. If these children continue to miss school for these “play-dates” it is possible that a teacher will inform the authorities and even if no law is being broken it will not be pleasant to be detained until that is determined.

So we continue to pray for the protection of those to whom we minister and to try to monitor these groups. Now, when I see a strange van or bus approach these people’s living area I go  down there to make sure that nothing harmful is happening. On various occasions I have been threatened by this one leader- he informed me that if I spoke to the American visitors that I would come to harm. I spoke anyway, and continue to do so. Once, I was able to avert another hair cutting disaster, praise God, but practically, I cannot always be there!

I am thankful for this forum to get this word out and want to humbly offer a bit of helpful advice.

Those of us who labor on foreign soil long term simply LOVE visits from our home countries and we couldn’t do what we do without your help or support. I know in my heart that 99% of Christians who plan a short term missions trip do so because they love people and they love the Lord. I know that most must sacrifice to save the money to take these trips sol I hope what I say will make your experience a rich blessing to all involved.

1.Please plan your trip in cooperation with an existing ministry in the area which you choose to visit. Check the ministry out, make sure it is WELL-ESTABLISHED and that it actually meets needs in its community. Please do this as oppsed to taking a trip with a group or agency that just “facilitates” a relationship between you the visitor  and the real ministry.

You will find many of these types of agencies out there. They will offer accommodations, transportation, food, sort of a package deal but in fact they are just travel agencies of a sort who are the go between  and in general they cause the actual missionaries a host of problems. It may be a bit more work to research and actually contact the ministries themselves but I promise you  that you won’t ever regret it!

2. Approach your trip with a fervent desire to do NO harm by failing to understand the culture! Research the culture of the people to whom you go. All missions that I know give cultural education to all of their visitors before they ever have any indigenous contact.

3. Pray about it, pray about it and pray through it. Listen to the Lord and let Him flow through you in every aspect of your trip.

4. In bringing any donations please keep this in mind, “If you would not want it lr if you would not wany your child to have it then do nt give it to anyone else.” PLEASE. I cannot tell  you how many things that people wast money bringing to a foreign country(ie-used tea bags!!, badly badly stained clothing, used underwear,plastic bottle tops, empty coffee cans) PLEASE.

5. Do not be afraid to try to speak the language! Even if you know very little, you will be pleasantly surprised at how much the indigenus people will appreciate your efforts.

6. BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR CAMERA- Please think twice before you take pictures of the indigenous people you are visiting. Taking a photo of a child to whom you are donating a new pair of shoes might make a nice memory for you but it just might make the child feel very uncomfortable or even shamed. Everyone know also that some cultures including some people groups in Mexico view photography as witchcraft and absolutely should not be photographed. Some will say, “Well, it is okay if you ask permission.” But the issue is that if you are blessing someone materially (giving food, clothing or shoes etc) most likely they will feel obligated to say “yes” to any request you make. Still, they will then resent or even fear their own compromise and you may never know that by taking that picture you undid all of the good you set out to accomplish. I am aware that some people feel they need pictures to take home to SHOW their supporters where their donations went. I truly sympathize with this but have found that most people will understand if you just take the time to explain. Do take pictures of your trip, but never at the expense of someone else’s feelings. Remember that our Lord will reward what is done is secret, every single time and really think about why you are wanting that photo if it is of an indigenous person to whom you have ministered in some way.

6. Change your mindset. Do not go with the idea that you are going to BE an blessing as much as with the attitude of being prepared to be whatever is necessary. I guarantee YOU will be the one who goes home blessed if you will just do these things!

 

Thank you for your time in reading this. I hope it will be helpful.