As American Missionaries, people from the ‘West,’ we often go out with an agenda, we go out hoping to accomplish great things, its often what drives us and I have to admit it has driven me. We want to know that our ‘mission’ and thus our time was productive. How many people were converted? Who was healed? What advances were made medically? What did we teach them? Honestly this is pretty backwards, especially for a short term trip. An an article we read, a Nairobian pastor commented that we ought not to call them ‘short term missions’ but ‘short term learning opportunities’ because the most benefit that is gained is learning about each others cultures, and because everyone knows about American already from news and media, most of the learning happens on the side of the West. The same pastor also commented that although churches love to send mission groups to other countries to “paint walls”…. They often paint right back over them when the mission teams leave. In the same way, even here in Mbarara where we are currently, a church in northern US decided they really wanted to help the hospital so they sent 2 large bath lifts over here…. This would have been expensive to ship and no doubt there hearts were in the right place but …. Ugandans here don’t take baths like we do in the states, they don’t like to take baths (it is more often showers or sponge baths) and further more it is really the families that are involved in the patient care, not nurses… the bath lifts are never used. Thus the lesson is for me that if a short term team or even a donation is to be sent, especially by a church, it should be in response to an EXPRESSED need of the community to which the team is going.
Another very important aspect of short term trips, which I think very much applies to this group, is that it opens up our minds and hearts to God’s calling on our lives. One of the reasons this entire group came here was to see if we felt called to come back with our professions and serve long-term. And the community here welcomes people who commit long-term, because you become part of the community and you work together as a team… instead of just someone who is coming to ‘impart knowledge’ although they really know nothing about the people or their culture.
Please pray for us, that God will make it clear during this trip if he would have us spend our lives here or if he has other plans for us. Please pray that we will maintain a servant like HUMBLE heart, and that we would act as learners in this culture instead of teachers as we are just like babies here, pray that we would be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to judge. Pray that God would give us wisdom and understanding and that he would use us as He wills.
We are learning so much as we travel around, and I feel like I have a much better picture of what it looks like to be a missionary here and what the culture itself is like. If I had not come back I would have though about Africa purely from my experience in Jinja 4 years ago, and although I learned a lot there, Jinja was all I knew and only a little part of the town as we did not have a vehicle. My mindset about Africa is more comprehensive.. from how the younger people are becoming more Western, to the different tribes and their different customs and languages as you travel throughout the country and between countries. Africa is beautiful, the people here are extremely beautiful and very unique, God did a good job here.
I've included some pictures.. the first is when we went on a community visit to a couple of schools to do deworming. Then some zebras we saw a long the road... me and and one of the girls who is from Australia posing by the equator statue... what its been like about every other night when the power goes out and we use lanterns and candles... some food we have been eating and a couple of the girls in Tenwek by the dam.
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