The Hero the World Needs.
A few years ago, a good friend of mine, Angela, had made a statement that really pissed me off. This was when I was in my early twenties, and I had never really been out of the country. She’d said it in a time where as a church we were rounding the corner onto Summer, and for those of you who grew up in church, you know what this means…
Summer Missions Trips.
Yep, every kid knows that if you really love Jesus, you give up your Summer Break, Spring Break or Christmas break to bring the word of God to some poor and dilapidated part of the world. Usually this takes the form of Children’s Vacation Bible Schools in Tijuana, along with some soccer games with street kids.
As a young christian, you go, you spend your week. You struggle with the language, experiment with the food and dont drink the water. You are shocked at how people who have so much less than us and still have joy, and you are convicted of how selfish you are. You come home re-connected to God, and all fired up to throw or give away all of your things. I don’t know if that was true for all of you, but it was completely true for me. Made me feel altruistic and good that I gave up my time to help poor people.
So, that one day in my early twenties, you can see why it made me so mad when Angela said “Short term missions trips don’t really do any good. In fact, they are really more for the good of the people going than the people receiving them. They really are more trouble than they are worth when you think about it.”
Whoa Angela. You clearly don’t know what you are talking about. When I went on summer mission, all of the street kids were glad to have me. I played soccer with them, and I was Jesus to them. How could you ever say that I was an inconvenience to them? Ang, you’re bogus.
Then a funny thing happened….I lived overseas for a time. I spent some time in Thailand, working with children from the Hill tribes of the northern mountains. I was their English teacher for 3 months. And after being there as a constant volunteer for several weeks, I really began to see what she was talking about. People would show up, completely and obviously proud that they were going to be giving their time for a whole week!…And I found myself rolling my eyes. It even got to the place where I wasn’t even interesting in knowing their names…”What was the point? They are leaving in a few days anyway.” I began to become annoyed when I had to take THREE WHOLE DAYS out of my teaching schedule to train people that were only going to be around for a total of 5 days anyway. I wanted to just give them mindless crap work, like photocopying paper, or cutting out shapes for me.
Ok, so the point of this blog is not just to rag on Short Term Missions…
Where I am going with this thought is this: I was sitting in church this week, and this gal gets up and begins to talk about this small church in the heart of Peru called La Perla. She goes on to tell this amazing story about how she had volunteered there for a few years, and how the church was really in dire need of direction within the community. She’d indicated that they existed there, but had no impact in reaching out to the real needs within the city. She began to pray that God would show the community how to be His hands and feet within their their own city. When she returned years later, she was overjoyed to see that they had caught the vision – they had transformed their community around them by recognizing local needs and reaching out to those around them.
What really hooked me about her story was this; she’d said
Even if I had been a missionary in Peru for five years, I could have never done what the local people were able to do in a few short years. It is when people reach out to their own community that real differences can be made.
So this gets me thinking. I, like half of America, saw The Dark Knight this past week. And to be honest, I was fairly impressed with some of the depth for a comic book movie. What I found really interesting was the writing really spoke about the makings of heroes, and society as a whole. I loved the ending, where they are talking about “The Hero the World Wants,” and one of the characters is being puppeted as a hero, even though it was no where near reality, and simply because it was what Gothem needed to believe. And in contrast, the real hero, Batman, was slandered, made to be the scape goat, all because he was the hero that Gotham needed and didn’t want. I found it incredibly deep and telling about who we are as people in society.
Ok, so all of this comes together for me like this: We want heroes to be a certain way. We want them to be people who swoop in from other places in the world and fix all of our problems. And in conjunction, we want to be heroes in that same way – to fly around the world to people that we don’t know, or they have no knowledge of us, and we want to be their heroes. I think that there is a real sense of ambiguity in that – a real sense of evasion.
But in contrast, what does it mean to be the person that rises from within the ranks to heroism?
How much more does it mean to society, to a people group, to a culture to be a person who has all of the insight of that town, and to rise above and simply say “I will be the one to be different.” Yes, there is complete vulnerability in this. It isn’t like being Batman, where you get to be a hero that runs by night, covered by a mask and cape. Instead, there you are – fully human – flaws and flesh.
I think this gal really captured it when she pointed out that these Peruvian individuals did more for La Perla than she could have ever accomplished in years. They knew their own people – their hearts, and their ways. They were brave and stepped up in small, visible and practical ways. Handing out dinner to the hungry, making after hours classes for adults to further education, providing practical needs to those in the town.
These are heroes. These are the people that make a difference in their immediate worlds. It starts in the immediate world. I think in alot of ways, being a hero is simply concentric circles of vulnerability; being vulnerable in that you are the one to stick out your neck to meet an immediate need. And through that, the circles and needs progressively get larger and larger, effecting more and more people. We don’t change the world over night. Its a bit harder than that. Its a bit more real than that.
I do love the idea of being able to fly to a place where no one knows my name, and save them from themselves. But I think this isn’t nearly as powerful as it could be. I think I am beginging to see the value of being available to the world around me. To walk around with my eyes open, looking for chances. Maybe it’s not hard to be a hero.
Maybe it is simply walking through our days one at a time, being the hero that our worlds need…not simply the heros that we want.
Glad I could piss you off! And get you thinking — that’s what I’m here for!
Hey Jenny! I was similarly impressed with the depth of “The Dark Knight” and how it speaks to the role of hero’s in society.
The heroic actions started with a desire to do the right thing. Batman started as a kid who experienced injustice in a very deep sense and was driven to make things right where he lived. But this desire took him to the other side of the world. He followed criminals to China or wherever they were. He even willingly went to jail and became a thief to learn how to think like them. He had to take himself out of his own community to learn what it was really like to fight crime. Then he came back to his home and changed the world.
I think there are some similar parallels with the spread of the Gospel and how Jesus came to us. He incarnated himself to live among his people to be with them and show them the way, then he left his followers to go reach their families and communities. But he also called them to go to the ends of the earth to preach the Gospel. To live as aliens in a foreign land and learn how to communicate the transcendent Gospel message. Paul is a great example of this. He stayed in places for monthes or years at a time, teaching and discipling until there were local leaders mature enough to carry on the work so he could move on to another place, and look at what happened. Within a few hundred years the small sect ruled the greatest empire in the world. So i think we need to look at both the local and international levels. How are over a billion Hindu’s and Muslims going to hear the Gospel and follow Jesus? Someone needs to go to them, and there aren’t exactly millions of indigenous believers in Pakistan who are thinking about how to reach the millions of Muslims in their country. This brings me to my second point.
Batman inspired others to stand up with him, especially Harvey Dent who worked on the ‘other’ side to do what he could. Batman started a chain reaction of pushing the crime bosses into a corner until a hero of their own emerged. He influenced people to take matters into their own hands and start changing their own worlds. This is how any movement starts. Someone is passionate or pissed off about something, and they plow the road so others can follow. Then it grows until it really starts making a dent in society, and we saw that in the Dark Knight. The crime bosses were scared when the people stood up and had a leader to follow.
So in a similar way, i think we need more people like you who have spent good amount of time serving in another country to see the other side of missions trips. We need more local heroes like you and those who inspired you like Angela who will take the baton and really start making a difference with what we know. Then as others follow my hope and prayer is that there will be a movement of people who are ‘everyday heroes’ who are moved by compassion to help people wherever they are, and those i believe will be the ones who devote their lives to being ‘Paul’s’ who spend significant amount of time teaching those who will teach others how to follow Jesus.
I love your thoughts Justin!
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not bagging on internationalism…you’re talking to someone who can’t imagine spending her whole life in SoCal. I suppose my fear is that its easy to hide in that “international hero” role – to merely be temporary, flying by night and staying a short while. I think the thing that makes it amazing is when you can stay, when you can do the time over the long haul. And I think part of that looks like beginning in your inner circle of life – wherever that happens to be.
Maybe its just this – its easier to help strangers than it is to be great in the face of people who have known us for long periods of time.
I think its amazing how some good movies can show us so much about how to be a catalyst for change in our own worlds. In print, it really does seem like a simple concept..but when bringing it into practice in real life….woof…that’s a different conversation all together.
hey
I can see where your coming from and yes, i think i do find it harder to be a “Hero” in my own little circle and it is easier to be among strangers …. and i do believe people in their own communities have the greatest impact on those around them… but part of me is now wandering where does that leave me….. ( not selfishly thinking what about me) but a hmmm am i ridiculous for wanting to be missionary and hang out with people and such. maybe i read the whole thing wrong and missed the point completely, something to think on though….
i think you hit it on the nose with that one. i’m realizing a lot this year about how much easier it is for me to spill my guts in front of complete strangers, but how afraid i am of putting myself out there with those closest to me.
hmm… now i’m kinda seeing my one time evangelism and helping people out as kind of a ’short term mission’ where i rarely ever see the person again and the benefits for both people are more on a short term basis.
but then there are those who i’m around a lot like the people who live around me or even my roomates who are my close friends who can really make long term impact in my life.
however lets not discount the brief encounters and conversations with people because they can really make a difference too, isn’t that what started this in the first place?
you’re awesome and i love hearing what’s on your heart and seeing that you’re really wrestling with these huge issues
Liz -
I think its a great thing to think on! I love your heart for the nations and your craving to be a missionary. I think the important thing here is the inner conversation about vulnerability and our motivations to do what we do.
I don’t think that you read this wrong at all. I think that as missionary there are alot of good questions that need to be asked. For example: Why do I want to go? What is there here that there isn’t at home? Am I running from things in my hometown, or is there something about being anyomous that makes me feel safe?
Also, simply recognizing that we can be “heros” or “missionaries” everywhere…which I recognize sounds trite, because every in the church has always said that. But I think there can be a bit of truth in looking at yourself and your motivations, and knowing if they can look differently than what you origionally expected.
You’re on your way to do amazing things girl!!
It is always so interesting to me to hear thoughts on short-term missions. I felt God calling me to short term missions as a youngster and I too thought, “what good does it do?” That was, at least, until I returned at the age of 20 to Argentina where I had spent two weeks as a 17 year old with a group of 60 people. We had spent our time spread thin amongst many churches and while our lives were radically changed I at times doubted if anything came of it all.
As that 20 year old revisiting as a missionary associate living in the country, I had the chance to attend a youth camp with the missionaries I was working with. We made it to the last day of the camp, and there were about 80-100 students sitting in a huge circle talking about how God had changed their lives over the course of the camp. I thought I recognized some of the kids but brushed it off and listened. One girl started crying and I assumed God was working on her. Then it was her turn to share and she turned to me and asked if I remembered her. She said that it was my short term team that kept her then struggling youth group of about 10 kids alive. She said that had we not spent the two days that we did working with them that the youth group wouldn’t exist. With tears in her eyes and looking around the circle she said, “This is my youth group now.” I was shocked when I realized all of these students were from that tiny church we had helped three years before.
The rest of the three months that I spent in Argentina I was on the receiving end of short term teams. My perspective of their role completely changed. It was crazy to see what happened after teams said their goodbyes. I saw how some teams were able to really change communities in ways that were lasting, in ways that no one else could. Of course there were teams that didn’t seem to accomplish much…but they seemed to be the exception, not the norm.
From that day forward I have had a new understanding of how God really can use short term missions to do things that maybe even the local church can’t do without a little help.
I know this wasn’t the entire focus of your blog, but for anyone who has felt like they should go, I say GO FOR IT! God definitely uses short term teams in powerful and different ways. I guess it just is never a one size fits all process for everywhere…