In the Name of “Mission Work” book about CAM/Mast

[steve-in-kville]

Another major question is what will be the eventual results of this entire situation for CAM?

I have some thoughts but am interested in hearing others'.

It's been a couple of years at this point. The idea that CAM is somehow going down as an organization for this is wrong. It's not going to happen. The most obvious result in my view is that vetting missionaries has already and will continue to intensify in a big way. I am sure this will add to the seriousness with which key positions are viewed and with whom they are filled.

I do also think that it may become harder to find missionaries. I could be wrong on all of the above.

You have some valid points, many of which I share. One thing I am seeing is churches that used to lift offerings for CAM no longer are, or the typical dollar amount has dropped. And I am seeing people who would have associated with CAM have distances themselves.

[mike]

Another major question is what will be the eventual results of this entire situation for CAM?

I have some thoughts but am interested in hearing others'.

It's been a couple of years at this point. The idea that CAM is somehow going down as an organization for this is wrong. It's not going to happen. The most obvious result in my view is that vetting missionaries has already and will continue to intensify in a big way. I am sure this will add to the seriousness with which key positions are viewed and with whom they are filled.

I do also think that it may become harder to find missionaries. I could be wrong on all of the above.

You have some valid points, many of which I share. One thing I am seeing is churches that used to lift offerings for CAM no longer are, or the typical dollar amount has dropped. And I am seeing people who would have associated with CAM have distances themselves.

I'm pretty sure CAM isn't seeing any lack of financial support. But when it comes to boots on the ground, I wonder if it won't be harder to find people to go live and work in Haiti.

[mike]

I finished the book last night. Overall, he spends a lot of space in the book telling CAM and other mission organizations how they should improve. It wouldn't hurt for all missionaries to read a book like this, or at least directors of organizations. If nothing else it is a case study in how things can go south.

My final impression is that the book is a lot less angry and vindictive than it could be. I think the author wants to matter, and make a positive difference. He doesn't just criticize; he gives extensive opinions and specific ideas on exactly how missions should be improved. I think he has a very high standard for mission workers and organizations. I don't discredit the idea that missionaries could benefit from more training and better vetting. But at the same time I believe that those things should not become the primary qualification for ministry. Christian character is paramount. There is something to be said for simplicity and following God's call to evangelism and humanitarian aid work. If people wait until they feel adequate and well-qualified before they go to spread the good news of Jesus or dispense much-needed humanitarian aid, few will ever go. But those who do have a heart for this kind of thing shouldn't go into it blindly.

Reading this book could be discouraging for thinking of getting involved in mission work. At the same time it is reality, and a dose of that isn't a bad idea. It is what it is.

[Josh]

Unfortunately, I agree with the highlighted text. Despite dumping large amounts of resources in terms of money, time, and people, the results of all these programs (whether secular NGOs, other missions, or Anabaptist missions) seems to be quite dismal.

A great deal of fundraising activity takes place “for Haiti”. This presupposes that what Haiti needs is more money. I would argue this is not the case.

On the other half of the island is the Dominican Republic, where things look very different. Why is the exact same place so different once you go a few miles west?

[Signtist]

On the other half of the island is the Dominican Republic, where things look very different. Why is the exact same place so different once you go a few miles west?

Wholesale agreements with darkness on the Haiti side.

[Josh]

On the other half of the island is the Dominican Republic, where things look very different. Why is the exact same place so different once you go a few miles west?

Wholesale agreements with darkness on the Haiti side.

It begs another question:

Imagine if the same amount of effort went into Dominican Republic. Or to some city in America or even an entire state.

[Ken]

On the other half of the island is the Dominican Republic, where things look very different. Why is the exact same place so different once you go a few miles west?

The actual disparate political histories of Haiti and the Dominican Republic provide some informative answers to your question.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021 ... -for-freed

'The Greatest Heist In History': How Haiti Was Forced To Pay Reparations For Freedom

. . .

Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the world, and rich countries have their fingerprints all over the nation's stunted development. The United States worked to isolate a newly independent Haiti during the early 19th century and violently occupied the island nation for 19 years in the early 20th century. While the U.S. officially left Haiti in 1934, it continued to control Haiti's public finances until 1947, siphoning away around 40% of Haiti's national income to service debt repayments to the U.S. and France.

Much of this debt to France was the legacy of what the University of Virginia scholar Marlene Daut calls "the greatest heist in history": surrounded by French gunboats, a newly independent Haiti was forced to pay its slaveholders reparations. You read that correctly. It was the former slaves of Haiti, not the French slaveholders, who were forced to pay reparations. Haitians compensated their oppressors and their oppressors' descendants for the privilege of being free. It took Haiti more than a century to pay the reparation debts off.

Haiti won its independence from France in 1804, and it was almost immediately made a pariah state by world powers. It was an independent, black-led nation — created by slaves who had cast aside their chains and fought their oppressors for their freedom — during a time when white-led nations were enforcing brutal, racist systems of exploitation around the world.

Haiti, then known as Saint-Domingue, had been the crown jewel of the French empire. It was the most lucrative colony in the whole world. French planters forced African slaves to produce sugar, coffee, and other cash crops for the global market. The system seemed to work well. That is, until the French and American revolutions helped to inspire, in 1791, what became the world's largest and most successful slave revolt. Against all odds, the slaves won. Former slaves sent slaveholders scurrying to France and America — and Haitians successfully fought back subsequent efforts to re-enslave them. Haiti was the first nation to permanently ban slavery.

But as a nation of freed black slaves, Haiti was a threat to the existing world order. President Thomas Jefferson worked to isolate Haiti diplomatically and strangle it economically, fearing that the success of Haiti would inspire slave revolts back home. With the invention and spread of the cotton gin, slavery was becoming much more lucrative at the very same time a free Haiti was coming into existence, and slaveholders in the United States and other countries clung to and expanded the inhumane means of production. Haitian success was perceived as a threat to this system for decades, and the United States didn't officially recognize Haiti until 1862, as slavery began being abolished.

During Haiti's critical period of development, France intervened even more directly than the U.S. to thwart its success. In July 1825, the French King, Charles X, sent an armed flotilla of warships to Haiti with the message that the young nation would have to pay France 150 million francs to secure its independence, or suffer the consequences. That sum was 10 times the amount the United States had paid France in the Louisiana Purchase, which had doubled the size of the U.S.

Almost literally at gunpoint, Haiti caved to France's demands in order to secure its independence. The amount was too much for the young nation to pay outright, and so it had to take out loans with hefty interest rates from a French bank. Over the next century, Haiti paid French slaveholders and their descendants the equivalent of between $20 and $30 billion in today's dollars. It took Haiti 122 years to pay it off. Professor Marlene Daut writes it "severely damaged the newly independent country's ability to prosper."

[Neto]

.... I don't discredit the idea that missionaries could benefit from more training and better vetting. But at the same time I believe that those things should not become the primary qualification for ministry. Christian character is paramount. There is something to be said for simplicity and following God's call to evangelism and humanitarian aid work. If people wait until they feel adequate and well-qualified before they go to spread the good news of Jesus or dispense much-needed humanitarian aid, few will ever go. But those who do have a heart for this kind of thing shouldn't go into it blindly.

Reading this book could be discouraging for thinking of getting involved in mission work. At the same time it is reality, and a dose of that isn't a bad idea. It is what it is.

When I was finishing Bible college (at age 23), I was impatient to get going in ministry. The MB mission agency sort of aggravated me, because they weren't accepting any candidates who were less than 35 or so. I think they had had enough bad experiences with younger people who washed out after a short time on the field, and probably some who were not spiritually qualified. They specifically said that they wanted candidates who had been involved in their local congregations, and had then later accepted a "call", and only then did the required study program (at least a BA, preferably a seminary degree - Masters). I also don't think they were interested in single people, especially single men. I joined Wycliffe Bible Translators at a time when there was a burst of young people applying for membership. But a lot of my friends with whom I did the required grad courses never went. One couple who were already both good friends of mine before they married were part way through the "jungle training" (basically, survival training) course when they decided that they didn't want to do it. (In the end, I was nearly 30 when we first went to Brazil, and it was a bit over a year later before I first visited the village where we were assigned to do Bible translation, and 34 before I knew enough of the language to start translation work.)

I suppose that I'm not "on the same page" as others here, because I was what is often referred to as a "pioneer missionary", one who basically goes where no one has been before (although there WAS a prior team in our case, but they had never spent more than a couple of months with the people), learn a language that no outsider has ever learned before, and start from scratch. (The head of the missiology dept at the Bible college where I graduated kept in contact with me, and actually visited us here in Ohio on at least one occasion. He told me that of ALL of his students, I was the only one who went on to do pioneer type work, as he had, in Indonesia, starting in the middle to late 40's.) There are stories of people who went out and did that sort of thing w/o any training, but it doesn't often turn out well, and I question some things they write in their books, just because it isn't likely true the way they tell it. (An example: People who claim that they never told any of the people the Gospel story until they had learned the language well enough to tell the entire Bible story from Genesis to Revelation, or at least to the Gospels. I don't believe it. An isolated language is not going to have all of the terminology you need, and even if it did, you must check to be sure that your way of telling it will communicate the correct meaning. Telling it w/o knowing is like the 'back translation' of Psalm 23 I heard, where it said that "He poured burned engine oil on my head". This was from an actual translation, but not one done under WBT - it would never have passed the extensive comprehension checks.)

I think that if a person skips the training phase because they "just cannot wait to start", then they do not have the tenacity to stick with it once they get there. Or, they will communicate the wrong thing, like someone who came to the village and told the people (in Portuguese) that if you fall you will loose your soul. Later, a man slipped on a wet log going over a river in the rain and fell. So the men were praying for him in the service, that his soul would come back. The person who said that meant if you fall spiritually, you would loose your soul, but the people took it literally. (They take almost everything literally. Symbolism requires a lot of extra explanation in order for it to communicate.)

[barnhart]

In response to Mike's questions about preparing for missions, I would suggest it is very, very, very hard for a missionary from a powerful civilization to humble themselves enough to effectively minister to a weak civilization. You don't even know enough to know what you are proud of.

In my 20's I served in a maintenance position in a para church mission organization in the Canadian north designed to assist the Native American church. Soon after I arrived I was on a four hour ride with a native chief from a fly-in community. I was intrigued and asked many questions. At some point he grew strangely quiet and I realized I had said something that offended him, so I waited quietly for him to respond.

After some thinking he started carefully explaining in great detail the struggles and challenges northern communities face, how the economic tax structure and provincial reimbursements are designed to favor resource extraction, not promote stable communities, how the educational system is designed by people thousands of miles away to suit their needs, not the local people ect... He went on for quite a while, maybe an hour, and I was truly humbled but also grateful because I could sense he was investing in me and I didn't want to disappoint him. This kind of training can only be arranged by God but it is vital.

My advice to organizations like CAM would be get local, on the ground people on your board and in the managerial structure. I turned down the offer to sit on a board for a mission organization working in a tiny, extremely remote village in Haiti because I don't know what I am doing there. This board even included Haitians (a real advantage) but I didn't feel I knew enough to serve.

[joshuabgood]

In response to Mike's questions about preparing for missions, I would suggest it is very, very, very hard for a missionary from a powerful civilization to humble themselves enough to effectively minister to a weak civilization. You don't even know enough to know what you are proud of.

In my 20's I served in a maintenance position in a para church mission organization in the Canadian north designed to assist the Native American church. Soon after I arrived I was on a four hour ride with a native chief from a fly-in community. I was intrigued and asked many questions. At some point he grew strangely quiet and I realized I had said something that offended him, so I waited quietly for him to respond.

After some thinking he started carefully explaining in great detail the struggles and challenges northern communities face, how the economic tax structure and provincial reimbursements are designed to favor resource extraction, not promote stable communities, how the educational system is designed by people thousands of miles away to suit their needs, not the local people ect... He went on for quite a while, maybe an hour, and I was truly humbled but also grateful because I could sense he was investing in me and I didn't want to disappoint him. This kind of training can only be arranged by God but it is vital.

My advice to organizations like CAM would be get local, on the ground people on your board and in the managerial structure. I turned down the offer to sit on a board for a mission organization working in a tiny, extremely remote village in Haiti because I don't know what I am doing there. This board even included Haitians (a real advantage) but I didn't feel I knew enough to serve.

Harder than going through the eye of a needle maybe...