Tag: Thoughts on Missions Page 6 of 13

Is Missions a Joke? Answering the Critics

I came off the mission field with a new mission which is to burn down missions. 

~Jamie Wright

Before I post my writing, I often will ask Gil to read it and give me advice. Occasionally I’ve asked a friend or my parents to read something before I publish it. And the editor of A Life Overseas always helps me with those blog posts. But the piece you’ll see below hit a new record for me–eight editors, the most I’ve ever asked for.

That’s because what I wrote here is very important to me. I hope you will read it.

I came off the mission field with a new mission which is to burn down missions. ~Jamie Wright


You come [to the mission field] with the veil of, ‘I’m called, not qualified’ and then when everything falls to s*** and you decide to go back home, it completely negates the authority of the God you said called you in the first place. And it’s just a damaging cycle that just goes on and on. ~Emily Worrall


Missionaries are trying to save themselves. There’s this sense of ‘God is going to come through for me.’ So you have a lot–a lot–of addiction…tons and tons and tons of sexual sin. Deeply wounded people who need help, who need therapy, who need support systems. But we give them permission to leave all that behind and go to a foreign country where it is all exacerbated and everything gets way worse. It’s a rampant problem in long-term missions. ~Jamie Wright


The long-term missionary lifestyle is almost, like, insidious. Because long-term missionaries are the ones really using the manipulative language. They are really misrepresenting their purpose and the necessity for them to live in these other countries. Or they are hiding information about their behavior or the things they are doing. It’s just not good. There are so many people living abroad on the church-dime who have no accountability. It’s really ugly. ~Jamie Wright

Corey Pigg: They [our organization] were sending us out to the 10/40 window.

Jamie Wright: Yes, the 10/40 window. Everybody loves that.

Corey: They felt it was imperative that we went to closed nations to be superheroes. Because those are the last places that need to hear the gospel.

Jamie. Which is hilarious. ……All that matters is that you use the lingo.

Corey: That’s what sells, right?

Hi, I’m Amy Medina, and I’m a missionary.

I was a missionary kid in Liberia and Ethiopia for six years of my childhood. I’m now 41 years old and have been living in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, for fourteen years as an evangelical Christian missionary. My husband trains pastors and I am the elementary school principal at Haven of Peace Academy. We’ve adopted four Tanzanian kids.

We live off of the financial gifts of churches and friends from the States. We write newsletters every month. We use phrases like “fruit of our ministry” and “unreached people groups” and “discipleship.” I blog. And my blog header has zebras on it. And a rainbow encircling an orphan.


So is my life a joke?

I’ve been mulling over what I read in Jamie Wright’s memoir, The Very Worst Missionary: A Memoir or Whatever and what I heard in the “Failed Missionary” podcasts with Corey Pigg, Emily Worrall of Barbie Savior, and Jamie Wright. I’ve known all along that some non-Christians scoff at my life as a misguided, ridiculous attempt to “save the world,” but I must admit I was surprised to find out that there are some of “our own” who feel the same way–and are loudly proclaiming it.


Ironically, I actually agree with a lot of what these critical voices have to say about missions. I believe that “calling” can be misguided and even idolatrous. I believe that missionaries need to be well-vetted, well-trained, and held accountable. I’m confident that there is a temptation among missionaries to hide their struggles and beef up their successes. I believe that the “white savior complex” is real and sinister, and I definitely hold that Americans need to stop shipping stuff overseas for poor people. And I do think that missions in general, but especially short-term missions, can often bring more harm than help.

So I don’t believe we should write off these critical voices. If we stand against them with scowling faces and hands over our ears, angry at their profanity or their bluntness or their criticism of our sacred cows, then we walk right into the realm of the Pharisees. I’m not saying we have to agree with everything they say or how they say it, but we need to listen.

The truth is, it’s not a bad thing to knock missionaries off those pedestals. And it’s not a bad thing for us missionaries to ask ourselves the hard questions, or for those who send us to ask those questions of us.


Why did I really become a missionary?


Was I running away from something? Was I just looking for more meaning in my life? Was I thinking that missions would elevate my life to a higher spiritual level?


Does my dependence on financial support make me cover up the truth or portray myself as something I am not?


Am I afraid of what would happen if people could see bank records or my internet history, or if they saw what a day in my life really looked like?



Am I really the best person at this time and in this place to be doing this job? Am I submitting myself to accountability? Am I humbling myself and my ideas to the local people?

Almost my entire life has been devoted to missions, in one way or another. And I’ve seen what these critics are talking about. I’ve seen terrible short-term teams who offend the local people or steal jobs in a struggling economy. In rare instances, I’ve known of missionaries who preach the gospel on Sunday and have affairs during the week. More commonly, I’ve seen ignorance and arrogance and racism among missionaries–including myself.


But my conclusion is different. I don’t believe missions needs “gasoline and a match,” as Jamie writes in her memoir.

Really what it comes down to is this: Do we have a message worth sharing?

The data suggests we do.

Read the rest here

Dear Missionary Mom of Littles

As much as I love those little faces and wish I could go back and squish them one more time, I must admit that I am relieved to be done with the days of diapers and Dora and Itsy Bitsy spider. Focusing mainly on my kids for so many years was a privilege….but it was hard. This is a letter to those missionary moms who are there right now.

Dear Missionary Mom of Littles,

I see you.

I’m starting with that, because I know that often you don’t feel seen. You stay home with the kids while your husband goes out to teach the Bible study. You hang around the back of the church, trying to keep the baby quiet. You have to leave the team meeting early so that your toddler gets his nap.

Of course, every mom of littles, in any culture, is going to struggle with similar things. But I think that this particular season of life is even harder on missionary moms.

Quite likely, you are raising your kids in isolation. You don’t have your own parents or other relatives nearby to help out. There isn’t a Mommy-group at your church or a pee-wee soccer league in your city. There might not even be a McDonald’s Playland or a safe park to walk to. And you feel trapped.

Yes, there are other ladies in your host country with small children. But they may be parenting their children very differently from you. They might live in their mother-in-law’s house. They might put their kids in all-day preschool at two years old, or hire a full-time nanny, or be okay with letting their children freely roam the streets. They might criticize you for not keeping your child warm enough or spoiling them too much or not spoiling them enough or for giving your child a popsicle, even when it’s 90 degrees outside. And you feel very alone.

Maybe you’re remembering earlier days, when you worked right alongside your husband, or when your job felt significant. When your ministry was thriving and you could look back at the end of the day and feel satisfied with all you accomplished. Now you feel exhausted but have nothing to show for it. Your newsletters are full of your husband’s adventures, but you don’t have anything to contribute. And your life just feels….boring.

And you may wonder, What’s the point? Why am I here? You know the importance of spending these years with your little ones, but it feels like you could be doing the exact same job in your home country. Except there, your life would be less lonely and less difficult.

I was you for ten years. When I see you, I remember.

Go hereto read the rest.

Sometimes the Starfish Story Doesn’t Work

We all know the story, right?

Call me skeptical, but I wonder, why didn’t the young woman run and go get her friends? Why didn’t she call some sort of wildlife society to help her? Was she really the only person who cared about starfish? And what if, inadvertently, her starfish-saving effort was actually killing them as they fell upon the rocks?

Yeah, I know. That’s not what the story is about.

The heart behind the story is that we can’t help everyone, but we can help some. That is inspiring. And we should be inspired–because no one can change the world, but we can all make a difference.

But….what if the starfish-saving girl had wonderful intentions, but she actually could have made a bigger difference if she had a better strategy?

I created a lot of controversy with my last post about Christmas shoeboxes. One of the things I heard several times was, Sure, the boxes might not be effective for every child, but it doesn’t matter as long as they make a difference in the lives of some.

I love the creativity of Christians in South Korea, who send tracts, flash drives, and Bible literature into North Korea attached to balloonswith hope that they will bring the gospel to some. And that’s awesome–because there aren’t many other options for sending hope into that desperate country.

But what if, one day, the walls around North Korea come down? The country finally opens up to anyone who wants to enter. Would it still make sense to send in balloons? Of course not. Because there would be far more effective and strategic ways to get the gospel to North Koreans.

Think of it this way: What if an American church decided to try the same idea? They think, Hey, everyone knows someone who became a follower of Jesus by reading a tract. So the church spends thousands of dollars to purchase millions of tracts, charter a plane, and dump them over major cities in America.

It would create a huge mess. It would make a whole lot of people really irritated with Christians and probably turn them off to ever wanting to hear the gospel. But as long as some people get saved, should we dismiss the nay-sayers? Or….should we ask if this is an effective strategy to share the gospel with Americans? Would it be the best use of that money?

And this is where OCC shoeboxes come in. Because yes, of course, I am quite certain that there are some whose lives are forever changed because they received a shoebox. God can use whatever means he chooses to bring people to himself, and I have no doubt that has included shoeboxes.

But we are God’s stewards. Shouldn’t we be looking for the most effective, most strategic use of the money, time, and opportunities he has given us?

Should we be satisfied with just reaching some when actually we could use our resources more strategically to reach many?

If you were able to read any of the comment threads on my post or on Facebook, you will have seen dozens of eyewitness stories of OCC boxes. True, a few of them are positive. This is the best one: “We did use the ‘Greater Story’ books in Romanian as a discipleship tool over 3 months in almost 30 very poor households, and most stayed with it.”

However, the majority of stories are entirely different. Here’s a sampling:

“The Christmas boxes came to the Central African Republic a few years ago. The people who wanted to receive the boxes had to pay the equivalent of $2 to receive a box. Rumors were widely spread that some boxes contained tickets to the US and/or the names of people in the US who wanted to adopt children….Nearly all the things in the boxes could have been bought locally.”

“We are in West Africa and we have not heard one positive story about OCC from here. My heart sinks when I see the boxes arrive in our area. Just this week I had to explain what play dough was and ‘no you can’t eat it’. Then a deodorant stick ‘no it’s not medicine for dry skin’. Then roasted salted sunflower seeds ‘no you can’t plant them.'”

“As a missionary in Zambia, I saw the boxes come in April and kids physically fighting over the items. Kids came out of nowhere to clamor for and/or steal the items to sell on the streets. It was hard for me to see the kids I had been working with receive these packages and have other street kids come and harm them for the items.”

“You can buy them off the street corners in East Africa.”

“I have had contact with a co-worker who related that the men who unloaded the truck that came to their region were ‘paid’ in boxes. I found that horribly disheartening.”

“I am a missionary in Panama and I see this all the time not just with OCC but any kind of ‘gift’ giving. We have tried to come into some villages and once they see we are not coming to bring them something the dynamics change and they just wait for the next missionary to come.”

“I did see someone handing out boxes from a truck once and it was sheer mayhem. I will quote a local girl: ‘Why do North Americans think a toothbrush, a pencil or a toy will make us happy. They pat me on the head and it’s sad. I would love to have a conversation with them, laugh about life, cry about how hard life is. Pray together. But a little toy?? It’s cheap and easy.'”

“Zambia here – the amount of corruption surrounding OCC here is appalling. As our local pastors have said, ‘The national team has built an empire off of this ‘ministry’ … but I guess we don’t have to deal with it this year since they blacklisted our entire province for whistle blowing.”

“In Tanzania we saw shipping containers full of these shoe boxes; they were completely unpractical for the tribe they had been sent to. A huge waste of time and money. In Namibia you can buy a shoebox at the mall over Christmas.”

“This, in Ghana: One of our pastor friends spent half of his monthly salary to ‘buy’ boxes for his ministry. He divides and organizes the items in all the boxes and hands the items out to his church children (or whoever he wants–our children enjoyed some Starbursts from those boxes) throughout the year. Women from town “buy” the boxes to resell the items at market. To my knowledge, the Bible lessons are not utilized. Whoever can buy gets the boxes.”

“Where I am in Uganda, the boxes are delivered between March and May. One of the staff workers at the Bible college I was helping at offered me Nerds and a stuffed bear, both from a shoebox she had purchased from her church (she is ‘well-to-do’). My understanding from her was that her church in town had received the boxes in May and were charging everyone a small fee. Members of the church would then purchase the boxes and give the gifts to their children.”

“The money paid by the families was supposedly for the extra distance for the boxes to be trucked to the south of Madagascar. Those who had received the boxes were then approached by other people outside the church who wanted to buy them and sell the items at the markets. Friends in a nearby village asked me to explain what some of the items were. Didn’t know what lip gloss was. The plastic toys were found half buried and broken in the sand around their huts. Toothbrushes and toothpaste are seldom used and not replaced when those received in the shoeboxes had run out.”

“I know I’ve seen and heard of the negative impact in 3 of the places I’ve lived, and I haven’t yet seen good fruit.”

“Our church received shoeboxes several times, and as pastors, my husband and I didn’t get any of the discipleship material that is mentioned.”

“In the country we serve in (Niger, west Africa) our local churches usually receive the shoeboxes in April. Often close to Easter. As far as I know (and we have served there since 2008) we have never seen any gospel literature or discipleship programmes.”

******

Friends, I’m not saying that Samaritan’s Purse is evil or that OCC is never a good option. This isn’t just about OCC shoeboxes. I’m using OCC as an example because it’s one of the most popular charities in developed countries. But really, all of these thoughts could be applied to any charity or gift-giving effort–even in America.

There is a bigger picture here, and there are more important questions we must ask.

If a ministry is helping some, but in the process causing damage to a lot more, shouldn’t we be paying attention?

Is the ministry taking into account cultural and worldview differences, or is it a ‘once-size-fits-all’ approach?

Is the ministry looking towards development–helping people make their own lives better–or just a temporary band-aid? Is it meeting an actual need or an assumed need?

******

One person asked me what kind of things people should send to Tanzania as alternatives to shoeboxes. My response was Nothing.

Please don’t send stuff to Tanzania. Tanzania has a huge amount of untapped natural resources. Tanzania doesn’t need stuff. If you want to invest financially in Tanzania, invest in training. Job training, pastoral training, agricultural training, or children’s education.

This is a matter of stewardship. Those of us from America or other developed countries are the richest people in the world–in finances, education, and opportunity. We absolutely are called to be generous. But we also must be wise in how we use the resources God has given us.

Find your few starfish to invest in, because everyone can make a difference in the lives of a few. They will probably not be people across the world, but right in your own community. Then, together, let’s be strategic about the best ways to help all of them.

Grace, a couple of years ago. Don’t worry, she put them back.

Opening Up Christmas Shoeboxes: What Do They Look Like On the Other Side?

I love the hearts of Americans when it comes to generosity at Christmas. I love that there are hundreds of thousands of people who take the time, the money, and the care to pick out special gifts for millions of needy children around the world. Operation Christmas Child (OCC) shoeboxes really encapsulate the kindness of Americans at Christmas. And for Christians, Hope. Because many people who fill shoeboxes every November are praying and hoping that the child who receives their box will also receive the gospel.

And that’s awesome.



I also recognize how important this ministry is to many American churches and families. It’s a great tradition to do with your kids. It’s fun. And the stories that Samaritan’s Purse produces are compelling. The OCC boxes are a great way for the ministry to raise money (and Samaritan’s Purse has some really great projects, including the new hospital at my beloved ELWA in Liberia).

I, too, loved the shoebox idea.

My first up-close-and-personal experience with Christmas shoeboxes came in 2005, just a couple years after we had moved to Tanzania. Gil and I had recently jumped in headfirst with doing youth ministry at Haven of Peace Academy. We decided that it would be good for our teens to visit an orphanage in December and bring Christmas shoeboxes for the kids.

So on one Saturday morning, all of our teens overloaded our kitchen table with bucketloads of soap, candy, pencils and other trinkets, and we filled over 100 containers with these gifts. Then we loaded up into vans and took off for the orphanage. Everyone was excited. We couldn’t wait to see the joy on the kids’ faces.

Shortly after arriving, the orphanage manager gave all of us a tour of the orphanage. Right away, I started to realize that maybe our shoebox idea wasn’t so great after all. The kids at the orphanage had no personal possessions. They all shared clothes. They shared beds. I realized they wouldn’t even have a place to keep the gifts we were giving them.

We played a bunch of games with the kids, and gave everyone cookies and punch. The boys played soccer and the girls painted nails, and there were lots of big smiles all around. Before we left, we sat all the kids down on mats and handed out the boxes. But the kids showed no excitement–no response at all. In fact, they didn’t even open the boxes until we did it for them. Then they just stared blandly at the gifts.

We didn’t take many pictures because there wasn’t any excitement.

One of the missionary moms who had helped chaperone this event pulled me aside. “We’ve done a lot of work at orphanages,” she told me. “The reason these kids aren’t excited is probably because they’ve never owned anything. Once we leave, this stuff will most likely be collected up by the managers. Some of it might be used by the kids, but most of it will probably be sold by the adults.”

She was right. We should have just stuck with the games and the snacks and not wasted our money on gifts. It was a hard, good lesson.

You could write that off as just one bad experience. We didn’t do it again, but at the time, I didn’t want to cast judgment on the OCC concept as a whole.

********

As the years went on, I started to become more uneasy about OCC. I would see my American friends posting pictures on Facebook of the boxes they had so carefully and generously filled. On one hand, I was really proud of them for how they were showing love to the world’s children. But on the other hand, I started to think about the people in poverty I know personally.

I started thinking, I really hope the shoeboxes don’t get sent here.

I thought about how Christmas is celebrated in churches in Tanzania. Christmas is a day of joy, and everyone gets together for special food. But children receive new clothes on Christmas–not toys. Children aren’t sad that they didn’t get any toys, because they don’t expect them.

So I started to wonder: Do we want children to expect toys at Christmas? Has that tradition produced good fruit within our own culture? Is that a Christmas tradition that Americans want to export to the rest of the world?

I also started to wonder about how OCC boxes affect the local economy of the communities where they are sent. As you may have noticed from my story, we were able to fill 100 boxes with goodies that we purchased locally. Which makes me ask the question: If OCC boxes are really changing lives, is there really a need to ship these trinkets around the world? Couldn’t they be purchased and assembled locally and support local economies? Wouldn’t that be a better way to help those in poverty?

But the most important question I’ve had to ask myself is this:

What happens when the life-transforming gospel of Jesus Christ is associated with dollar-store trinkets from America?

Every year, Samaritan’s Purse puts out promotional videos and articles that share the impact of OCC distribution to churches and ministries around the world. This last Christmas, one of those videos got personal for us.

At the end of November, Samaritan’s Purse posted a video about a church planter in Tanzania who uses the shoeboxes to help him plant churches. The corresponding article is titled,“Operation Christmas Child Gifts Help Build the Church in Tanzania.” (I encourage you to watch/read it before you read on.)

We don’t know the man featured in this video and article. But we do know lots of Tanzanian church planters. So an (American) co-worker on our missionary team sent the link to a Tanzanian friend who is the leader of a growing, vibrant church planting movement all throughout Tanzania. Our co-worker asked him to watch the video and give his thoughts on it.

Here’s how this courageous Tanzanian church planter responded. This man is biblical, influential, and is highly respected by everyone who knows him. These are his exact words. 

“1) First, we don’t see in the Bible this model of ‘gift giving’ being used for disciple-making and planting churches.

2) The question I am asking myself is, ‘If the shoeboxes gift are removed will there still be church planting?’ I DOUBT IT! Then, this is not a church planting model.

3) I am also questioning about its reproducibility. Will the said ‘members’ of that church in Kitomondo do the church plant without the shoebox gifts? In my experience and stories I have heard, this model of mission outreach and church planting has never been effective, sustainable or reproducible. It has also produced a wrong view towards the Gospel, and causes other church planters who go to villages without gifts to be rejected or ridiculed.

4) This ‘attraction’ method of bringing people to the church has always given birth to ‘church members’ and not ‘true disciples’ of Jesus Christ.

5) I feel lots of damage is associated with this gift giving approach to missions, for it creates attachment to wrong things. Pastor Marco [from the video] says, ‘I just need shoeboxes.’ To me this is seriously dangerous. I deeply feel that WE NEED THE HOLY SPIRIT and only Him. While gifts may give us access to difficult places, they should not be the substitutes of the Holy Spirit. The gospel still needs to be presented in the power of the Holy Spirit. If it necessitates gifts to be given, they should be locally found and reproduced and not imported from America.

6) Our experience in reaching unreached peoples has taught us a lot on gift giving. In some places, we haven’t been well-received because the missionaries who went there before us presented gifts….and we have no gifts. When those missionaries left, their ‘converts’ also returned back to their old faith and were waiting for the next gift presenters.

My advice always to Western missionaries is not to come to Africa with their strategies, not even strategies they saw working elsewhere. They have to come empty-handed, with the Holy Spirit, live among the unreached peoples, learn from them, asking the Holy Spirit what he wants done in these places. Western missionaries working cross-culturally need to stop and learn first. Otherwise, they are making it hard for us (who cannot have the shoeboxes) to do mission work.”

 *********

This church planter’s words hit me hard, and they are the main reason why I decided to write about this subject. It’s one thing for American missionaries to question the strategy of OCC shoeboxes, because we don’t always know what we are talking about. It’s a totally different story when a Tanzanian church planter asks Americans to reconsider the ways we are trying to help their ministries. I need to pay attention. All of us do.

Most likely there are some places in the world–perhaps areas that are already more westernized or developed–where OCC boxes might help more than hurt. But truthfully, don’t all of us–even those who minister in America–have something to learn from this Tanzanian church planter’s words?

Other overseas workers have written about similar concerns, including some that are up close and personal. I recently started a discussion about OCC (which turned quite lively!) on the Facebook page for A Life Overseas. Unfortunately, there were very few readers (who live internationally) who could point to any specific benefits they had seen from OCC.

Friends, remember that I am sharing this as one who had to learn this (and many other things) the hard way. Gil and I have made a lot of mistakes in this country that has so graciously put up with us. We are forever learning. I hope you’ll be willing to learn with us.

There’s lots of time to mull this over before next Christmas. And if you are wondering about alternatives, click herehere, or here. If you want to help your own kids become poverty fighters, click herefor some ideas. Please, don’t stop caring about spreading the gospel to the world’s children.

*Follow up post here: Sometimes the Starfish Story Doesn’t Work: Read about eye-witness Shoebox stories from around the world. And ask the question with me: Should we be satisfied with just reaching some when we could use our resources more strategically to reach many? 

Why is ‘Work’ a Bad Word?

These memes make me realize I live an odd life.

For missionaries, salary has never been connected to quantity or type of work. In fact, we don’t technically receive a salary, but a stipend that comes from church donations. Since most of my adult life has been spent as a missionary, this is normal to me, but sometimes I remember that it’s actually rather odd.

Haven of Peace Academy, where I am now serving as elementary school principal, is an extremely high quality institution. I would argue that we offer the best education in Tanzania (admittedly I am biased!). We have almost 400 students (K-12), three full science labs, a 25-meter swimming pool, a huge new library, and just broke ground on a performing arts center.

HOPAC has 500 students on waiting lists. This week, I am in the process of giving assessments to children who want to start kindergarten in August. We have over 60 applications for a class of 23, and there would have been more, but we made December 31 the application deadline. Other schools similar to HOPAC have huge billboards around the city, but HOPAC never needs to do a speck of advertising.

But what’s odd about all of this is that HOPAC doesn’t pay most of their teachers. In fact, because it’s a non-profit school, it’s not legally allowed to pay anyone except Tanzanian citizens. Most of the teaching staff are missionaries. We get some help with housing, but no salary.

So that means that when I took this giant job, Gil and I knew that we would still be living on the same stipend as before. Our standard of living wouldn’t be increasing. But that wasn’t an issue, because our work here has never been connected to our salary.

Most of the staff I work with are living the same way. In fact, for couples where both spouses are on staff, it actually costs them to work at HOPAC, since two-parent working families tend to have more expenses. Even those teachers who are Tanzanian, and thus allowed to receive a salary, could be earning a lot more if they were working somewhere else.

So all of this begs the question, Why on earth are we doing this? Why did I apply for this position when salary wasn’t a part of it? Why are most of the teachers I supervise volunteering for this job?

It’s because mankind was created for work.

Work came before the Fall of Man, not after. Adam was given a job in the Garden. And there’s no reason to believe that in Heaven we’re going to sit around on clouds all day. We’ll be working. Indeed, the sweat and pressure of work is a result of sin, but not work itself.

True, many times we need to understand the value of rest–that’s another conversation. But often, we also need to understand the value of work.  And not just because work is how we eat and pay the mortgage, but the intrinsic value of work–even work we are not paid for.

I lean towards capitalism, so I understand the value of getting paid for a job well done. I know that for the vast majority of the world, if you want to eat, you need a salary. Volunteering usually is not an option. But there is something incredibly freeing about working in a job where salary isn’t connected to work, and it’s taught me a lot about work’s value.

Perhaps part of the reason why it was no big deal to take this position, knowing there was no salary, is because I’ve been working without a salary for years now. Isn’t that what a stay-at-home-mom does? Raising children, volunteering in ministry, creating a home–all of those things are most definitely work, but none receive a salary.

As Christians, should we be equating the value of work with the salary that goes with it? Or can we see work as God meant it to be?

Work is Redemption. Creating music, feeding children, sweeping the floor, caring for the sick, fixing the leaky pipe, plowing the field, cutting hair, coaching the team. All are ways that we redeem a broken world. All are a privilege.

Yet our culture communicates to us that the only purpose of work is to earn money. And that the real goal of life is to earn enough money so that we can entertain ourselves with vacations and Netflix and baseball games and retire as soon as possible.

So often we forget that we have been created for work. 



I think that embracing this is what makes HOPAC such an extraordinary place. Of course, on a very practical note, volunteer staff are what make HOPAC so affordable for so many families. It’s the reason why our fees are half to a third less than any other comparable school in Tanzania. But probably more important is that the staff knows that there is a greater purpose in what we are doing. None of us are in it for money, power, or position–because it’s just not there. We are called to love and serve Jesus–and that makes all of us incredibly devoted to our jobs and students.


I’m especially privileged right now because I get to do a job that I adore. Of course, sometimes work is drudgery, and I’ve been there too. But as Christ-followers who are corporately working together to redeem this world, should we try to do the least amount of work we can get away with? Should it always be about money? Can we instead see work as a way to use our talents, a way to serve others, and a way to bring redemption to the world?

Somebody needs to create a meme about that.

By the way, Haven of Peace Academy is recruiting!

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