The Struggle

I have been disturbed for a long time.

Blue skies, laughing children with smiles so wide they reached the edge of their faces, a feel-good time of playing, joking, tickling them, throwing time recklessly away in a scenic, rural land and taking photos madly before leaving- it seems like this is what mission trips have been reduced to. I went for a meeting with some missionaries lately and they coined a term that pierced right through me. Mission tourism, they said. Going on mission trips has become a fad among youth, trendy, almost.

Most young people are drawn to the fun and feel-good factors, but few realize the impact they make on communities overseas.

I was invited to a fund-raising banquet last night to raise funds for mission work in developing countries. There, I met up with the missionaries from Nepal who looked after me while I was there, and some more from Cambodia.

I was happy to see them. I smiled deeply, and then I saw a familiar group of faces, faces that belonged to a Cambodian orphanage that I visited with my college 2 years ago. I saw him and I covered my mouth involuntarily.

“Lam Da? Is that you? They let you come! ”

The brown cheeky 17 year-old face smiled broadly right back at me. He nodded.

I remembered him, and the many children at that orphanage in Cambodia, who had been brought up in an artificial third culture, where so many Singaporean short-term mission trippers like myself had visited and trampled all over the delicate Cambodian culture. I was no exception. Now, every time I recollect the memory, I am disturbed. The idea of an orphanage is beautiful, but the idea of raising too many children in a place where too many visitors come and go like voyeurs, leaving them feeling unstable, insecure and pampered is not.

Children in orphanages are not exhibits.

Andy Chan wrote an article on The Straits Times lately, questioning if such trips are merely “(unspiritual) desires to just do something now” and if they are “merely free or subsidised touristy jaunts masquerading as spiritual work.” He writes directly, “ Can short-termers actually help people who are linguistically and culturally different? Surely people-to-people relationships take not weeks but years to build. Long-term relationships foster mutual accountability, whereas one-off-never-to-be-repeated encounters don't.”

His article recounts studies conducted by US sociologists who, after rigorous investigations, found very little lasting positive change in goers or receivers. He writes cuttingly, “While such trips may be an exciting experience for goers - 'I have done missions!' - studies showed that all their good intentions to raise money to help others overseas, for instance, tended to have dissipated away just months afterwards.”

He continues: “Goers must stop thinking they go to serve poor Third Worlders. Instead, they should conceive of their trips merely as ways to learn about another people and their problems. Also, they should understand that what happens during the trip - Did I hug enough orphans in Afghanistan? Did I treat enough sick Afghans? - is not important. Instead, what happens after they come back is more important: Will I consistently raise more money for Afghan orphans now? Will I support materially Afghan doctors who stay on for the sake of their countrymen despite all the hardship they
face? And so on.”

His article was not an easy read.

I believe there is a balance that must be struck. On one hand, we chastise the short-term mission trippers for treating the orphanages like zoos, and tainting a pure culture; on the other hand, many of such mission trips were the launching pad for many a long-term missionary who eventually stayed to build a lasting humanitarian ministry and made lifelong, sustaining changes to the lives of the less fortunate.

I’ve had so many people ask me, “Why don’t you organize a medical mission trip for your classmates since you’ve had some experience?”

How do I begin to tell you what I feel about this? How do I begin to explain to you the social ills that have arisen, the mixed feelings I have when people enter orphanages and snap photos madly, spoiling the children, promising them gifts and the word of their return, when they never intend to go back in the first place? Children in orphanages have hearts that break, too. Loving them is treating them right, not by giving them instant affection for our own feel-good rewards, but by treating them responsibly.

Even more, how do I even begin to tell you that for all my self-righteousness and protectiveness, that every minute I am there, I struggle with all these things too. I struggle in knowing that all my undoing is justified, or perhaps not, because of God’s calling for me to be a missionary, and I struggle even more knowing that our hearts are deceitful- I could very well end up in a cushy job and forget about this naïve calling for good.

Some people say I ought not to feel guilty. After all, after returning from Nepal, there was follow-up action and Kitesong made lasting changes to the lives of the children. But what you don’t know is- when I went on the trip, I didn’t know if I was going to be a long-term missionary. I didn’t know I would write a book for them, I didn't even know I would go back. I have no relationship with altruism and I am human.

So what do I say about this? If you want to go on a short-term mission trip, who can stop you? It could very well be the seed sown in your heart waiting to bloom the Mother Teresa within you. It could be the beginning of a beautiful, beautiful thing.

But promise me, search yourself and try and understand that we have the power to do more damage than good. Search deep within and question your motives and intentions. Pray much, and ask yourself if your reasons justify the possible damage done. When you can question yourself till it hurts, till the point you are unsure and doubtful and writhing inside because of your struggling, till the point where you feel small and humble and you feel like crying, then it is time to go.

And when I’m listening to a long-term missionary speak at a conference or at church, please look away from my face, wet with snot, because I am struggling too.