In a conversation with my father yesterday an interesting question came up. We were discussing the mission team that my church sent to Peru this week. This next little blurb is directly from my church's website about the mission and then Ill get to my point
The Purpose
As Americans, we live in the wealthiest country in the most prosperous time in the history of the world. We have gobs of resources, an abundance of opportunity, and hope for a bright future. Not only are we physically wealthy, but we have free access to the hope of the gospel through the many churches all around us. While we enjoy all of these benefits, all around the world there are people in great physical and spiritual need. When we see this need there is something that wells up inside of us that urges us to take action! Therefore, we at Journey Church are compelled by God’s great mercy and the example of Christ to leave our comfort behind and sacrifice for others who are in need!
The Work
While we are in Trujillo we will be helping families and children that live and work in the dump outside of the city. These families spend their days digging through the trash for food, clothing, and recyclables. They sell the recyclables for profit, but it is not much of a life. Through a partnership with Inca Link, we will be helping with a construction project to benefit the men, women, and children living in the dump. We will not only be helping in construction, but we will be ministering to the people, playing with the children, and sharing God’s words of grace.
Our Mission
We will travel to Trujillo, Peru this summer to join the missionary work of Inca Link. Here is some of the work we will be doing:
Activities with children
Construction project
Ministry to families in the church and city
This trip will be a physical and spiritual challenge for every member of our team. This is not a vacation, but rather a ministry designed to stretch your faith and allow God to use you to make an eternal difference in people whose lives are very different from your own.
Now for my confusion
I get the need to want to reach out and help the less fortunate people. I understand that this is God's calling and this is what he wants done.
What I dont understand is why my church ( or any relief/misson type of group ) travels to such far off places to help folks. Correct me if I am wrong but arent there people right here in the United States in need? Dont we have unemployment issues, education problems, people living on the street etc? There are so many issues in this country that need to be a priority before any other countries issues but yet we choose to ignore them or put them on a back burner. WTF? I think we need to take a strong internal look at our own country and fix our issues before helping all these other countries. Dont get me worng its nice that my church and other groups want to help, but come on folks lets fix this country first.
As always, thanks for reading
2011 - The Finale
12 years ago
4 comments:
I agree that we still have plenty of needy people here in the US. I think the point of foreign missions is in part that some of the "needy" here are needy by choice (the homeless who could stay in a homeless shelter, but choose not to follow the rules).
Also, the Bible says to "go to all nations" as well as caring for your neighbor. A mission trip to Peru or Ecuador does not "meet your quota" of good deeds and absolve you of God's commands to care for widows and orphans for example.
That's my thoughts anyway.
Stephen,
Very good point. Sometimes I forget that there are those here in the States that choose to be in the situation that they are in.
And this is the first time I have replied to somebodies comment on my blog =)
Here is my take. People are called in different ways to different ministries. :-)
I agree with your observation that there is a lot of need in our own country. Still, although there are plenty of gaps in service, we have a lot more resources available to help people in need than just about any other country in our hemisphere.
My other thought is this... our country is not always held in high regard by people in other countries. Missions such as this can help others come to understand that we do have good people here.
Anyway, your questions are not wrong and I hope you don't think that I am disagreeing with your post. If that trip to Peru is not your calling, then I am sure there are other ways you can be involved in your church that fits needs that you do feel called to address.
Hey Frankie - it looks like there are two forces at work here. One is the need to help out the needy, while the other is to minister whatever particular religious tenets your church preaches.
There are definitely needy people here in the U.S., but I'm guessing many of those people do have some religious belief of some sort.
Just take the New Orleans area, for example, which is still reeling from the effects of Katrina. I imagine many of those people already have a wide swath of religions (Southern Baptist, Catholic, Evangelical, etc.) and are already affiliated with their local congregations.
However, you take a country like Peru in your case, you probably have more concentrated populations located in remote villages which fall into both the needy and the unministered categories.
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