Band-Aids for the Poor

August 25, 2010

Brad M. Griffin
Brad M. Griffin

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This week a member of our original Short-Term Missions think tank, Cari Jenkins, pointed out to us an entry on the Invisible Children blog: “Discuss: putting Band-Aids on the developing world…literally”, or, “Does being a foreigner make you qualified to help in the developing world?”

The author tells stories that feel all-too-close-to-home for many of us, about short-term teams attempting to do things they aren’t equipped to do, often with great intentions but misplaced effort and money.  Quoting the post directly:

Since coming to Gulu, I’ve had the chance to meet hundreds of foreign visitors, many of whom saw their time in Uganda as a chance to do something, to achieve something.  I’ve met short-term missionaries who paid $4,000 US each to spend 10 days in an internally displaced peoples camp.  Every morning they evangelized to camp residents; every afternoon they cleaned wounds and put Band-Aids on people.  When I asked if any trained medical staff were among the group—mostly teenagers—the group leader, a first-time visitor to Uganda, shook her head.

I’m still all for short-term missions.  But as we navigate the waters of respectfully coming alongside locals in our preparation and action, let’s keep in mind that Band-Aids really aren’t always the best answer to systemic problems…

©2010 Fuller Youth Institute

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  • http://kriscanuck.wordpress.com/ Kris

    Agreed. Those band-aids are ultimately about what the trip participants receive. Our church has in the past gone to Ecuador for 12 days to build houses. Each person paid 1500pounds, nearly $2200 for the ‘privilege’ of building this one house. This past year we began to ask ourselves what might happen in that community if instead of sending 12 people on the trip, paying a total of 18,000 pounds or $25,000, we raised the equivalent amount of money and sent it to the work project coordinator who could then use the money to hire laborers from the community…the answer was, the house would get built more quickly and the laborers would be well paid for a job that would not last 12 days, but would last months and the impact on their lives might be profoundly more deep than on the lives of the young people we brought…in our absence the money was able to make a small difference to the systemic issue of poverty in that community.

  • Jude TW

    This is another sobering reminder of good intentions not being enough. I would add that calling someone who stays for ten days a “short term missionary” is a misnomer. I was a short term missionary to Nepal years ago and I was there over two years. I knew I was short term because I met the folks who had been there 20-30 years. I remember one woman, after 30 years there, commenting how she still got taken by surprise in some cultural situations. That sure opened my eyes and gave me perspective on what I had thought was a long time. Clearly, two years was a very short time in that context. It was long enough for me to feel comfortable there and relate on a superficial basis, but to truly incarnate, to grow up in that culture as a missionary does, would take much longer.
    Two weeks…some call that mission adventure or mission tourism.

  • Jude TW

    This does not mean I am against short term mission, but we need to have perspective on what that means, and who actually benefits.
    Here in central Los Angeles, I am amazed how many churches come and want to feed people, and/or evangelize. Have the asked what folks actually need?
    Once when I was in skid row, a homeless man asked me, “Could you please tell your people (I think he meant white Christians) that we don’t need anymore food. And we have all accepted Jesus many times.” What is needed? Develop a lasting relationship and you learn his answer.

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