tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5877872196122597956.post1278347505432410354..comments2024-02-14T14:47:58.061-08:00Comments on Word Salad: Twitter ExchangeColeslawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06813319585807128092noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5877872196122597956.post-33055065251874019342012-06-09T07:22:24.262-07:002012-06-09T07:22:24.262-07:00"Whose bright idea was this?"
Someone f...<i>"Whose bright idea was this?"</i><br /><br />Someone for whom the only important thing is getting numbers on the board. Living in this world, in this time, in this place is unimportant compared to getting people into Heaven in the next life. Someone who believes that "saving" people by any means possible is more important than providing practical aid, with the longer aim of doing themselves out of a job. Someone who doesn't see the families, the society, the culture as anything more than unsaved numbers, and the damage done to those families as regrettable but essential.<br /><br />Someone, in this context, who I'd be surprised to learn actually speaks Khmer (or any of the other languages). <br /><br />I find the whole overseas mission trips thing kind of.. well, weird. And very quasi-colonial. And of course very common. The secular version is of course going over to build toilets or count birds or something, which depending on the program running it can be a useful asset to the community or hellishly bad news for the locals. Some communities really don't want or need a group of frequently intoxicated gap year students whose dress sense, moral sense and other senses often clash with local mores cluttering up the landscape. Not to mention that I don't think you can really get an idea of the community you're in when you're only on a short trip and with a group of compatriots - so why not do a year long mission volunteering at the local soup kitchen or in the underfunded public school down the road or some such.<br /><br />At least they'd speak the language there.lsnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5877872196122597956.post-17112629674992476722012-06-01T17:00:34.230-07:002012-06-01T17:00:34.230-07:00I was giggling at your Katrina scenario - you are ...I was giggling at your Katrina scenario - you are right, guns would have been involved, no possibly about it.<br /><br />Yes, I was very disappointed to find out that the schools were pushing religion so heavily. I suspect what it means in practice is that the few Christians, or people willing to become Christians, are served by them and the Buddhist majority are not. <br /><br />What's even worse is that the first group who went to Cambodia went there for a youth convocation. From what they said, they are targeting teens for conversion, even though their Buddhist parents may throw their Christian kids out of the house. This in a country noted for sex tourism. I'm not defending parents who turn their kids out over religious differences, but why can the missionaries not wait a few years and target adults who are on their own for conversion? (Well, I know why not; the teens are low hanging fruit.) The really weird thing is that one of the people who went on this trip described Cambodia as "a country without grandparents" because of the genocides. So in a country without grandparents, let's turn parents against children, and as my husband said, give them something else to fight over. I just kept thinking, "Whose bright idea was this?"Coleslawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06813319585807128092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5877872196122597956.post-48865326038785986032012-06-01T15:52:25.826-07:002012-06-01T15:52:25.826-07:00the school for children also had religion classes
...<i>the school for children also had religion classes</i><br /><br />Argh, this kind of aid really bugs me. Yes, the schools are doing good - but I find having the Bible classes as a mandatory part to be... well, <b>disrespectful</b> to the people they're allegedly trying to help. I'd have no problem with them running after hours classes or discussion groups with no expectation of anyone turning up - and who knows, they might even get more people coming along that way. The way it's being run though, it's less extending a helping hand as it is extending a hand while simultaneously making it bloody obvious that they consider the people they are extending the hand to as beneath them.<br /><br />It reminds me of one of the stories I heard of in the aftermath of the 2006 Aceh earthquake and tsunami - Christian evangelical groups (predominantly US-based, but not exclusively so) went into Aceh (98.6% Muslim) to run faith-based orphanages and were promptly booted out again. Because nothing says respecting the wishes of deceased parents quite like gloating over the opportunity to convert their children. I'm not sure how Americans would have reacted if an Islamic group (or Jewish or Buddhist or Taoist or even Mormon actually) had decided to do the same thing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but I'm guessing in a not dissimilar fashion (but possibly with more guns involved.)<br /><br />There's also for me the issue of interesting people in your faith by actually, you know, living it rather than offering help with strings attached. Bah. I have so much more respect for missions who basically offer help where needed, and keep their praying to themselves unless asked to share rather than making prayer a condition of the help. One reason I will donate to the Salvos Red Shield Appeal is that they don't limit who they will help, and they don't pray over them - they just help them (at least in my city to the best of my knowledge).<br /><br />Then of course a lot of the mission-talk for me is tied up with colonialism, which is a whole different kettle of fish again but is probably at least partly why I find the idea of respecting the people you're attempting to help so important.lsnnoreply@blogger.com