Cognitive Dissonance– psychological conflict resulting from simultaneously held incongruous beliefs and attitudes (as a fondness for smoking and a belief that it is harmful). Merriam Webster Medical Dictionary
Before I left for the race, if you had asked what we were going to do, my answer would have been along these lines: “We don’t know, exactly, what we will do. In each country we will be partnered with an organization already working in that country and we will do whatever they need us to do—from manual labor to curriculum writing to sports camps.”
This month was the first month I really felt this live out. We worked with Orphan Voice, an organization which runs orphanages and homes for women at-risk among other outreaches. So, you’d think we’d play with orphans for “ministry” this month. But what this organization needed was for someone to paint.
I was very happy about this assignment. It was hot. It was sweaty. It was with my friends. It was not that bad. It was what I came to do.
So at the end of the month when someone asked me if I felt effective, I was surprised to realize that my answer was “no.”
Cue the cognitive dissonance. Intellectually, I had achieved exactly what I set out to do, but emotionally it didn’t “feel” effective. Not because it was work that anyone could do, but because my perception was that if we hadn’t come, Orphan Voice could have just as easily accomplished the work on their own. Somewhere I had picked up the idea that to be truly impactful, we must provide services that our contacts would otherwise not receive.
Don’t get me wrong. In no way was I disappointed in our work, our assignment, or our achievement. I spend a lot of my life in the tension between what I know and what I feel. I’m not really much of a feeler. But God had more to teach me than just revealing this hidden expectation about the type of support we would provide. He wanted to bless me with the feeling as well.
A few days after leaving Da Nang, I got an email from Orphan Voice. In this email, I read about the story of a 15-year-old girl I knew who had been raped. A girl who was at the hospital to get an abortion when O.V. offered to help her. A girl who, grief-stricken and ashamed, had a pact with her grandmother to commit suicide once the abortion was complete. A girl who now has hope and a beautiful baby (delivered while we were there!). I read that another young rape victim has just arrived at O.V., begging for assistance that has been promised to her on faith, not knowing where the funds will come from.
Only then, after our assignment was finished and we had moved on to another place, did the “feeling” of effectiveness kick in. Although the cost to hire someone to paint a few rooms and walls was likely negligible, the small amount we could save them means the difference between turning someone away and welcoming them in. The difference is quite literally life and death. At long last, it wasn’t just someone’s rhetoric that I had accepted. It was real and tangible and personal.
It was the story of my friend, her baby, and her grandmother. And in some small way, I got to be a part of that.
