“When the world transforms, it won’t be because we snuck around and were not honest about who we were and why we were there. It will be because we knocked on the front door and came as partner-servants, not as colonialist-messiahs.” Bob Roberts, Jr in Glocalization
On one occasion during the World Race I had to pause to think about whether we were honoring the people we had traveled so far to serve. When we entered China we did so knowing it was possible we could have been sent out of the country if the government learned that we were missionaries. My team and I joined the efforts of another organization in a visit to a University in central China. We spent two weeks in a “cultural exchange” program. If asked, I volunteered that I was a Christian. My officially stated purpose in my visit to China was to learn about the culture. Both facts, my Christianity and my desire to learn about Chinese culture, were true. After reading a good book about global missions recently, the book quoted above, I may pursue future trips to China differently. Still, I ultimately decided that while my missionary status may have beenslightly diminished that month I was not being dishonest.
It seems ten Christians from the United States, who traveled to Haiti as missionaries, have found themselves in a sticky situation over the last week or so.
A group of ten folks, mainly from Idaho, went to Haiti with the stated intention of pulling orphans from Port au Prince and taking them to the Dominican Republic where they would find them a new home in an orphanage. NPR did a good job of reporting the original story on their news blog. Apparently the group attempted to cross the Haitian/Dominican border with 33 children and no paperwork. They were arrested on charges of child kidnapping. In the wake of the January 12 earthquake, the Haitian government has boosted security against possible child trafficking. In case you think this is overblown, know that human trafficking is a real issue. This from Matthew Snyder‘s blog, Kingdom Issue: Human Trafficking:
Human trafficking is, in fact, modern day slavery and it happens all
over the world. At any given moment the International Labor
Organization (ILO) reports that 12.3 million people are in slavery worldwide, the majority of them being for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked every year internationally (that doesn’t include domestic trafficking) for sexual exploitation.
I’m not saying that this is what our American friends were into, but I am saying that the reality and gravity of what it means to move people across borders should have caused these ten missionaries to be a little more conscientious.
When we fail to respect the laws of the lands we travel to serve we discredit ourselves. Our motive comes into question and we come off as though we are demeaning the governments we should be trying to engage as partners. We need to empower local authority to serve their own people, not undermine them by shortcutting their rules to make ourselves the heroes.
Recent news reports are that there is now infighting among the missionaries. Most of the group is saying their team leader lied to them about whether they have proper documentation. Their Haitian lawyer (hired by a Dominican lawyer retained by the missionaries’ families) was recently fired after reportedly trying to bribe the missionaries’ way out of jail. The NPR article linked at the beginning of this paragraph also states that, although the group was trying to help orphans, it appears 20 of the 33 children they took still have living parents.
I am glad to be a part of a community that respects authority. The entire year I spent abroad with the World Race I felt as though our authorities had thought of the concerns and informed us well on how to stay safe and respect our hosting culture. In the staff house I now live in we have an emergency phone line to receive calls from World Race teams. A team even called last night at 3 AM regarding a money issue and the phone was answered. I am proud to be a part of an organization with a strong, stable 20-year history.
I grieve for the missionaries who are being held and their families who are surely worried about them. Let us pray for their safety. Let us pray that out of this hardship they receive a tough lesson. Let us pray that moving forward in their missions career they will, as Bob Roberts, Jr. says “knock on the front door”.
