Where i went to college, they called it
World Christianity. Where i did my
DTS,
they called it ...normal. I think most people, however, would call it something like "aid work." Relief and development, mercy ministry, or whatever you please - mainly, it's all just about lending a hand to those less fortunate than yourself. But i've also heard it called something else.
"White guilt" is a phrase i'm sure you've already run across. If you haven't, it's referring in general to the largesse of developed nations toward the less developed. It makes assumptions not only about the ethnicities of both sides but also about the motivations of the giving side. It's an interesting term. It's useful in a limited way, but mainly, it's full of crap.
To people who use it, i say: Speak for yourself. On my sole visit to Africa thus far (two months living in The Gambia), i met two different families of foreigners, each thousands of miles from home, who had moved to the dusty poverty of West Africa - children and all - to live among its people and lend a hand. One family was from Scotland. 'See,' you say, 'they're white!' (Careful with those assumptions again.) But the other family was from Brazil. They weren't rich Brazilians, either. They just felt called, and they went.
They're not the only ones. It's a story you hear over and over again in YWAM and other circles. The YWAMers and Mercy Shippers i worked alongside were from over
forty different nations. There were more Central Americans and Africans than there were Europeans. I think we can safely say that "white guilt" is not white.
And is it guilt? Let's see. I've met a few people who did say, when asked how they wound up out there, that they "just felt like they wanted to give something back." I'd say that does qualify for guilt - but here's the interesting thing: I don't think i ever heard that response from a self-professed active Christian. The people i knew who felt that way were good people. They were doing good things. But it was all about them feeling better. They came and went, and they made a difference, and hopefully it made a difference in them - but they didn't get it.
You can't spend your life trying to assuage your conscience any more than you can spend it trying to fill others' needs. Neither one will satisfy. You'll get results from both, but you'll never be content. Unless you're working from a conscience freed by your security in God's forgiveness and love, you'll never really feel good enough about anything you do. And since the ways of the world see to it that there will never be any less need than when you started trying to fill it, you'll only burn yourself out working in response to need. You have to work in response to a call.
Where does that leave us? In the midst of it, as ever - little by little, day by day. But that's the great part about living in free obedience rather than the slavery of felt obligation. Most of us don't need be in a mud hut in Outer Mongolia to be right where we need to, each making our contributions to it all. Often, we can stay right where we are. That's the easy part. The hard part is that it can be easier to contemplate packing up and moving to a mud hut than it is to really get our heads around the reality of living with purpose right where we are.
When i say living with purpose, i mean living according to your beliefs. If you call yourself Christian, it's generally accepted to mean you get your direction from the Bible and church tradition. What does the Bible have to say about living with purpose? Well, you can choose between the Old Testament and the New. In the Old Testament, they had a whole lot of laws and rules to obey - like, say, giving away ten percent of your income. Like any kind of legalism, it was aggravating, but it was comfortable. When Jesus showed up he presented a new option, which looked a whole lot easier (just live according to Love) but which in fact was pretty sobering, because there were no boundaries to it. You had to look at your money as what it really was - temporary, fleeting; a generous loan from God for you to manage well during your brief lifetime. Yeah, ouch.
In other words, in light of the incredible human suffering that you personally have the power to end as easily as if by snapping your fingers: do you really need that extra ____? or that fancy _____? We all have to fill in our own blanks there, but we've all got them. Start with the little things, if you like. Skip the extra Coke this week and
buy a week of nourishment for a hungry kid. Or go for a real lifechanging experience. Instead of that third trip this month to Old Navy (or Target, or Pottery Barn),
take a trip somewhere else and see it all for yourself. You don't need to be white and/or guilty. Don't do it to make yourself feel better. Do it to take a first step on the best adventure life has to offer. You'll never wish you hadn't.
More ranting on
that soon.
(27 May/High Point, NC/Casio EX-Z750)
