Diana At the Crossroad: On Being a Christian PCV

Before the Peace Corps, the only experience I’ve had with developing countries and with extended volunteer projects has been through churches. I’ve been to Ghana, Haiti, Costa Rica, and many cities in America to build, repair, teach, and to share the gospel.

I was never ignorant of the negative views many people have of Christian missionaries and Christian volunteers. I’ve had it directed at me and I’ve seen it directed at other volunteers, or just at Christianity as a whole.

Peace Corps makes it clear to all applicants that our job is not to convert anyone. And because I really wanted the job, I made it clear that is not what I’m setting out to do. And I was honest, that is not why I’m here. I won’t stop being a Christian and trying to be an example of love by my actions, but I’m also not putting a bible in front of anyone’s face.

Since becoming a volunteer and working here with Peace Corps, it seems everyone has an opinion about Christian volunteers. Most of it is not good. Well, host country nationals often have good things to say, but other volunteers and expats have little nice to say about it.

I feel like now I’ve lived in both worlds and I’ve seen both sides of the story. I believe that secular volunteers and expats have a point, but I also believe that there is a lot they don’t understand and they are not even trying to understand.

The first important thing that I have learned from… well from life… is that only well-thought out, patient, and revisited projects are the projects that do any good. It’s very easy to actually do more harm than good, even if intention is all good. I’ve seen and heard countless stories of this being the case. Here are some examples.

A Christian group of people come in for a week, and they build a beautiful classroom in the name of Jesus. The village is extremely grateful. The people leave. 2 months later, the roof collapses, and the village cannot fix it because they don’t have the necessary materials or money. The broken building remains there, constantly referred to as “the useless building the people gave us in the name of Jesus.”

A secular group of volunteers finds a village in desperate need of a water pump. The group raises the money, finds a spot where they can build a nice deep well, and gets it done. All is finished and they go home to their lives. Another volunteer comes to the village and notices that no one is using the perfectly good pump. After a while, the village finally admits to the volunteer that they don’t use it because the water tastes funny. It’s too deep.

Then of course everyone knows of a common result of too much charity, or too much charity done in the wrong way- a village that stops trying to help itself because it can just wait for free handouts.

I realize that there are many (but CERTAINLY not all) mission trips and Christian missionaries who make some of these mistakes. However, there are also plenty of secular groups that make mistakes. The problem is not a result of the religion, but rather a problem in poor planning and evaluation. Christian volunteers do a lot of good in this world, but I know I’d be ignorant to say that all of their projects are successful. So I will say that these groups, as well as all groups looking to selflessly give of their time and money, should spend more time in the planning stage and in the wrap-up stage and less in the doing stage. They NEED to spend time getting to know the community and really learning what their needs are. What you see as their needs and what they see as needs are likely to be very different. More importantly, the groups NEED to follow up. More than once. Regardless of the project, leaders need to check that the practices taught or the infrastructures set in place are indeed working as desired.

Now, on the other hand, we have all the critics of Christian volunteers. Here is their basic argument; Christian volunteers come in here and they give the locals exactly what they want- if they locals are willing to become Christians themselves. They’re sneaky about it and they promise things like free English lessons or other gifts as long as they promise to come to church. Then at these lessons, they work to convert the locals, thus working against preserving all the beautiful cultures of the world.

Alright, so these are some serious accusations. And you know what? I’m not even going to say that they are all out of line. However, they are closed-minded and even somewhat ignorant. What the non-Christians don’t understand is that community service and the teaching and the giving is not a trick to pull people in. Anyone who has ever been on a mission trip can tell you that even on a trip where the main goal is to share God’s word, they always ask “what else can we do to help them?” Not because they want to have a big audience, or even because they want the people to remember them. It is because God told us to love our neighbor, give to the poor, and take care of the widows and orphans in this world. Christian volunteerism is not done out of trickery or mind-games. It is done out of love. Non Christians are watching from the outside, comparing it to the way they do things, and calling it wrong and claiming to understand it. What they don’t know is that the Christians are just doing their best to do some good with whatever they have, even if what they have is just human labor for a week, hugs for some orphans, or some English language practice.

Furthermore, Christians believe in something. They believe in something so strongly that they believe it is so important and worth it to share with the world. They believe that if you introduce someone to a man named Jesus, then that someone need not be afraid of death. They believe it and they are acting on it. And why is that so bad, huh? Why do we live in a world where we commend anyone who is true to their heart and acts on what they believe in, as long as that belief is not Christianity?

Now the hardest thing to address is the accusation that Christians are destroying cultures. Culture and religion are two separate things, but I do see how they are closely connected. First, I’ll say that it is not a Christian’s intention to change cultures, and if it is for certain Christians, then they should really re-think their goals and compare them with God’s goals in the bible. Christians believe that God made this world and everything in it. And look at this world! Look at all the different features and characteristics and mysteries and things that even today we are still discovering. God also made all the people. And look at our differences! Our features, our shapes and sizes, our languages, our histories. For Christians, this is a thing to be celebrated as God’s handiwork. God says nowhere in the Bible “I love only Americans” or “I love only white people” or even “I love only people who love me.” He loves everyone, everywhere. God does not call us to change cultures, but to just introduce people to him. Anyways, look at our world now. Our world is becoming smaller and smaller by the minute. Having a TV and a facebook page is more important than having a stable roof or four walls (it’s true, I’ve seen it). People are so ready to point at Christians and blame them for inspiring changes in culture, but Christians over all these years haven’t done half of what technology has done in the last 100 years. If we’re so worried about preserving culture, then shouldn’t we control access to television, internet, telephone, etc only to the countries whose cultures have developed such things? And the same goes for medicine and other technologies. Perhaps we should keep medicine, injections, birth control, AIDS prevention, and other things away because it contradicts their culture. No, they should continue with their fortune tellers and traditional healers and try to find solutions for diseases using tools from their own culture. So again, I’m not saying that Christians DON’T inspire some changes in culture. I’m just pointing out that there is very little in our world today that DOESN’T, and many things do so in much larger ways than Christianity. But yet it is only Christianity that is looked down upon by people for this reason. Everything else is okay.

Well, there’s my two cents. I am a Christian and I am a Peace Corps volunteer, and, contrary to some belief, that is in no way a contradiction. I am here because God told me to love my neighbor and because I want to do just that. And if you want to make assumptions and judge me for that, then go ahead. But, if you think that by any chance there might be a piece of information you’re missing, I strongly recommend you look into it. No one REALLY has this world all figured out. Anyone who thinks they do, might as well be calling themselves God. I’ve been so confused about all these opinions coming at me for the past 10 months, and even the past 6 or 7 years about Christians and volunteering. So I listened. And watched. And experienced it both ways. And looked at it from both sides. And checked things out in the bible. And talked to people. Now maybe I’m still wrong. I’m not going to cross that off as impossible. But I believe that anyone with a strong opinion owes it to the world to turn it around and look at it from the other side of things. You may be surprised at the counter-thoughts your brain creates to your own opinion.

These are all photos from when I visited my sister's hometown in a small very rural village in northern Prey Veng.