The ugly side of missions

warning.. this post may be confronting

This time last year I was in training school to be a missionary. Practical tips and tricks for surviving in a developing nation including mountain survival and how to catch fish with a spear. I also saw the cool stuff...God at work in spectacular ways- in me, through me and around me. I was so pumped when I was accepted to work in the orphanage- I remember yelling the joyful news to all and sundry who happened to be sitting around me in the little cafe we spent our down time in eating cheap cheeseburgers and trying not to flirt with each other (we were at mission school after all!)

(Considering there have been 3 marriages and a fourth  in a couple of weeks obviously the flirting was still accomplished)

And then I went to the continent of  Africa. Now just to be clear I had been to Africa before and I didn't spend that time living in a hotel. I partnered with some people doing amazing work there. I hugged lots of gorgeous brown babies, helped with activities and projects, rode on the back of a boda boda (motorcycle) without a helmet and ate more rice and posho then I ever want to eat again!

So I was prepared... but still no one can prepare you for the ugly side of missions.

It started when I got off the plane. There was a miscommunication and the orphanage thought I was arriving the previous day- so there was nobody to meet me off the plane and I had to call. The Director was irritated that I had called and told me that they tried to pick me up yesterday and that there would be a driver waiting me.

When I arrived I was given a brief tour and then left to my own devices.... Not for an hour or two to sleep off my jetlag but for the next two days to settle in!  No introductions to anyone- no kindly welcome by the Director who was too busy sorting donated clothes to even really acknowledge that I had flown halfway around the world to be there.

It went downhill from there. That first weekend on a rainy Sunday night I told  two kids who were rough-housing in the hall together to stop as  it looked dangerous. The next day the shit hit the fan and I got a complete bollocking because I had dared to intervene and how dare I tell this particular child what to do.
 
I tried hard to fit in- and quickly grew to love the kids in the centre I was working with. There were some good days. I got to see giraffes up close and feed one, I really enjoyed teaching Preschool in the mornings to the kids and spent time writing up a program for next three months to try and put my professional skills as a teacher to good use. I also started reading stories to the toddlers every night and tucking them in because no one was. It was our special time together and the kids grew to love it as much as I did.

My other co-workers were a little cliquey- too busy talking about nail polish and fashion as well as spending at least 20 minutes a day smoking outside the gate for which they had special permission to do so. The exclusion and cliquey ness got worse as time went on. There was one girl in particular who took a complete disliking to me and would deliberately ignore me as much as possible and yelled at me for no good reason. When I went and tried to get the issue resolved with the Director, The Director told me that she was long-term; implying that not only she was more important than me but that I needed to fit around her and her moods.  The hardest lesson I learnt that day was just because people are Christians doesn't mean that they have to like each other.

The orphanage was inside a locked compound for which I didn't have a key. If I wanted to go outside of the gate for any reason I needed to knock on the door of the Director's house and ask for permission. Even going outside to go for a walk was a big deal with lots of cross questioning.  I felt like I was a 5 year old who didn't know the road rules. Even worse, you had to knock on the door to the Director's house for everything. The website advertises the place as "come and join family" what family makes you knock on the door to ask for more garbage bags or dishwashing liquid?

The other girls would be asked to go out for frozen yoghurt with the Director's daughter but I wouldn't be asked to come. When I asked if I could come and  questioned my obvious exclusion there was a big scene with the implication being; how dare I question her and what she was doing in her own time with her friends and that I needed to give it time for people to want to be friendly towards me.

What made it worse was the way kids were disciplined. I saw kids being disciplined for wetting the bed. They were told they weren't in trouble for actually wetting the bed but because they were too lazy to get out of bed in the middle of the night to go to the toilet and fed the line- "you do the possible and God will do the impossible." What the! They are 7! There was one child who was a chronic bed wetter- he wasn't allowed to sleep in the house with the other boys and slept by himself in the girl's house. One week we discovered that he had been hiding a week's worth of wet bed sheets in the Wendy house- he spent the entire afternoon sitting on the naughty step being made to feel like a pariah. Plus, the punishment for lying was having to bite through a hot chili or in chronic cases eat the entire chili. "As your tongue burns remember the pain of our heart's burning as we feel sad that you lied to us." One kid came in one day with massive pains in his tummy because of the chili he had to eat. It made me very uncomfortable but I didn't feel able to say anything. I could clearly see that some of the kids were favoured above others and realised the reason I got a bollocking so early in the piece is that I had disciplined a favourite!

The best time of day was early morning. I would go out to this rocky outcrop and soak up the beautiful view and pray and read the Bible. It definitely helped. God sent some wonderful people who did support me and love me. Sarah, Tati and William and Brooke you were all a Godsend to me. I was so blessed to call you friends, so blessed to have you on side when I needed to cry and vent and pray with someone.

Plus I had the opportunity to visit an amazing friend Dikelo who came all the way out one night to pick me up. We sat in a restaurant and I spilled my guts. She was so comforting and such a God breathed miracle. I spent the weekend with her and I met her home group leader Wim- he and his wife Mienke would turn out to be a miracle just waiting in the wings. 

At that time I knew that something wasn't right that went beyond mere culture shock- I started crying everyday for no good reason. In the 5 minutes that I spoke to Wim he said to me that it sounds like I was being spiritually manipulated and I started realising that this just might be the case.

The Director would have one face when there was a visiting team- caring, friendly and loving and another when there wasn't; cold, distant and controlling. We had a large team come for Christmas and in amongst the get to know you activities she insisted that we go around in a circle and reveal what our bad habits were. It really started to feel that she was collecting ammunition to use on us later.

I kept praying and one Sunday morning we had a visiting speaker do this amazing skit for us about the love of God. As I sat there I realised what the problem was... The Holy Spirit always convicts, the enemy always condemns. Every day I was feeling condemned... I was feeling trapped like a bird in a cage that can't fly free. I had just spent 3 months regaining my freedom and learning to soar.  I wasn't prepared to go back to living life on the ground like a chicken. 

As I spoke to Brooke about how I felt she really encouraged me and we prayed that God would give me an exit and show me what to do. The next morning (Monday) I woke up at 4am and from the safety of the prayer hut I rang Mum in Australia and had a long talk to her. Without me really saying much she said to me "that sounds like a spirit of jezebel to me." This was what I had thought too but it was nice to have someone else come out and say it.

She told me that she thought I should leave and prayed for me over the phone (Thank God for cheap calling to Australia!) Dikelo was away and so was Wim. So I text Sam a friend from Middlemount who is South African and  asked her if she knew anyone I could stay with.  She texted me back 10 minutes later with two names- one for her Aunt Dorothy and the other for her friend Elaine.

At about 8am that same day I rang Dorothy. She said that because I was a friend of Sam's she could come and get me but maybe not til Thursday as I was about an hour away from her. I prayed and said "OK Jesus do what you need to do." One hour later she rang back and said that she was visiting a friend who knew where I was and that she could come and get me at 2pm that day! I found out later on that Sam managed to get on facebook and have a facebook conversation with Dorothy even though they never regularly messaged each other and never at that time.

In the meantime I taught Preschool for the last time and quietly packed up everything. I wanted to leave well and that meant talking to the Director one last time.

All I said to her was that this placement wasn't a good fit for me and thank you so much for everything. She was ropable!!  Her parting words to me (at a volume just below a scream)  were "you have a spirit of jezebel and how dare you bring negativity on my organisation on God's organisation and that you have lots of issues to deal with lady wherever you go you take yourself with yourself!"

She then refused to let me say goodbye to anyone and interrupted me saying goodbye to one of the only other women on staff that had been kind.

I kept praying especially for a quick getaway and Dorothy arrived half an hour early! As I got in her car with all my stuff I cried- tears of gratitude, tears of sadness ugly tears...

The ugly side of mission 

What makes me sad about this whole encounter is that I tried to get help  before all this occurred and never got a response. 2 months later when I finally heard from the long term committee who had placed me there... The three word response I received was "that's so sad!" The only other correspondence I got was from other people involved in the missionary organisation I was with which was "you can't accuse people of being manipulative or having a spirit of jezebel. You had a personality clash just move on."


The reason I am writing all of this out is an opportunity for me to heal. If you notice I haven't included any names of organisations or bases or people except for those who were helpful and caring and please don't ask. It isn't important.

I have learnt some ugly truths about missions- the kinds of things they can't teach you in training.

1. Check out the integrity of the organisation- what is their dispute policy do they have someone you can call and speak to who will be impartial?  If the organisation has a top down approach where each director is directly responsible for each base be warned! There is no accountability in a structure like that.  When I finally met Dorothy's friend Elaine her husband works for an American based mission agency. His core job is to support personnel on the field and he will go and visit them and sort out issues and help them in whatever way they need. 

2. Never sign up for long term straight away. Go in... see the place, meet the people, get a feel for the way it operates. Leave, come back again- talk to people- pray.

3. Working with people takes time- the two biggest reasons that people leave the field are because of personality clashes and issues with schooling children. I stayed at that base for 7 weeks before I left. I wanted to really see if it wasn't just culture shock.... It wasn't

4. If there is an issue ensure it's dealt with wholistically. None of this "God's got you she'll be right" bull shit that people like to spout..

In fact I have given up on cliches they hurt more than they heal...  

5. Find out how long the mission agency has been running. If it isn't long established there may not be protocol in place for situations like this which means that they may not know how to deal with it.

God looked after me in Africa. I spent Christmas with Dorothy who went out of her way to bless me and encourage me plus introduce me to more missionaries than I ever thought possible! One of whom Ruth even took me on a day safari to see giraffes, zebras and elephants in the wild!  Wim and Mienke offered me an amazing apartment in Johannesburg rent free for 10 days. It was amazing and gave me a great chance to decompress and regroup.

 My dreams for Africa are dead at the moment but I know that God can resurrect if he wants to.
In the midst of pain and ugliness God is still faithful.