Motivation

Orphan Care is a Short-Term Gig

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pexels-photo-167300When caring for children at risk, children who are abandoned or orphaned, it’s important to realize it’s just for a season. You need to know that, for many reasons, children you’re caring for are going to leave. We need to be ready for it, and we need to help them be ready for it.

Frequently children leave your care to go into questionable situations, and it will rip your heart out. Sometimes we initiate the change; usually it’s outside influences. Sometime they will head into great situations, some not so great. As people who are called to serve children, we need to realize the time we have with the children in our care is frequently shorter than it should be, and that time is precious. “Normal” parents have at least eighteen years to speak into a child’s life; we don’t have that luxury. The short time we have with these children will impact them the rest of their lives.

I have been in orphan care for almost 25 years. I still remember my first year, when the team here decided that we needed to kick a teen boy, Raul, out of the orphanage. Think about that for a minute: a child who’s already been abandoned, we were going to remove from what I thought we were building as the last refuge. This teen boy had become so rebellious, and such a danger to the other children and staff, that we needed to remove him from our home. We tried every form of discipline and professional counseling we could, but nothing broke through. His tearful pleading for “one last chance” as he was being taken away to a smaller, stricter orphanage will be burned into my memory forever. His departure tore me up for weeks.

About five years ago a 15-year-old girl, Maria, who had been in our care for several years was returned to her mother. We didn’t feel great about it, nor did Maria, but we didn’t have a say in the matter. All we could do was watch her leave and hope and pray that the social worker made the right decision.

Recently, two wonderful young girls were returned by our government social worker to their parents. We did not believe for a moment this was a good thing. For a number of reasons we did not feel this was the right decision, but the social workers had completed home visits and felt it was right to return these girls to their family. The girls had shared with us the horrible treatment they had received in their home and when the parents visited we could see it was just an unhealthy situation. It was VERY frustrating, and several of our staff were very upset, but you can only do what you can do.

It can be a long hard battle as we fight for what’s best for a child. Ask anyone who works in foster care about the frustrations experienced as children are moved around and often placed back with unstable or questionable family. Don’t get me wrong, when it’s a healthy situation I am 100% in favor of the family reunification. But frequently these are Solomon like decisions made by well-meaning but fallible people. When the decision is right it’s great; when the decision is wrong, it places children in harm’s way.

All we can do is plant the seeds, pray over our children, and hope for the best. Whether it’s our biological children that get married and move on when they become adults, or a temporary care situation and the child leaves us when they are much younger, their future is not in our control. All we can do is give them tools they will need to make healthy decisions. We need to show them how to handle the incredible challenges that life will place in their paths. They, like us, are in God’s hands.

About ten years after we “kicked Raul out,” he dropped by for a visit. We had lost track of him and assumed we would never see him again. But, the time he spent with us had a deep and positive impact on his life. He came back with his wife and two children to show them where he had spent several years and to introduce us. We had a long talk, and he shared that he now understands why he needed to be moved. He also now felt it was the best decision we could have made for his life. It was hard, but it was a wake-up call for him. It turned his life around, and he was now doing well with a family of his own.

A few weeks ago Maria got in contact with us, and we went out to lunch. We were right about her mom. Maria’s mother ignored her, never put her in school, and spent most of her time drinking and partying. After several months with mom Maria went with dad, who was no better. But, Maria remembered what she had been taught. She is now on her own, doing well, active in a church, and is planning her wedding. The seeds we planted took root.

There is a point to this rambling blog. What we do in child care, while we can, matters more than we know. Not all stories have happy endings. Most of the time we will never know about the lives of the children once they leave us. But when it works, the moments when we emotionally connect with a child, the time we spend listening to them, the examples we set changes lives. Use what little time you have as the precious gift it is.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…” James 1:27

(Names were changed to protect the privacy of people mentioned here.)

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WE DON’T NEED YOUR ORGANIC GARDEN

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pexels-photo-348689Many short-term mission teams come with their own pre-planned ideas and agendas; this is fine as long as they mesh with the goals of the ministry they’re serving. Sometimes these goals and agendas are questionable at best. Sometimes they can be harmful to the goals that have been laid out by the receiving ministries and communities.

We once had a well-meaning group ask us about building some very large chicken coops bordering on a professional size operation. On the surface, it sounded great. “Sweet, free eggs for the orphanage”, but something in my gut said this was a mistake. It was outside our vision, and nobody on our staff had the skills or time to manage it. As a team, we decided to move ahead with the project, but it felt like a weight was added to our already complicated days. This highly motivated group spent tens of thousands of dollars and several months setting up “the chicken project.” When they were done and gone, we had around 400 chickens producing eggs. Once again, on the surface, this sounds great. With several months of egg production under our belt, we did the numbers. After paying for extra staffing, feed, utilities, sick birds, etc. it was MUCH cheaper and simpler to just go buy eggs. We wound up eating a lot of chicken over the next six months and eventually converted the chicken barns into something we could actually use.

If you, or your missions team, have an idea for a project, one of your first steps should always be communication. Talk with your receiving organization to see if the idea is something that would actually serve the ministry. Your idea might be great, but if it doesn’t match the vision and skill sets of the people you’re serving, it’s just a great idea that will eventually die off. They need to REALLY get on board, not just say “yes” to make you happy. The receiving organization has to have somebody on their team who is excited about your idea and willing to manage it.

Mission projects tend to come in trends. Many years ago everyone wanted to install computer labs. Right now the project everyone is pushing is hydroponic or organic gardens. Using computer labs and gardens as an example, unless someone is staying behind, or the ministry has someone on staff with a vision to maintain it, it’s wasted effort and funding. Orphanages and schools around the world had computer labs set up ten or fifteen years ago that quickly gathered dust because no one on site had the IT knowledge or desire to keep them up. I’ve seen dozens of hydroponic gardens either rotting away or torn down to have the materials used for other projects. Computer labs and gardens CAN work and be a huge blessing, but only if the receiving ministry has someone on staff to see it through. 

Is your project something they want? Or is this great project YOUR idea that would work “if only they did their part.”  Many receiving organizations will say yes to a project because they feel obligated. They don’t want to offend. It took me a long time realize it’s better to risk offending someone with a great idea than to say “yes” to be polite and suffer through it.

Every couple of weeks, a different person contacts me about setting up a pen-pal project between the children in our orphanage and a school in the US. On the surface, this sounds nice, and I know the people mean well, but this makes NO sense on several levels. My first thought is: “You have heard of this thing called the internet and Facebook right?” To spend time and money to mail letters back and forth doesn’t make a lot of sense anymore. Also, just as I know this is a homework project for a US Spanish class, my kids see it as the same thing, another homework project they do NOT want to do. A pen-pal program would also require one of my staff to manage it: sorting letters, badgering our kids to write back, mailing everything, etc. One more great idea that we would have to manage together with our already overworked staff.

I know I sometimes offend people when I say “no” to a project. Sometimes they seem crushed that I’m not thrilled with their idea. I hate to discourage anyone from serving, but sometimes I need to say “no” for the good of our staff, and the children in our care. It’s so much better to have people spend their time, energy, and resources to come alongside a ministry with a project that is needed. To build a relationship, bless them, and partner with them in work they’re called to do.

Communication is critical in so many areas of our lives. Honest conversations are all too rare. When you layer the mission team goals, cultural differences, the pressure to keep “donors” happy, communication can be extremely difficult. Your mission project idea might be incredible, but unless the people receiving this project are honestly on board, nobody comes out ahead. You will be wasting efforts and resources.

As for the idea of chickens… Years after the “chicken incident” an older gentleman on our maintenance staff asked if he could get a few birds. He patched some coops together using scrap wood and started the project with almost no funding, but he “owned” the project. Within a few months, he had about 15 birds and a nice little egg production going for our home. Later a group came alongside his vision and helped him grow to about 50 birds. It was the right time, with someone on-site with the skills and vision to run with it. We finally got a chicken project that worked.

Please share on Facebook or with your missions pastor.

Maybe You’re NOT Called into Missions

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God can use anyone. He wants to use us in ways we can only begin to imagine. God can, and does, use everyone who makes themselves available and open to His will. But, it needs to be in His will and His timing. We all have different giftings and talents; not everyone can do every job.

We host a lot of groups here at our ministry in Mexico, almost three hundred groups a year. For most people, short-term missions is a mountaintop experience, an experience that has a tangible impact on their lives. Frequently, when people are out of their comfort zone and the distractions of everyday life, God can and does speak to them in new ways. More often than not, IF a person has a call on their lives for full-time missions work, they will first hear that calling on a short-term trip. I’ve never met anyone in long-term missions, that didn’t start with a short-term mission trip. So, if you’re on a mission trip, and feel called long-term, what do you do?

Almost every group we host has one person who comes to my office and asks about staying long-term to partner with us. We love that people are open to the idea of long-term missions and a life of service. But, when people are on a short-term trip and immediately want to transfer it into a long-term commitment, we find this tends to be an emotional decision. God might be speaking to them, or it might just be them caught up in the emotions of the moment. How do you know the difference?

When someone approaches me on a trip about long-term missions, I always meet with them, try to encourage them, and give them all of the pertinent information. I also tell them to go away for about thirty days. If, after a month, they still feel called, then it might be real. I don’t want them deciding in the moment. To commit to a mission for six months, a year, or longer is a huge decision. If it’s not done in the right way, a person’s desire to serve can sometimes do more harm than good.

If you feel called into a long-term mission (6 months or longer) there are a few things you should do. Before anything else, go to the person in your life who REALLY knows you, and you see as a leader. This person might be your pastor, youth pastor, mentor, or some other person you trust completely. It needs to be a person who will be honest with you. The hope is that if your personality or skill sets are not ready for the missions field, they will speak the truth to you. If they think you do have the right motivation, skills, and calling, they can help you take the next steps.

If you feel called into missions, honestly ask yourself whether or not you have a humble servants heart. This will make all the difference. Everyone thinks they have a humble, servant attitude until they’re asked to serve. It can be very challenging to be self-aware in this area; this is another reason to seek wise counsel. Are you living a life of service now? If you’re not serving those in your church, your school, your work, your town, you won’t suddenly develop a servant’s heart once you cross the border. Just because you change location doesn’t mean your personality and priorities will change. In every way, your baggage travels with you.

Humble service is a big deal to God and essential in missions. As we go into the mission field, we need to represent Christ well and walk in His steps. If we look at the life of Jesus, He was all about service. Humble service. Very often, when He did great acts, He would instruct those around Him to tell no-one. Every action Jesus took was for the benefit of others, are you ready to walk in the same way?

You might be called into missions, even if it’s just for a season in your life. Please be open to that calling and seek competent counsel. If it’s right, and the calling is real, it will change your life in ways you can only imagine, and you will find a joy that few people experience. If you think you’re called into missions, and it’s from the wrong motivations or the timing is not right, you can do a great deal of damage. Please seek God, and make a mature, informed decision.

Please share with the missions pastor at your church. Thanks.

Photo credit: Pat Rogers: Pat Rogers Studios

Where is Your Missions Gold?

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Few things generate more of an immediate and emotional response than the topic of money. People have a natural, deep response to finances and the material wealth of this world. Where and how we use our resources shows where our hearts are.

Interestingly, Jesus taught more on our response to money and worldly treasure than almost any other topic. Our attitude toward money is important to God, and it comes up over and over again in the Bible. The rich young ruler, the parable of the talents, and the workers in the field, are all there to teach us the attitude we should have when it comes to money. There is nothing inherently wrong with money, it’s how we deal with it that gets complicated. One of the most misquoted Bible verses is 1st Timothy 6:10. It doesn’t say that money is the root of all evil, but rather the LOVE of money. Money matters, but what matters more is our response to it. It’s a big topic and we need to be mature and wise about it.

Jesus taught us that where our gold is, our heart will also be. Money in missions has a HUGE impact, so how we raise it, how we distribute it, and how to be responsible stewards of the limited money that exists are extremely important. Whenever I meet with orphanage directors or missions leaders, the topic of fundraising always comes up. The reality is that missions cost money. Money to care for children at risk, money to feed the needy, money to educate, etc.

Several years ago, we hosted a large group from the southeast US at our orphanage in Baja, Mexico. This is one of many groups, but this one group stood out for the wrong reasons. They flew 30 people across the US to southern California, rented vans, and drove down to serve with us for five days. We were happy to have them. Most groups bring some type of funding to cover materials for projects while they’re with us. This group brought $500 to use for projects and to bless our home. We appreciate any donation, but when I heard what they were doing the two days after they left us it struck me as odd. The group of 30 traveled three hours north of us to finish out their missions trip spending two days at Disneyland. There is nothing wrong with visiting Disneyland, but my guess is that those two days cost the group around $9,000 in tickets lodging and food. When the team was raising money to go and serve orphans in Mexico, were they transparent in letting donors know how much of the money would be spent on non-missional activity? Even if they spent their own money on the extras for the trip, is that the most productive use of their resources while on a missions trip?

A few years ago, my wife and I had the opportunity to go and serve with an orphanage in Ghana West Africa. We had some very long conversations about the cost of this trip. My wife and I have over two decades of experience in running a very large orphanage. We felt we were bringing something of value to the home in Ghana, and that we could make a substantial impact. We also knew that it would cost around $5,000 for the two of us to take this trip. We had to decide what would be the best use of those funds. Should we pay our way with the intention of blessing that home in the two weeks we’re with them? Or should we just send them a check for $5,000? We had a responsibility to be good stewards of the funds we had available. In the end, we decided to go, and I’m glad we did. I believe the coaching we provided helped in their fundraising and generated ten times as much for that ministry as we spent to get there. We also decided to leave a financial donation to be used in any way they saw fit. I’m not sharing this to show how “generous” we are. I’m sharing this because I think it’s a great policy to leave a substantial donation with whoever is hosting your short-term missions team. Call it “tithing in on travel expenses” if you like.

We are called to be wise in our decisions and use of the resources we’ve been entrusted with. God wants us to make the most of the funds available to us. We need to seek healthy organizations wherever we’re serving. Organizations that we partner with need to have a high level of accountability, a history of productive work, and have shown responsible stewardship of the resources made available to them.

Be careful where you put your gold, your heart will follow.

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