I recently made some difficult and deliberately disobedient choices in order to maintain my integrity and internal peace, and wrote a letter to the Wesleyan Church encouraging improvements to a concerningly flawed public view they have published. Leaders at my place of employment responded by terminating me and a friend, a controversial course of action which has since been reported on national news sources. The story is an important one, but I tire from the spotlight and now look forward to a year serving others, away from all this.
In a few months I’ll be leaving with a squad of others to visit locally run mission sites in other countries and lend them our aid. What that means is, if we are sent to a soup kitchen, we may help serve food, but we will more likely serve the local missionaries through manual labor like cleaning the kitchen, organizing supplies, and aiding in other grunt work they may not normally have the hands and time to accomplish.
For much of my life–right into early adulthood–I truly liked myself, but I did not love myself. I became aware of this reality when I was serving as a student leader at Messiah University, and the imperative to learn assertive self-love became lucid during a series of traumatic events that followed my time in undergrad. I did learn to love myself well, and to put up healthier boundaries each year hence, but in doing so I sometimes felt I was losing the selfless parts of myself I liked. I could love myself, but not like myself; the opposite of the original predicament. Over the past year, I’ve made significant progress in healing and rediscovering the me I once liked so much. The wonderful community at Houghton and the opportunity to exercise courage under stress helped me remember who I am. I imagine a year of serving others will cultivate this restorative magic as well.
The work we’ll be doing excites me, especially if we’ll have the opportunity to assist refugee care sites while in the Middle East. But I’ve had to ask, “Is it ethical?” (Classic Shua.) There has been debate in recent years about Christian missions as ethnocentric and causing long-term harm. I’ve been to Uganda a few times and have learned that in their education system, Ugandan history lessons often start in the 1940s. Humans have lived in that land for so much more than 100 years!! Colonialism and missions that spread not just the Gospel, but the Western way of life have been erasing cultures and histories rather than dignifying peoples around the world. I don’t want to be a part of that. So, when I was interviewing for a spot on this quad, I also interviewed them about the ethics of their approach. And I set up a second call to do that a lot more, just to be thorough and at peace. In the end, I feel great about the journey we’ll go on and the impact God will have through us. There will be times the White Savior in each of us–myself included–will emerge, but I’ll be prepared to challenge our approach. Because, yeah, that’s an unpopular thing I’m called to do here and there.
Thanks for taking the time to read! I’ll be writing a lot over the next year. Please follow along, and if you feel called to support the trip financially, any amount helps. If you would consider partnering with me and remotely making this mission yours as well, please contact me and we can discuss! In addition to travel costs, the funding helps pay local missions organizations for our food and housing, which helps further support their efficacy and reach.
The entirety of this blog and its contents were written and published without any AI assistance.
