I want to first explain my disagreement with the point of the 6-8 week change and then back to normal.... I believe that is true. But i dont think it is because they are not prepared necesarily. It is because they dont have a dedication to God to actually do his work as a daily process instead of a yearly thing. Something that is a habit. Something that they do in their own country.
I strongly agree with the 2nd point. It talks about doing something here before somewhere else. I think what we should do is simple. Take out time to do things in our vicinity like we would take time to do it elsewhere. We plan so much for trips that change a couple lives as opposed to doing something here and changing more lives in less time and being able to spend more time with them on a regular basis.
I completely agree with the first point. If we dont act the way we want others to act we will never get anything done. Nothing will ever change and nobody will ever be a true God following, dedicated christian. There will never be a example of how to live life in Jesus footsteps in our society today.
There is one point that is very true. Talking about interpreting the bible in our own personal context rather than its original context. We sometimes stretch the reality and elaborate our own ideas to things that have nothing to do with the moral or basic idea of the text. I think we should take more time to really look into what we are reading and read within the context rather than what we want it to mean to make us happy.
1 comment:
Gian,
good thoughts. As for your disagreement, you make a good point. There may be lots of reasons people aren't permanently affected by their missions experience - they may be very well prepared, but if they aren't really doing it for the right reasons, it's not going to have the desired outcome. And of course God can work with someone who is not prepared - of course. BUT that point comes from research that shows the majority - something like 90% - of people who go on short-term trips are back to normal within 6-8 weeks and no lasting changes are evident (the study was done on North Americans). The ones in which lasting changes were evidenced were those who had good preparation, time to process on the field, and debriefing at the end.
Thanks for the amount of thought you put into this post - you have good thoughts to share with the world, Gian.
-Jeff
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