The Mission Honeymoon and the Mission Reality

Just as assuming a person is completely bad is an incorrect assumption, assuming a person is completely good is also an incorrect assumption. It’s best just to understand that a person is completely human.

The first time I came to Venezuela I was 18 - I spoke Spanish well enough to ace even college Spanish exams but not well enough to understand when I was being made fun of or gossiped about. In an environment of relative poverty in comparison to the average lifestyle in the United States, I saw and experienced so many beautiful acts of kindness that I had never seen at home. This, however, does not mean that poor people are always kind.

As I have developed in my understanding of missions and social justice, my first response to being disgusted by my own wealth and my own luxuries was to react equally harshly to the wealth and luxuries of others. Immature conclusion: wealthy people are inherently and almost always incurably bad, and its converse: poor people must then be inherently and forever good.

In my first mission experiences, these ideas were reinforced by some quick analyses of my first observations - those beautiful acts of kindness that I had never seen at home. What I would like to call part of the Mission Honeymoon - everyone is poor and perfect. Ha!

Even as I matured in my mission experiences, I think somewhat this idea of perfection in poverty lingered in the back of my mind, because even recently, I have been both surprised and disappointed at certain things I’ve noticed here in the community… in other words, hit with the Mission Reality.

It is not only the gradual recognition that poverty does not equal the perfect environment to develop sinless people that breaks down the ideas one (or really, I) might have about wealth, poverty, and sin, but also my gradual realization of my own inability to reject all my wealth and luxuries. It is hard to admit one another’s humanness, and I think much harder to admit one’s own humanness. Guess what? Almost everyone enjoys as much luxury as they can afford - luxury is relative.

Does that mean we should not try to live continuously more humbly? Continuously reevaluating what is necessity and what is comfort? No, of course not. What it means is not being too terribly hard on yourself when in spite of all your efforts, you fall short.

I have been reading a book by Henri Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing, Living a Prayerful Life. In a section called Converting Loneliness into Solitude (p.43), he writes,
“If we accept our aloneness as a gift from God, and convert it into deep solitude, then out of that solitude we can reach out to other people. We can come together in community, because we don’t cling to one another out of loneliness. We don’t use or manipulate one another. Rather, we bow to one another’s solitude. We recognize one another as people who are called by the same God. If I find God in my solitude, and you find God in your solitude, then the same God calls us together, and we can become friends. We can form a community, we can sustain a marriage, we can be together without destroying each other by clinging to each other.”

I have reflected on this passage in many ways about my own fear of being alone and my understanding of solitude, but reading about not clinging to one another out of loneliness gives my mind an interesting image about how I had previously analyzed good and bad in the world. I don’t need to cling to others in the sense that I don’t need for them to act in the way I expect them to based on my ideas of good and bad - this frees me to treasure, but not expect, their acts of kindness, and accept, while not being surprised or shipwrecked by, their acts of unkindness.

This becomes a recognition of the eternal human struggle that is trying - just trying so hard at everything in life. It not only allows me to accept and understand others’ weaknesses, but accept and understand my own weaknesses as well. With no exceptions, everyone is on the human journey to be good - wealth just gives a different context to this journey, it neither makes the journey exist nor makes the journey disappear.

This recognition allows me to love others much better.


I would like to add to my list of “What you do when” that I had going in my last blog:

16. What do you do when it’s manure week in Carorita and you think you’re going to completely lose your mind because of all the flies? There are several options, only one of which I haven’t tried:
1. You try to talk it out with the flies and reason with them - “OK, flies, you can have the table, just please don’t walk on the top of my head or on my face, or buzz in my ears” (this is usually ineffective).
2. Since there are no fly swatters, you make your own out of rolled up newspaper and take them down in a no prisoners war.
3. This is the one I haven’t tried - you grab one of the flies, and make sure all the other ones are watching while you eat it. The other flies should leave the house in fear. (I was given this idea by Adonys)
4. You run around the house screaming, “Haha, now you can’t get me!”
5. You put on your hooded sweatshirt, and tie your hood around your face so that only your eyes and nose are exposed. If they still go for your eyes and nose, you should maybe try number 3.
6. You try not to lose your cool, and practice the mantra: “Flies are creatures of God. They have a purpose here, too.”
7. As baby Santiago recommended, you put a little plate next to yours with food on it, so the flies will eat off of that one and not your own. This way, you will have clean food, and you will be sharing with all of God’s animals.

17. What do you do when there are no ice machines in the refrigerators here and there is no cold, already boiled water? There are two options:
1. You drink the warm boiled water, as you tell yourself, “This is just as refreshing as cold water. It’s like a good, relaxing cup of coffee… without the coffee.
2. You opt to drink the icy cold Andean water that comes straight out of the tap… and are stuck with horrendous diarrhea for at least a week.
3. The choice is yours!

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