I (Ryan) often critique before I complement. I’m not sure what order those two actions should come in, or if they should always come in one particular order, but I think this has become my tendency for several reasons: reactions to experiences of my upbringing, the high value placed on critical reflection skills that I gained in college and seminary, and my own personality. So when Daphne and I decided to accept this position in Cambodia and people began to ask why we wanted to go and what we were planning on doing, the first thoughts that flooded my head were about why we were not going and what we would not be doing. I either read or heard it said once that my generation of Christians is always defining itself by what it is not. I think that’s true for a lot of people I know, and I struggle with this too.
I remember sitting in the gold-clothed pews of the church I grew up in and watching missionaries parading down the aisle of the sanctuary during the church’s annual missions conference. Some carried flags of the countries they represented, some were dressed in the traditional garb of the local village where they served, and some were just dressed in American fashions of days long gone by. And they showed pictures on slides and told stories of wild animal encounters and angels that protected them, but it all seemed so other-worldly. Like something that made for a fascinating story but was inaccessible to me because that wasn’t what I was like or what I wanted for my life. Really all I wanted to do was just go home and play my Nintendo.
Years later, I went on my first “mission” trip. Our team trained before we went, brought a number of supplies and Bibles with us, and went with high expectations of the blessing and good news we would bring to the people we encountered. And yet several weeks later, each of us stood up in front of our church with tears in our eyes, and told our fellow congregants of how little we felt we did and how somewhat surprisingly, we felt blessed by the very people we went to serve and be a blessing to.
Then in college, I remember when Bono from the band U2 began getting rather vocal about all of the problems in the world. And he told us all through the TV and through brief interruptions during his concerts that he needed our voice and that would help to bring an end to world poverty. That the world already had enough money and resources to bring an end to world poverty, but that we just weren’t getting it to the right places or talking loud enough. And perhaps as never before (and with the help of additional celebrities), this message became popular among American youth. I think this was also about the time when Bono started becoming more popular with Christians and even some pastors because of his faith-filled message and song lyrics. I too was beginning to realize how little I was doing in my own life to address the problems of the world, so his message was a welcome, if idealistic, one. And although he may be right about the magnificence of the world’s resources, I don’t think his plan to end poverty would ultimately work because of the many complex and spiritual factors found at the roots of poverty and in the contexts of economic and community development. But there I go critiquing again.
Shortly after this, I arrived at seminary and learned about some pretty serious stuff that went down when some Christian missionaries of the past had gone with the best of intentions to other countries, but didn’t quite take into consideration the cultural, political, social, historical, and anthropological factors of the people and contexts where they served. Turns out these folks were pretty insensitive sometimes and Western culture was imposed on non-Western cultures, and Jesus was talked about in ways that made sense to a Westerner but not much sense to a non-Westerner. Sometimes they also overlooked the physical needs of the people they went to serve in an effort to prioritize the verbal spread of the gospel.
Now bringing this back to where I started. My first instinct might be to tell you that I’m moving to Cambodia to not be like all the people I just mentioned and to not go about things in the way they did. But the truth is, there’s a little bit of all of them within me; the ambitious missionary, the inexperienced youth, the critical seminarian, and yes, maybe even some Bono. So I guess my hope is to retain the characteristics and practices of these folks where they are helpful, respectful, and Christ-like; and attempt to avoid the rest. I hope to see Jesus in the people I meet and know him better because of them. I hope there’s a local church there that is seeking to corporately follow Christ in a Cambodian way and that part of that process for them includes attending to the needs of their community. And finally, I do hope that my actions, lifestyle, and words are conducted in ways that would provoke someone to ask me about the hope that is within me (1 Pt. 3:15).
