I've made a decision.
Its not etched in stone yet, as most of my decisions aren't, but I'm pretty sure about this one. The decision is to not do the trip the way we are this year ever again. This year we are blocking out most of the day there to do various work projects. My reason for that was that was twofold:
- We really wanted to get into the village and do work for the people. This was meant to be a way to build relationships with the adults in the village as well as with the children.
- We often find that we get into a work project in the mornings only to have to shut it down to go do VBS with the kids.
I don't have a problem with shutting a work project down to play with kids, but I've heard that some of my crew are frustrated by that and I do try to listen to my crew and take their ideas into consideration so this year I thought we'd try doing all day work projects and then do VBS in the evening.
The problem with that is also twofold:
- We are unsure what work projects we are doing. We will probably not know until we arrive there. To have the whole day blocked out and not have any clue as to how to plan for it makes me a bit nervous. Not a lot because I know things always work out, but it would be much easier to plan what materials and tools to bring if we had an idea. It may mean less trips to town once we are there if we already had the supplies and it may mean less expense since things seem to be generally cheaper here.
- And this one is the real "problem" as I see it. There are people both on the team and not on the team who now have the idea that this year's trip is about "construction". I've heard people say that they would have gone this year if they had known it was about construction projects this year. I've also heard team members say they are much happier with this year's plans because they feel that the work projects are our biggest contribution out there.
YIKES!
If I had known that was the message I was sending by changing around the schedule, I would not have done it.
I know work projects make us feel like we're actually "doing" something there. It makes us feel good to have accomplished something tangible and feel like we've given them something of use. A lot of us, myself included, are way more comfortable with something like that. BUT that is not the most important way in which we contribute. It is not in any way the most important thing we do. On that, I'm absolutely convinced.
The most important thing we do there is build something far more difficult to build and far more uncomfortable for us to do - relationships. That is what God is all about - relationships. It was through relationship that He created us and it was through relationship that He communicated His love for us, and it is through relationship that we communicate His love for other people. Its how we touch people's hearts.
Yes, Pine Ridge is a place of poverty. But I think we forget that there is a kind of poverty that is far more destructive than physical poverty. There is a poverty of love that is the worse sort of suffering a human can experience and I see plenty of that on the Rez. Even Mother Teresa, the great humanitarian of our time, has said this,
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a
much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to
eat.
So I'm pretty sure we need to get back to the original plan at Pine Ridge. We're not about buildings, although those are fine too, but we have a higher purpose - people's hearts.
