One of the governing principles of our team strategy formation was "to do no harm". This seems to be a self-evident principle, but in reality, becomes one of the most difficult concepts to apply. "Doing good" is an activity highly governed by a culture's "way of doing things". No missionary starts out to "do harm", but often our most well-meaning endeavors go sadly amiss as a fallen world or sometimes just a different world responds in surprising ways. Missions history is full of these examples much to missionary chagrin. To some degree, these mistakes are inevitable as missionaries being "cultural outsiders" seek to help a new culture. But to the degree we can "look before leaping", we should. And to the degree we can learn from our past mistakes, we must.
"Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is."
1 Corinthians3:13 KJV
As the picture below suggests, there may be better ways to apply a good thing!
Carefully driving in Africa,
Brian, Sondra, Noah, & Bryson
Pictured: well meaning electrical workers create hazard for vehicle traffic.
No comments:
Post a Comment