Missions Development...#6

I woke up the next morning feeling really ‘light’ in my spirit – rested too, but mostly light because I was feeling thankful that the heavy weight had been lifted off of my shoulders… a weight that I hadn’t even known I could be ‘done’ with. It was especially cool because I hadn’t even known that we’d be coming to Germany…

My two American traveling companions & I went down to the ‘eating room’ & found an open table… after the ‘interesting’ foods (read: stuff I wouldn’t want to eat again even it was based on a dare,) I’d experienced during our time in England, I was overjoyed to have my 1st real experience with the German breakfast: dark, hearty, whole grain breads & rolls, baked that morning; what appeared to be salami, along with quite the variety of smoked meats & cheeses; Nutella. German coffee. Ahhh.

In between stuffing my face, I ended up in conversation with the guy sitting on my left – turned out that he was a youth pastor as well – at ICHTHYS church - & his name was Johannes. Fortunately for me, he spoke great English, with a touch of American thrown in from a 7-month stint/internship at a church in the greater-Seattle area. We had a great time swapping stories, talking about life, fussball (soccer) & church stuff. From the first conversation, we connected at a deep level, & I really enjoyed his outlook on life, sense of humor, & ever-present laugh, which, when I close my eyes & concentrate, I can still hear in the recesses of my brain…

We ended up skipping a couple of meetings (one of my favorite conference activities, by the way,) to hang out, talk, & visit the bistro for brats & Hefeweizen... by this time, I felt like we were getting to know each other fairly well, & that we could trust each other enough to speak openly & straightforwardly… So, I asked Johannes if he (& ICHTHYS) would consider the possibility of us coming on a mission to Frankfurt. He said “NO!” without even blinking - & then qualified his answer with an explanation & a few stories about teams from the US that he & ICHTHYS had hosted in previous years. The bottom line was that the aftermath of the teams was anything BUT life-giving & beneficial to the host church…

Too many times they had been left holding the bag financially for some unforeseen & unplanned shortfall. The name/reputation of the local church had been dragged through the mud by some short-sighted & inconsiderate actions by someone on the mission team; the insistence of the team at doing their own program/method/ministry came at the expense of the long-term relationship & respect the hosts had attempted to cultivate with their friends, neighbors, & people of their city, people who the team didn’t see as “people” but as potential notches on the proverbial missions statistics belt; the hosts had often their hospitality criticized/belittled as “not being up to standard” (aka different) than what the ethnocentric Americans were used to at home… as though the ‘foreign country’’ should have been blessed & overjoyed just to receive the Americans, & like a good restaurant/hotel, should have done everything they could to accommodate their ‘guests.’ And there was no offer of continued relationship beyond the cursory (& known to be meaningless) “I’ll write.” So, rather than “do” missions in that manner, they didn’t host American (or Canadian) teams anymore…

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Curiosity must have gotten the best of him, because he asked, “What would you do if you came?” So I asked, “It depends – what would you like us to do? Is there something that you’re already doing that we could help with?”

He smiled & said, “Hmm. Perhaps we can talk about this some more.”