False Hope and Misinformation

A few years ago I went with missions team to Canaan.  It was about 3 years after the earthquake in Haiti and lots of families were relocated here to a tent city.  Many still remain there even today.  Some traded their tent for a concrete home, others still use a tent.

The pastor of a school some friends had helped start took us around to some of the families of the kids at his school to check on them and give them some basic care items.  This consisted of some soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, etc.  He also wanted us to pray for them.  At this time in my life I was ready to see a major miracle.  Something like a healing to happen.  All my pastors at the Assemblies of God church I went to without a doubt believed in miracles like this.

I got my wish.  We walked to a place where there was a young girl that was blind.  I didn't volunteer to pray, but the leader of our group asked me to pray.  This was it I thought.  So I prayed the most powerful prayer I could.  And as the translator was translating for me, I felt the most peculiar feeling come over me.  It was an awkwardness that seemed to tell me to stop.  I didn't stop, but I was most definitely not feeling anything like the power of what I thought was the Holy Spirit.

But maybe for the first time, I actually was.

Here I was, praying the same prayer that they've probably been praying for years.  I was thinking that I was some kind of special.  That my prayer was going to be the one that saves this little girls eyesight.  What pride we must have as christians thinking that our prayers are any more special to God than the prayers of poor families living in tents.

That's pretty much what got the ball rolling on the deconstruction of my faith.  I began to ask questions like what prayer is, who prayer is for and how does it work?

I didn't want to come into some place and pray for the poor and poverty stricken and make them think they not only are they poor and in poverty, but that their prayers weren't good enough either.  Especially if we were only showing up once and leaving.

Perhaps it would be better to pray with them, rather than for them.  But seriously, for those living at the bottom of the barrel, unless you are coming to commit to them maybe it would be best if you'd just stay away.

not anyone we know...just some people with plants

Recently we went to a small mountain community to teach them some farming techniques.  They already knew some, so it was more of a refresher course.  They hadn't known about helping the soil by adding their banana peels and egg shells.  As well as rotating their crops every year or two.  However, one of the men in the back of the class was asking if we were going to provide water. Well, we weren't. We can only teach ways to help collect rainwater and irrigation techniques.

But we didn't pray for water.  They've been praying for water for years.  What makes us think that our prayer for water would be any better than theirs?  And what if it did rain? What would that create?  That only white peoples prayers are heard?  That they are being unheard by god?  I don't think that's what God would want.  It’s possible they might believe that they just aren’t heard by God.

So all we did was teach them some farming techniques and affirm what they already know.  And the two members of our team with farming experience did a tremendous job.