I noticed this article posted on Facebook by a guy who served as a youth pastor in Scotland for a few years. It challenges the idea of the short term mission trips that we in the USA are so fond of and yet understands that there is some good in them. I liked the blend of critique and the concessions about short term missions to foreign countries. One of my passions in recent years has been facilitating a partnership between our diocese and The Diocese of Kilmore, Elphin, and Ardagh in Ireland. In partnership we have been emphasizing the idea that we are building relationships that enable us to work in partnership and learn from one another. It’s an approach that some just don’t quickly get because we have this knack for wanting to help everyone that we perceive as more needy than ourselves.
Elephant and Mouse were best friends. One day Elephant said, “Mouse, let’s have a party!” Animals gathered from far and near. They ate, and drank, and sang, and danced. And nobody celebrated more exuberantly than the Elephant. After it was over, Elephant exclaimed, “Mouse, did you ever go to a better party? What a blast!” But Mouse didn’t answer. “Where are you?” Elephant called. Then he shrank back in horror. There at his feet lay the Mouse, his body ground into the dirt — smashed by the exuberance of his friend, the Elephant. “Sometimes that is what it is like to do mission with you Americans,” the African storyteller concluded. “It is like dancing with an Elephant.”
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