Thursday, 24 July 2008
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Traumatized By Youth Minister During Mission Trip
I've been hearing a lot about Reynosa, Mexico and McAllen, Texas lately. Not just because of Hurricane Dolly, but because a lot of people seem to be coming back from or going to mission trips in that area. Hearing about it brings back only bad memories for me. I was thirteen when I went to Reynosa. Our youth group was building a house in a colonial, and as I was inept at everything handy, I was sent to play with the kids who lived in that slum. For most people, this sounds like the better of the two jobs, but I was totally lost on kids who only spoke Spanish. Plus, I was really shy to begin with.
I ended up spending the entire week wandering between the build site and the school-yard feeling like a complete failure. Today I see there wasn't much a 13 year-old girl could do who was pushed aside by her own church leaders and also unable to communicate with the children. That was the reality. But from my perspective, I was unwanted by those building the house, and unable to do anything for these children, who seemed perfectly fine without us.
Then, the second to last day in the colonial, a puppy came crawling up the street. Too young to be away from its mother, it obviously was dying, and I just lost it, along with a few of my friends who were on the trip with me. We all made a huge deal over that dog, worried about it all the way back to camp, through dinner, right up to the evening church service.
Our concern didn't go unnoticed by the gorgeous young minister we all were crushing on. He was so mad at us, that he spent about 5 minutes yelling and screaming, "How can you care more for that dog then those kids?! How dare you?! Shame on you! Can't you see?!"
Yeah, he was right, but he could have just pulled us aside and calmly explained things to us. From my perspective, those kids were happy and well-fed. They had friends, family, something to go, somewhere to go, and they were generally wanted by those around them. I was jealous of them for this. Sure, I saw their horrible living conditions. I saw their clothing for the charity it was, but those kids seemed happy and loved, whereas I felt unwanted by my church leaders.
The pastor proceeded into a tirade of a prayer, begging God to forgive us and to have mercy on us, to convict us for our "incompassion..." I was so ashamed, and I felt horrible, but today I realize I was just a kid myself: one privileged, naive, and self-absorbed kid who didn't know any better.
The next day I saw the reality of the homes. Not their crappy construction or lack of water and electricity but the future they portended for those children, and also the complete futility of my being there. Obviously, I was too incompassionate to ever help them, as I also was inept at building and unable to communicate. I had a new perspective, partially formed by an ignorant pastor and unfeeling youth-leaders.
I just never saw God's perspective of it, or how HE felt about my being there. I would spend the next 10 years thinking I was unable to ever help anyone. Even though I still know a lot of people working in Reynosa, I have this sense I can't do a thing to help down there; contrarily, I would be an impediment. So I never even wanted to go back.
Still, even as I began a long descent of rebellion from God and the church, I developed an even deeper compassion for people not born into the positions I was. Away from the churches, I worked through my own research and money to help them.
Yet the incident with that stupid dog and unthinking minister bothered me. I realize my perspective needed to change, yet now I see that the dumb dog could have been used to kindly show me the plight of the children...and to really inspire me to try harder with what I did have to make a difference.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12, NASB
I've forgiven the pastor; he was upset and rightly so. I haven't forgiven myself, however. We as Christians need to realize that all people see things from different perspectives, and perhaps the only reality is what God sees. As such, we need to be so careful how we say things, word things, and go about doing something to fix other people's perspectives.
Have you ever been judged by someone you thought you admired or were supposed to look up to?
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Comments (23)
upset maybe... rightly so? maybe not.
You know, I think the stress of mission trips can bring out the worst in adults. I can think of two examples right away from trips I've been on.
I think your concern for the dog was a child's way of trying to process a very overwhelming situation. I'm not sure God is crazy about youth leader tirades, even if they're about legitimate concerns. Clearly, you were hurt by this situation.
I think Satan loves to attack youth leaders because of the power they have over impressionable young people. They are flawed like everyone else, but their flaws have the potential to cause major damage to others.
I was hurt by a youth leader a few years ago. It was a small situation, and there really isn't anything very redemptive about the story, except for the fact that I know God causes everything to work together for good to His people.
My father is a minister, and being part of my family constantly reminds me that pastors are regular, fallen people in very strategic positions. I think one positive thing that can come from thinking about your experience (and me thinking about mine) is remembering how much our pastors need our prayers. They are just as imperfect as we are, and they have huge responsibility.
Definitely. My youth pastor more or less was the reason I fell away from the Church all together. I gave everything I had to my Church and youth group in high school. I was a missionary for two years, in the summer between high school years. But no matter what I/we did, it was never enough. He came to dominate ALL of our time, nearly every single day of the week. And if we wanted to do something different once in awhile - play sports, participate in normal high school events, etc., we were made to feel bad. Really bad. Years later as a grown adult, I feel like it was on the verge of a cult. That sounds harsh, but it's true. At the very least, it was the equivalent of an emotionally abusive and controlling relationship. Very unhealthy. These were our leaders we were supposed to trust. I am still a Christian and have a strong relationship with God, but needless to say, my trust in the Church and the leaders are still very shaky. I can't honestly say I attend church on a regular basis. I've forgiven him, too, as I feel it's unnecessary to carry all the anger and bad feelings around. ~Andi
I always wonder why people go through all the stress and expense of short-term mission trips across the globe, but don't set up long-term charities here. Obviously, I don't speak for everybody out there. But there are so many people in need right in my own city. I would just feel wrong traveling a great distance to help someone when I won't even do as much for my neighbors.
Shame on that minister! He of all people should know that we are to love and care for all of God's creatures! Does the Bible not say that He knows and cares even when the sparrow falls? Besides, what 13-year-old girl isn't going to be heartbroken over a dying puppy? For goodness sake, I'm 20 and if my puppy cries when she gets shots at the vet I feel bad! That minister sounds like a man who has no business working with youth if he can't understand youth mentality.
I fell away from the whole "youth-group" thing, but not because of the pastor. The youth pastor at our church is great, and he is so interesting to listen to because all his lessons contain history and culture. I stopped going to youth group because of the cliques. I wasn't accepted by the other kids, and that was extremely frustrating to me. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me that they couldn't welcome me into the group. So I did other things. I joined the church puppet team, and we brought joy to a lot of children, sick people, and the elderly. It was very fulfilling for me. :)
@KechiNeko244@xanga - That's awesome! I mean, not awesome that you had a bad experience, but awesome that you joined a great ministry team!
@Pickwick12@xanga - Yeah, the puppet team was great! We got to nursing homes and migrant camps and stuff like that, and everyone in the group was tight-knit. However, our leader got too sick to do it anymore, and when us senior puppeteers graduated high school, the ministry kind of went under. We made some attempts to revive it, but it's been difficult. That makes me very sad. :(
@KechiNeko244@xanga - Sounds really cool.
I was involved in a ministry recently, and we ended up losing our leader and couldn't continue. I know that God knows these things will happen, and He has a plan, even if it means that something we love goes on the shelf for a while
Hey. I saw that you had added me as a friend and subscribed to me on Xanga. I'm not sure that would be a very good idea. I'm certainly not going to be able to update for several reasons outside of my control, if you read my last post.
My presence on Xanga consists of reading my subscriptions and leaving assorted comments. If that's cool with you, then I'll add you back.
Your youth minister needs your forgiveness, but I don't think there was anything "right" in his response to you and your friends. I think most of the guilt or shame you feel from the situation is false. There are so many things wrong in the picture that I hardly know where to begin.
People need specific assignments, kids especially. To give a shy kid such a vague directive ("Go play with the kids") is bad leadership.
The compassion you and your friends felt for the puppy was natural and appropriate. It took nothing away from your potential love for the kids. There was no reason to rebuke you for it, or to claim that you had hard hearts, and there is no reason for you to feel any shame about it. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if God sent the puppy to give you an object of concern within your capabilities. After all, he sees the sparrow fall.
The fact that a kid lives in poverty doesn't mean that he's unhappy. You observed, probably accurately, that the kids were well-fed and cheerful and loved. They needed the Gospel, certainly, but there was that language barrier. So what could you have done? Try harder with what I did have to make a difference is pretty vague (even if you had been given a better pep-talk). The real question is whether God was prompting you to do something specific and you were ignoring him.
For the most part, short-term missions trips have more impact on those going than those on the receiving end. Obviously, this one had a lasting impact on you. I'm very sorry for the trauma you suffered, and I pray that God will clarify truth from lies in how you see yourself. You have tremendous depths of compassion, and a lot to give.
One could make a case that if those kids were loved by those around them and had enough to eat and shelter then they had it better off than many kids in the US. I have known a lot of kids here in the US who live in houses with lots of amenities and who never have to worry about anything because their parents will pay for anything and everything but who never felt loved by their parents because the only things their parents did for them was meet their material needs and wants. I have seen how messed up those kids can become. That is one of the reasons that I believe we place too much emphasis on a quality of living in the US and tend to ignore other factors.
As for your trip, your youth leader shouldn't have sent you of to try to interact with those kids when you had no way of being able to communicate with them and when you had no ability to meet any needs they might still have. You at 13 would have largely only had the ability to love on them and play with them and based on your descriptions both of those needs were already being met for them by each other. What the others on your trip should have done instead was to take the opportunity to teach you how to do some of the work involved in building the house. There are many many things that even someone with zero knowledge of tools can assist with so long as they are willing to learn. Also your leader should not have faulted you for being heart broken over that dog because that dog had important needs that had to be met and met quickly in order for it to survive. You and your friends saw those needs and were heart-broken for the simple fact that you were unable to meet those needs. Yes, that dog might not have been one of the people you went down to serve but he was doing more to prevent you from serving than he was helping you to serve.
You know it's sad that most pastors that I've run into today are of the same breed as your youth pastor. Hot headed, headstrong, inflammatory, lecturn thumping boors. But then they are sinners too that need salvation.
I had a similar experience once when I was in university. I used to hang out with the Messianic Jewish missionary between the two quads of our university. One day I noticed a bee crawling along the concrete. Too tired it seems of flight. The foot traffic was heavy and it was very nearly trampled on several times.
I knew it was just a bug and a bee at that, but it was pathetic crawling aimlessly. So small in the careless and merciless world around it. I pitied it and took a leaf, scooped it up, and put it in the nearby shrubbery.
My friend didn't mock me or insult me or crush my capacity for compassion or make fun of that act as frivolous, as your pastor did to you, but he looked me straight in the eye and said this: "God feels the same way you did for that bee, but for people. The difference is that he became one to suffer with us and show us the way."
I've never could see bugs or God in the same way ever again.
@mrcolorful@xanga - I agree. Yes, people "out there" need help, but so do our neighbors! I don't know where you live, but in the past few years here in Michigan that does seem to be happening. We're seeing such a greater need for assistance withing our own community that looking past that is getting harder and harder.
@Pickwick12@xanga - @KechiNeko244@xanga - @Roadkill_Spatula@xanga - @mrcolorful@xanga - You all commented on the fact that 13 year-old-me was only a kid myself; one of you even said that at that age, I needed much more specific directions than I was given. I really needed those comments.
At 13, we think we are adults, but at 27 now looking at 13 year-olds, they are obviously children to me. But, through all these years thinking of this incident, I have the same mind-set as that 13 year-old. I think "I ought to have know better. I was wrong. Something was wrong with me."
But you're all right...how could a child be expected to see differently. Thank you.
@Palamides@xanga - You were talking of the bee-story, which I loved, having done the same with worms I see after a rainstorm. I take it that you weren't hurt by his comment, but encouraged, right? I appreciate your sharing this, for it ties into the following response:
@Roadkill_Spatula@xanga - This kind of ties in to the comment I made to Palamides: You said that perhaps God used that puppy to "give me an object of concern within my capabilities." I had never considered that before, for really, had it not been for that puppy, would I have ever considered the future these children might unfortunately have? Would I have had the compassion for these people and others like them throughout the world to pursue research and interests which might help them? Again, thank you.
@Roadkill_Spatula@xanga - Amen!! Amen to all of you who said things along the same lines.
Wow! As someone who works with youth in my own church, I hope I never reach this point. I'm not sure how yelling and stomping and such is ever truly a solution to a problem?
I've seen the same situation, but more often it is where a youth director embarasses someone, or says something that makes them feel less than desired by God. It's often the breaking point for so many youth that just don't feel loved or accepted by the outside world.
I pray that anyone in a postion working with youth takes the time to remember what kind of amazing people they are working with..it's our future! =)
When I was a young christian, barely just a few months old in the faith, the church leaders had a heated argument during a meeting. And they said abusive words which shouldn't be said, and tempers flared to the point that the church split in half and half left while another half stayed back.
Can you imagine the impact such things can have on a young believer or non-christians? I grew bitter towards the leaders which said offensive things to my parents who were in that meeting, and held on to it for a long time. Beneath all that anger, I was very dissappointed in the behaviour of these "godly" men and women whom I looked up to as an infant christian.
Now I look back and realise that God put me through something traumatic like that to teach me this: We're all still sinners saved by grace, and I should look up on Jesus alone and not on another fellow christian, because we're all fallible creatures.
I do youth work. And I see this all the time. Very many do not realize the developmental aspect of being human. I never get it. WEren't they kids once? maybe the forgot everything.
It is important for youth workers to be trained about what it means to be a certain age, and how we need to provide opportunities for them to succeed. and in general, NOT TO BLAME. how to take responsibility. I mean even if it were true about lack of compassion etc, then I as a leader failed. I must repent.
sorry about that. I doubt it is a comfort, but there are many youth ministers out there who do "get it" with regards to these things, and then THEY often "get it" in a very different way....get PUNNISHED! because of whatever. But youth have different needs. They are human. If we want to meet those needs, we need to utilize ways and content to reach them. pretty simple.
oh well.
God IS alive, and somehow works through all this. I think it hurts Him too.
Yeah, so missions is always awkward and hard. But for a 13 year-old it can be down right impossible. Perhaps the real dis-service the pastor did was to let you go on the trip in the first place if you were not going to be able to do anything. That's a recipe for disaster. And I think more than be careful about what he says, he needed to be protective of the situations he puts you in as a youth leader.
I do have to say, though, that I on occasion would see my youth pastor blow up at people and I always just realized that he is human. Particularly in the middle of the stress of a missions trip. the worst can come out of people.
While it's a good reminder for youth pastors to be on guard....I think it's a better reminder that youth pastors (all pastors for that matter) are human and will make bad choices from time to time. If we were to teach children, to look to God first and foremost and not to their imperfect, human, and sinful youth pastors I think there would be less stories about people leaving GOD because of something a youth pastor did.
I have a friend who went on a trip to Africa for school. He worked with the kids there. He said that they had really unfortunate living conditions and were poor but he said that he was amazed by the fact that almost all of them had a smile on. It seems when people don't have much in places like that they manage to fill up the holes with love. Which is more necessary then alot of material things. They have something that alot of the wealthy and fortunate people in america don't. I think because we benefit materialisticly we forget about the other stuff.
Oh and to answer your question
"Have you ever been judged by someone you thought you admired or were supposed to look up to? "
Of course. I'm sure everyone has.
Yes, I looked up to several people (Christians longer than I've been) so I thought that they could really help me/mentor me. I think I had soooo many problems/questions that they just cut me off (not returning phone calls..eventually emails til I stopped communicating all together). I didnt run away or rebel against the church however. It's made me turn to Jesus even more. Everytime that I fall down, I get right back up because of Him. I still get sad about the fact that none of my 'friends' have contacted me, even to see if I'm ok but I AM OK (even if they cant be in my life). I am ok because I know that no matter what, Jesus will always love me and never leave me.