Americans welcome? It depends.

 Some of the local ministry leaders we get to know in the hard places for Christian ministry have not met many Americans. I’ve been in places where I was the first one ever there. One Indonesian pastor had us travel a long distance out of our way to visit his village. He said, “this is the only chance I’ll get to have a white man at my house.” An old, Chinese lady once rubbed my skin (see photo). I think she was wondering if the white comes off.

Others have had some or even a lot of contact with Americans. Sometimes these contacts haven’t gone well. Below are a few examples of things that leaders that I know have said to me:

“They want to tie my feet. They want me to do their program in order to work together.” –Indonesia

“Everyone wants to come here and establish their name, their presence.” –Iraq

“They came and told us what to do. They didn’t give us the dignity to say what help we think we need.” –Mali

I could draw conclusions from these comments, but so can you. What do you think they are trying to say to us?

It would be interesting to hear what you think. A lot of you are keeping up with this blog by email. If you click on the Doing Partnership Well link at the top of the email message, it will take you to my blog on the website where you can post a comment.