The Plight of Dependency
A rural school in Sierra Leone I know sustainability is a buzzword right now and you are probably sick of hearing it but despite the word's overuse, it feels like nothing is changing. Over the past few years, I have learned that in missions there is still a lot of progress that needs to be made. North American Churches are still going on short term missions trips with suitcases packed full of North American resources, we continue to fund church buildings and school buildings in countries that we claim have few resources and in many cases we build the buildings ourselves. We pay school fees for students and send a one-way stream of outdated, used books, we donate pencils and toothbrushes that probably cost three times as much to buy here, we ship hundreds of containers of used clothes to Sierra Leone, all with good intentions. Our White savior complex is still on point. Many of these good intentions continue to create a perpetual attitude of dependency. I came across an