{"id":930,"date":"2015-12-14T23:29:15","date_gmt":"2015-12-15T04:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joshuastairhime.com\/?p=930"},"modified":"2018-12-04T22:40:35","modified_gmt":"2018-12-05T03:40:35","slug":"rookie-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.joshuastairhime.com\/index.php\/rookie-mistake\/","title":{"rendered":"Rookie Mistake (DOP #14 2015)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been out of the country about a dozen times now, and most of those trips were what the North American church likes to call \u201cmission trips\u201d.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been to Germany, Haiti, and Nicaragua on these trips.\u00a0 If you know anything about me, you know that I hate looking like I don\u2019t know what I am doing.\u00a0 So when I first started going to Nicaragua and Haiti regularly, I spent a lot of time before I left trying to learn how to be a good \u201cshort-term missionary\u201d and not make any rookie mistakes.\u00a0 Some of the simple tips I remember are: 1.\u00a0 Talking louder doesn\u2019t help them understand English any better, it just makes you look dumb.\u00a0 2.\u00a0 Don\u2019t drink the water.\u00a0 3.\u00a0 Don\u2019t rinse your toothbrush in the water.\u00a0 4.\u00a0 Don\u2019t assume that you know the best way to do something.\u00a0 5.\u00a0 Don\u2019t give handouts.<\/p>\n

On my first trip to Nicaragua I did my best to follow all of these rules, except the last one.\u00a0 I really struggled with that one.\u00a0 I mean come on, this kid needs help, and giving him $5 isn\u2019t going to ruin my day or his right?\u00a0 So there I am on the bus after the obligatory hour at the market waiting on the straggling group of women to finish up their purchases and get on board.\u00a0 I had \u201cmet\u201d a young kid in the market who kept following my group around and trying to be helpful.\u00a0 He did such a good job that I felt like we owed him a bit of a tour guides fee for his help.\u00a0 Well, they had warned us against giving away money in the market, so my plan was to wait until the bus was just about to pull away and I would toss some cash out of the window at this boy.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know where all of the kids came from, but as soon as I had dropped some cash to the one kid, it seemed like the bus was surrounded.\u00a0 They started throwing grasshopper things they had woven out of grass in through the open windows, all of them hoping to get a small piece of the pie.\u00a0 While the last stragglers struggled through the chaos to get to their seats, the seated team members were all doing their best to throw the grasshopper things back out of the windows.\u00a0 As I look back at the memory my brain is trying to tell me that the kids outside started rocking the bus to tip it over!\u00a0 (That last part isn\u2019t true\u2026but it was a pretty traumatic experience\u2026so my brain is exaggerating a bit.)\u00a0 The driver managed to get through the crowd without hitting any of the kids and we sped off.\u00a0 I slid down into my seat and refused to acknowledge my role in the chaos.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure if anyone else knew that I had started the riot, but if they did know they let me off the hook.<\/p>\n

I was pretty embarrassed, and frustrated!\u00a0 All I had wanted to do was help a kid who looked like he needed help, and it had nearly turned into an international incident.<\/p>\n

So I learned from that experience that I was going to follow that rule in the future, because it is a good rule.\u00a0 For the next 3 years and 6 trips, the rule served me well, keeping me from starting any international incidents on my future trips out of the country.\u00a0 The idea behind the rule is good, and it kept me out of a certain kind of trouble.\u00a0 I even began to teach the rule to first-timers, so they would know better and wouldn\u2019t have to learn from their mistakes the way I had.<\/p>\n

Overall it was a good rule, until I started to use it as an excuse to ignore the needs around me.\u00a0 I eventually became so trained in \u201cthe rule\u201d that I stopped seeing the needs and responding to them on a case by case basis.\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m afraid that I\u2019ll never be able to forget the woman who asked for our help on my 4th<\/sup> trip to Nicaragua.\u00a0 We had just finished eating at \u201cTip-Top\u201d and we were already late for the next event we were supposed to be at.\u00a0 I was the only guy in the van, and had taken it upon myself to make sure that all of the women were safely inside the van before I got in.\u00a0 This left me in charge of closing the door.<\/p>\n

The woman saw us getting in the van and moved towards us in a quick shuffle, which I assume was the fastest she could move.\u00a0 I don\u2019t speak any significant amount of Spanish, but it was obvious she was looking for something to help.\u00a0 As I think back to the memory, even though I know she was speaking another language, I can hear her pleading for our help, just something, anything, to help her and her family.\u00a0 The ladies I was with had squeezed into the van by this time, and I had found my seat and was reaching back to close the sliding door, but the woman had put herself in the way of the door.\u00a0 I slowly slid the door closed an inch at a time, and eventually was able to close the door without hurting the woman.\u00a0 The van started and we drove away.\u00a0 We left the woman standing outside the restaurant, with even less than she had when we first met her.\u00a0 We had taken the small glimmer of hope from her, and drove away with it.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know who that woman was, or what she really needed.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know who she went home to that night, or if she even had a home to go to.\u00a0 The fact is that I will never know.\u00a0 I gave up my chance to know her in any way when I closed the door in her face. \u00a0We didn\u2019t talk about what I had just done in the van, but the silence was enough to know that we were all thinking about it.\u00a0 We arrived at our event\u00a0 and quickly got to work, slowly forgetting about the woman we had left behind.<\/p>\n

Except I haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I had $5 in my pocket.\u00a0 It would have taken 5 seconds to dig it out.\u00a0 I could have done something, and I didn\u2019t.\u00a0 I\u2019m crying as I type this, tears rolling down my face crying.\u00a0 I made a choice to ignore her, to ignore her humanity, and to drive away.\u00a0 It has been more than two years, and it still hurts me to think of that day.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t forgotten.
\nWhen I was in Haiti this year, we found ourselves in a little boutique that served cold soda and ice cream along with souvenirs and keepsakes.\u00a0 It\u2019s one little 45 minute stop in a week full of heat and hard work.\u00a0 It has a balcony that looks over the roadway, and a little courtyard in front.\u00a0\u00a0 I bought a coke, and stood outside on the balcony, straining my eyes towards the horizon looking for something new and interesting.\u00a0 A voice called up from the courtyard.\u00a0 A little boy had found his way in and was asking for something.\u00a0 I turned away and walked back inside.\u00a0 I knew the rule.\u00a0 Then I remembered the woman in Nicaragua that I had left, and I turned my retreat into a charge towards the counter.\u00a0 I bought another coke, and returned to the balcony.\u00a0 The kid had given up on\u00a0 me and wasn\u2019t looking up anymore, but after I checked to make sure the rest of the team wasn\u2019t watching, I got his attention and threw him the coke.\u00a0 He caught it with a smile and disappeared out of the courtyard door.\u00a0 I smiled and congratulated myself on not causing a scene.<\/p>\n

\"If<\/p>\n

It was probably 3 minutes later that I noticed the boy had found his way to the top of the stairs, and he wasn\u2019t alone anymore.\u00a0 As I looked into the faces of the 3 boys at the top of the stairs, I knew I had done it again.\u00a0 I had made a rookie mistake.\u00a0 I was tempted to retreat into an inner room and pretend I hadn\u2019t seen them, but I knew I couldn\u2019t.\u00a0 So I walked over to the doorway, crouched down and started asking them questions in the little bit of Creole I knew.\u00a0 \u201cMwen rele Josh.\u00a0 Rele?\u00a0 Kilajou?\u201d\u00a0 Having exhausted my relevant Creole I asked in English if they went to school.\u00a0 We chatted as best we could for a few minutes, and after they asked for help that I honestly couldn\u2019t give them, and I said that I was sorry I couldn\u2019t help, we chatted a bit for a few more minutes, and then it was time to go.<\/p>\n

I will never get a chance to talk to that woman.<\/p>\n

At least those boys knew I cared.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo in peace, be warm and filled\u201d is so easy to say, but actually bringing that kind of peace is so very difficult.\u00a0 The least we can do is acknowledge other people.\u00a0 We can at least give them the dignity they deserve.
\nIf you get the chance, make the rookie mistakes.<\/p>\n

\""Peace"\"<\/a>

“Peace”<\/p><\/div>\n

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