"You're a bad American."
How many times have I been told that by the people I am serving? Too many to count. I'm sure they come up with more colorful ways to express their disappointment with me (I am pathetically lacking in knowledge of Spanish cuss words) but calling me Bad American seems to be the crowd favorite to use when they are upset at something I did, or didn't do.
You're probably picturing a couple of snot-nosed kids yelling insults at me in a village, but this isn't unique to one age group. Kids as young as four and adults as old as ninety-four have all found one reason or another to hate me for the day.
Now you're probably wondering, "What the heck is Jessica doing to these people to make them so mad?!" I will recreate some conversations I have had to demonstrate my fault:
Dominican Child: Give me a ball.
Me: I don't have a ball.
Dominican Child: Yes you do.
Me: (pats empty pockets) No I don't.
Dominican Child: You're a bad American.
Dominican Adult: Give me an extra scoop of rice.
Me: I can't do that.
Dominican Adult: You're bad.
Dominican Teenager: I like your bracelet.
Me: Thank you!
Dominican Teenager: Give it to me.
Me: No, it's mine. Somebody gave it to me.
Dominican Teenager: Bad American!
Are you getting the picture? Being a "good" American apparently depends completely upon how many material things I have to give. It's hard to blame the locals; for decades Americans have been traveling to the Dominican Republic (and every other country) and tossing out balls, candy, and every other thing you can think of like they're going out of style. What else are the locals supposed to think except that Americans have come down to give them stuff? A quick disclaimer-it truly isn't everybody who feels this way. There are Dominicans, many of them, who don't expect anything from Americans and seek only friendship. Unfortunately, the expectant ones, the entitled ones, are a big enough group to where it has become a problem. And part of the problem is that when an American comes and does not hand out his entire life savings to a community, he is rejected as a stingy loser. Why waste time with a guy who won't reward you with a prize at the end of the day?
I wish everyone could see the value of non-material things, like time, love, and discipleship. I wish a lasting friendship meant more to people than a quick handout. This is the crisis we are in, and it is going to take all of us to turn it around. This is one of my goals when I move to Batey 7 in August.
Let me tell you about the first time I
"Think you can handle Bible School without an interpreter?" he asked me. Me, with my two semesters of high school Spanish and my complete lack of classroom management skills. But also me, Miss Perfect Missionary with a bit of a vanity problem. Or a big vanity problem.
*Pause. Remove chip from shoulder, brush shoulder off, place chip back on said shoulder.*
To be honest, I did feel a flutter of nerves when he asked me that question, but the dominant emotion I was feeling was confident pride.
"I can try," I answered, but in my head I already had visions of gloriously leading the kids in songs, captivating them with my Bible story, and being generally loved and adored. I can be a tad dramatic when it comes to envisioning my future. My whole family has always been dramatic: my brother when he's sick, myself with my grandiose ideas of the future, and my sister with her general refusal to live a typical life.
We gathered the children into the church and I sauntered to the front, ready to crush it.
What got crushed that day was my pitiful inflated ego.
The songs went fairly smoothly, though I wasn't going to order the choir robes yet. But everything unraveled when I tried to read the story of Jonah. The kids just wouldn't settle down, and for some reason unknown to me, they wouldn't show any respect to the small American girl they had just met ten minutes ago. I gave up on the story about the time when Jonah gets thrown off the boat into the stormy sea (which is about how I felt) and tried to hand out the craft for the day. It was total free-for-all chaos, and I quickly realized there was no way to restore order after this. I called the rest of the Bible School helpers and said we were ending it. But because I can't take a hint, I still pulled out the bag of lollipops to distribute to the kids on their way out.
I'm pretty sure I got bitten by a child that day, but maybe that's just my dramatic side coming out. I did, however, get pushed, scratched, and yelled at, all so the kids could get as many Dum-Dums as they possibly could. Finally I came to my senses and put the bag away, telling them I wasn't going to hand out any more lollipops. And that's when it happened. I was squished in the middle of a group of kids, all glaring at me and saying the same thing:
"You're a bad American."
My fragile 17-year-old heart broke, and the Miss Perfect Missionary facade I had been working on for two years shattered instantly. The kids *gasp* didn't like me!
Fast forward twenty minutes. I'm sitting on a broken concrete block trying not to cry as Dominican kids look at me from afar but don't come near me. Part of the rest of the mission team is building a water treatment plant and the other part is still in the church that I fled from with the few quiet children that remained, doing the craft peacefully and spending some quality time together while I am alone feeling sorry for myself.
Do you want to know what I learned that week in the Dominican? It's a lesson I had to learn over and over but it gets easier to learn every day. This lesson was helpful for me, but maybe it won't be for you. Do you know what my advice is for myself when people call me names?
Get over it.
Not everyone is going to like me, especially when I don't plan on participating in any instant gratification schemes as a missionary. I'm in this for the long haul, and I want to push past the near future and work for the long-term good. Many people don't like that. Many people tell me I'm bad because I don't give them what they want right in this moment, but if I don't (forgive the phrase) grow a pair and steel myself against their insults, I will fail, and I will go back to the U.S. with a broken heart.
Guess how long those kids were mad at me? About a day. We were playing and laughing again the next day. Friendships don't end when you say no to someone. We have to move past the initial difficulties and commit ourselves to spending more time with the people we are serving, not more money. That is my ministry plan. That is why I have many more "Bad American" moments to come, but I'm ready for them. And maybe someday the majority of people will see me for who I am, a person who wants to share God's love with them, and not a cool-stuff-dispenser. I'm willing to be the bad guy for a while until everyone, Americans and Dominicans alike, sees what can happen when we leave the stuff behind and focus on encouraging one another in our walk with Christ.
So maybe I'm a bad American. I hope and pray I can be a good Christ-follower.
This blog is meant to document my life as a bad American on the mission field. I will share my successes and my failures, my shortcomings and God's sufficiency, and the lessons I have learned the hard way so maybe you won't have to. I hope you will follow along and be a witness to all that God is doing in my little corner of the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment