Costa Rica and Toxic Charity

As I scooped my laundry out of the dryer and into my clothes hamper this afternoon, I groaned. I dried my Costa Rica soccer jersey all the way again. Now, where it used to say “SAMSUNG” is just a few random black lines, and “BIMBO” emblazoned across the front is very faded. (Yes, I proudly wear a shirt that brands me as a bimbo. It happens.) But anyway, seeing how faded it has become took me back to my trip to Costa Rica in the summer before my senior year of high school. I went with nine other youth and adults for a weeklong mission trip there. We spent time in a neighborhood that had been built on a landfill. Raw sewage ran along the dirt paths and into a giant river. The breeze tossed around trash and the smell of gang violence, prejudices, and hopelessness. I remember it feeling very apocalyptic until people emerged from their homes into the streets, especially the children whose smiles made the neighborhood seem like a much happier place.

I vividly remember two kids in particular. One was a boy who recently had surgery on his leg. His leg had many stitches running down it, and a metal contraption around his calf kept him immobile. Two of his friends carried him to us so I could paint a bat on his face. The other child I remember was a girl with short curly hair that latched onto me. She didn’t say a word the whole time she was around me, but she became my shadow. I wondered what it was like to live their lives in this place where fathers where a rarity and an armed guard stood outside the nearest ice cream stand.

But then the week was over—it went by much too quickly—and we had some time for a shopping adventure on our last day. Before soccer jerseys were even the cool thing to wear, I wanted one (I might as well just succumb to my fate as a hipster).  And just as vividly as I remember the two children who made me rethink the life I was living in America, I remember my great American blunder in the little store that last day. Several of us were scrambling around trying to find the right size in the coolest jerseys, pulling jerseys out of their little plastic wrappings and trying them on over our t-shirts. We were the only ones in the store except for the shopkeeper and our bus driver Cory. And we caused quite the commotion and mess. Maybe, if you’re an United States-ian reading this, our actions don’t seem bad. We were shopping as only Americans can. But now when I look back on that moment, I can’t help but cringe. We were so loud. We left behind us such a mess for the shopkeeper to clean up. I still remember Cory’s face: he seemed surprised to see the competitive, covetous prey we turned into when faced with souvenirs. Everything we had seen in Costa Rica was forgotten in the high of buying memories.

It didn't register at the time. I felt no shame in what I saw as just another part of mission trips. You raise money, you go, you "serve," you buy some stuffs, you come home, you tell people how awesome it was, you make an album of your killer "pics" on the Facebook machine, and you put it out of mind as life goes on.

I recently read a few chapters from the book Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) in my Honduras class (and I'm on the waiting list for the book at my local library).  The section I read talked about the dependency we create when we go into a community and give the people clothes, food, even a well. It sounds very noble, and we feel good after we do it. However, we don't think about the long term effects of our actions. As we discussed this needs-based approach to charity in class, I remembered a picture I saw in a WMI presentation of several Haitian men getting water from a new Water Missions International water pump. The man doing the presentation pointed out that one of the men in the picture wasn't wearing shoes. Apparently, the man could buy shoes—he had the money and there were local businesses producing shoes—but he didn't see any reason to buy shoes when he knew someone would come in and give him a pair for free (ummm...TOMS). This mindset can be detrimental to a developing people and to developing local businesses. Hearing "toxic charity" explained that way was a DUH moment for me.

Naturally, not all charity is toxic. In emergency situations, we should definitely go in and help. I think everyone involved in a church should go on a mission trip at some point in their life (sooner rather than later, though!). Youth, in particular, should spend time serving, painting houses, replacing roofs, serving food at a soup kitchen, doing inventory of supplies in a women's shelter because doing so can reveal a plethora of opportunities for their futures that they never knew existed. And as I told my friend Julia who is studying abroad next semester, I believe every American should try to spend some time in a third world country—not to experience extreme sympathy and not to serve in a way that births arrogance, but to get a new perspective on the way we live.

With short term mission and service trips, I like going in and serving an organization already established in a community that serves the community. In the world of volunteerism, we call that "indirect service." I think it's beneficial to use short term missions as an opportunity to do indirect service because instead of leaving a giant mission trip footprint that crushes the "needy" people you serve, you empower an organization that is already doing good work in the community to continue doing so.

Robert Lupton, author of Toxic Charity, proposes an oath for compassionate service:

Never do for the poor what they have (or could have) the capacity to do for themselves. Limit one-way giving to emergency situations. Strive to empower the poor through employment, lending, and investing, using grants sparingly to reinforce achievements. Subordinate self-interests to the needs of those being served. Listen closely to those you seek to help, especially to what is not being said. Above all, do no harm.

We have to give and serve in a way that empowers others. The best part is that when we do that, we are also empowered. Our actions become more than an album on Facebook, more than a soccer jersey dried too many times, and more even than the inside jokes that inevitably arise out of mission/service trips.

I guess it's really just a matter of deciding what you want to gain when you give: a feeling of pride because you gave that man a pair of shoes or a feeling of empowerment because you gave that man the ability to buy his own shoes from people in his own community.