Communication Technologies & the Missioner

Previously, I spoke at length about communication technologies and how they are impacting mission through their mediating affect on planning and relationship development. There are other ways, however, in which communication technologies present a challenge for short-term missioners. Email, cell phones, and blogs have created a social expectation. As we prepare to leave home, families want to know when they’ll hear from us. We’ve learned to feel safer by having our cell phone with us, and often on, while away from home. Our friends post to their Facebook pages while on trips and maintain blogs about their experiences away from home, creating the expectation that we will do likewise. Our churches have given us funding, participated in various fundraising events, and commissioned us to go forth and serve in the world. Understandably, they want to hear from us, and want to feel like they are a part of what we are doing as we engage in mission.

But, from my perspective, this environment of expectation, in which those at home expect that we’ll be using communication technologies to maintain regular contact with them during our trip, presents a myriad of problems for short-term missioners. One of the ways in which we learn and are “transformed” through mission, is by letting ourselves be vulnerable in a new context and by being open to transformative experiences and what many often refer to as encounters with Christ. My experience has led me to believe that this happens when we are “intentional” about our experience, leaving our social and cultural expectations behind and stepping out of our comfort zones. We do this working side by side with new friends, through community worship both amongst ourselves and in community with other brothers and sisters in Christ, through evening chats with our travel companions and through group process. In these experiences we discover, sometimes in emotionally painful ways, things about ourselves and others. We learn from one another. We learn that someone we might not have liked before we left has something new to offer us, causing us to begin thinking differently about others. We often learn that as a group we might be better able to make sense of a difficult experience than we could on our own. As we listen to, and share with, each other we move deeper into our understanding of what is happening to us and among us, and we begin to experience a transformation. Our world view is altered; our sense of who we may have thought of as “the other” is different; our understanding of the Body of Christ changes; our understanding of God’s mission in the world changes; in short, we are transformed.

A challenge arises when communication technologies truncate and impact social processes. When you’re in your host country, if you have spent several hours before a group meeting exchanging messages (email and text) with your friends back home, and talking with your family, you’re unlikely to feel the need to process with the group when the time comes. Essentially, you’ve already done your processing or have dealt with something that was emotionally troublesome. Many of the issues that get resolved in group process are the kinds of things that initially surface as problems … transportation that didn’t show up, dealing with a person who is consistently disruptive, addressing health challenges, and so forth. Not only are the opportunities for a group discussion limited or potentially lost, but bonding between group members is also constrained by your limited engagement in group discussion.

A major concern for those in leadership is that problems that might easily get worked out by the group can get blown out of proportion at home as they are relayed to individuals who have no context for understanding the issues. For example, you may have a transportation snafu in that word failed to reach your driver that you needed to be picked up in a certain location at a certain time. Subsequently, you’re team becomes temporarily stranded someplace for a short period of time. In that time, a text message or call to home by one of the participants could set off alarm bells for family members thinking either that you’re literally stranded some place that could potentially be unsafe and/or word starts circulating around the church community that you’re a poor mission organizer, because you failed to arrange for adequate local transportation. Most of us learned the telephone game as children, passing a message down the line and then hearing how much it changed from the original message when it was first conveyed. Depending on who conveys the message and to whom it gets conveyed, it can take on any number of meanings in a short period of time. [Keep in mind that news travels at lightening speed these days!]

The previous example demonstrates the ways in which rapid communication can be problematic for a team, a host, and the sending community. In other circumstances, such as inter-personal conflict among team members, the relief valve of instant access to someone outside of the group enables individuals to avoid confrontation, dealing with a problem outside of the group that could, and probably should, be addressed internally. In this situation, the inter-personal issue may fester for the entire trip, constraining the overall experience for everyone.

Other technologies present yet other challenges. When people become focused on posting pictures for friends and family on photo sharing or social networking sites while they are on mission, their intentionality, their engagement in, and commitment to, the experience, becomes more voyeuristic and more reflective of a vacation (or what I often derogatorily refer to as misio-tourism) than a mission experience. When we step away from intentionally engaging in an experience, our mindset becomes more about finding and conveying photo opportunities and relaying stories than allowing ourselves to experience the moment and fully live into the experience.

My advice to team leaders is to have a serious discussion with your team about technology and your expectations. I would discuss the issue of managing expectations at home, so that people can share with their friends, family and church community what the group has discussed and what they should and shouldn’t expect while you’re on mission. After discussing issues such as email access, blogging and cell phone usage, one suggestion might be to write a technology covenant that states clearly the group’s expectations for technology use on the trip. Ideally, you might want to consider asking people to leave their cell phones at home, or agree to turn them off while in your host country. Hopefully, you’ve been using the months preceding your trip to begin forming as a group in your preparatory meetings. You might consider highlighting some of the ways in which you’ve come together as a group thus far, address some of the ways in which the team might function and process as a group while on mission, and then use the opportunity to explain the ways in which cell phone usage can be problematic. Keep in mind, though, that when you challenge people to consider a covenant to limit or refrain from cell phone usage while on mission, you’re guaranteed to experience resistance due to current cultural norms and social behavior. But if you explain the ins and outs of group process, from your perspective, and assure people of the benefits of committing to a no cell phone policy, it may be easier for people to appreciate your hope for a cellular moratorium. If you still experience resistance, you might add that a mission trip is more like a spiritual retreat than a work project or vacation. Any spiritual retreat I’ve been on, or have known about, has included a requirement that cellular and computer technologies be turned off and only used in the unlikely event of an emergency.

Communication Technologies

There are many ways in which technology has had, and is having, an impact on mission. One of the most obvious ways is through transportation technologies. It once took missioners weeks or months to reach a mission destination via water and/or ground transportation, whereas today we can get on an airplane and be at our destination within hours.

We might also consider communication technologies, with the proliferation of telephones, cell phones, and computer-mediated communication options playing some kind of role in the transformation of mission. Without a doubt that is true. But while ease of communication is a definite benefit in planning, coordinating and relationship building, there are many aspects of this change that are less obvious that have the potential to be problematic.

Many have benefited from the opportunities presented by various communication technologies. For example, various aid organizations have discovered that cell phone technology presents opportunities for improving access to commodities markets and for accelerating access to emergency medical care, to name a few of the benefits. As such, they have supported increased access to cell phones in developing countries, vastly increasing the use of cellular technologies. For us in the church, it is becoming common for a Bishop and others on diocesan staff to each own and use two or three cell phones. For mission leaders, broad adoption of these technologies makes it considerably easier than in the past to gain access to Bishops, diocesan staff, community leaders and various other mission coordinators in host countries.

Similarly, email offers an opportunity for planning that is arguably well suited to support mission efforts. We are less likely to have our snail mail go astray, and we can know within a relatively short period of time whether our communication has reached its destination with a quick reply from our host contact or an automated read receipt. Given differences in our native languages, email provides an opportunity for a recipient to think through the content of correspondence, possibly reply quickly with clarifying questions, and carefully craft a reply before sending an official responds … again, hypothetically, all in a reasonably short period of time.

In addition to asynchronous technologies such as email, there are a number of other synchronous technologies such as Skype, along with telephonic technologies, that facilitate communication. Synchronous communication provides a great tool for organizing and planning mission trips, once any barriers presented by different time zones and language skills are addressed. It’s possible to schedule a time to instant message, for example, carrying on a non-visual conversation with a counterpart in a host country. Then there are technologies that take advantage of the Internet that have made voice communication extremely affordable without using a phone. In most cases, such as with Skype, these technologies further enable participants to see one another through video conferencing. Vocal inflection and body language, which are lost in asynchronous communication, can mitigate some of the potential challenges presented by cultural differences and the use of languages that are not native to one or both of the participants.

All of the preceding technologies present tremendous opportunities for enhanced communication, hence increased opportunities for planning mission activities. As such, I suggest that they are having a transformative affect on global mission, expanding opportunities, and accelerating the rate at which people engage in global mission. But I also note that the impact of these technologies is not always as beneficial as people might initially assume. These technologies also come at a cost, presenting challenges and the possibility for negative impacts on global mission relationships.

There are many challenges presented by new technologies. For example, those of us in Western, or what is often referred to as developed countries, have developed different habits within the context of different cultures, hence we have different social expectations when we use our technologies. Many of us have come to expect that an instant message should be responded to immediately. If more than ten minutes pass between sending some type of text message, we have the feeling that we’re being snubbed or ignored. We typically expect some kind of response to an email within 24 hours, two days at the most. When we don’t receive a response, we assume our message didn’t get through or the recipient has deliberately chosen not to respond. We’ve also come to assume that if someone has a technology, they use it in the same way that we do. For example, many of us have grown to assume that if someone has a cell phone they keep it on at all times, and, therefore, are always accessible. What we fail to realize, is that in a different cultural context an immediate response may not be the norm or not possible. In addition, power is often inconsistent in developing countries. So while someone may have a cell phone, they may not have access to a power source to maintain a charge for the battery. Internet service is understandably limited in remote locations in developing countries, making it difficult to respond quickly to an email even if there is sufficient electricity. We often forget that computers are a valuable commodity, making them prime targets for theft, which is exacerbated in a developing country where computers can be sold on the black market for anywhere from a month’s to a year’s wages.

All of the preceding challenges are in addition to the obvious challenge of language barriers presented by first and second languages. It’s becoming increasingly recognized that language itself is more culturally based than many have previously believed. While we may be able to translate and use the actually words, their cultural context can give them significantly different meaning. We may be able to speed communication, but may also have more opportunity for miscommunication due to differences in meaning related to cultural context and less time to fully process cultural differences.

The Global Mission Partnership Task Force (GMPTF) is currently going through some changes. In the coming months, there will be three additions to the GMPTF family.

Over the past several years the Diocese has had groups of individuals active around issues related to peace in Palestine/Israel and working for justice for Palestinians. Various trips have been made to the region, people have supported Palestinian businesses in various ways, people have been involved in various advocacy efforts, fundraising efforts have enabled our Diocese to be generous in its support of projects such as housing in Ramallah, the emergency room at St. Luke’s Hospital in Nablus, and the elder housing project in Ber Zeit, and churches have developed relationships with churches such as Emmanuel in Ramla, St. Andrew’s in Ramallah, and St. Peter’s in Ber Zeit ... and more ... A Palestine/Israel Task Force is forming to continue work in the region by focusing our efforts on continuing the work of Bp. Harris and others in developing our relationship with the Diocese of Jerusalem, providing tools and resources to educate the members of our Diocese about the issues, and working collaboratively with other organizations to expand opportunities for interfaith dialog.

There are several parishes, and individuals, in our Diocese that have been active in Haiti over the years developing church partnerships, providing medical care, assisting with construction projects, and supporting schools. In response to the recent earthquake, members of the Diocese have come together to form a Haiti Task Force. The task force is addressing both short-and long-term responses to Haiti's needs. In the short-term, we are encouraging people to offer prayers for Haiti, conducting fundraising, and supporting those who are currently able to help as certified first responders. In the long-term, we hope to facilitate reconstruction and healthcare mission trips in the coming months and years.

Members of the GMPTF have expressed a growing desire on the part of healthcare professionals in our churches to participate in mission activities that take advantage of their professional skills. In response, Samaritans Now, an Episcopal medical relief organization, has joined forces with the GMPTF to create a Global Healthcare Mission Task Force. We will be hosting an informational meeting at St. Mary’s Church, Newton Lower Falls (Saturday, 4/10, 10:00AM) for any and all healthcare professionals interested in participating in a mission trip (doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, physical therapists, psychologists, clinical social workers, etc.). Plans are currently underway for healthcare mission trips in 2010 and 2011 to the Caribbean, West Bank and Africa.

HAITI DISASTER RELIEF

*** Most aid organizations can only take trained professionals … people with disaster relief certification. The Red Cross offers a course, if you’re interested.

*** There are few things we can do in the immediate besides pray and donate funding, as there is limited access to Haiti (as is often the case in a disaster situation).

*** While the immediate disaster is front and center on our mind, there will be much that needs to be done for MANY years to come. Just because you don’t go this week doesn’t mean you should scrap your interest in offering relief. Get some training, raise some funding, and make some connections (after the “smoke” clears, as they say) and then go to help.

There is plenty to be done in disaster relief. Here is some information that might be useful if you’re considering donating or getting involved:

Donating

The Society of St. Margaret, 17 Highland Park Street, Boston, MA 02119. For updates and more information about the sisters’ work in Haiti, go to www.ssmbos.com and click on the “Haiti” page link.

Episcopal Relief and Development: Donate online at www.er-d.org or call 800-334-7626, ext. 5129. Donations can be mailed to Episcopal Relief and Development, PO Box 7058, Merrifield, VA 22116-7058. (Please put “Haiti Fund” in the memo line of all checks.) Also, Episcopal Relief and Development is producing a bulletin insert that will be available online.

Volunteering

The highest demand right now is medical support and supplies. If you have some kind of healthcare skills, have disaster training, and are prepared to travel to Haiti, here is some information that may help.

Contacts

Doctors without Borders 212.679.6800 … has an online volunteer form and probably won’t accept anyone who lacks disaster experience and/or training.

Partners in Health 617.432.5256 … is based out of Boston and has medical programs and facilities in Haiti (PiH has set up a temporary field hospital in Port-Au-Prince and all medical facilities are reporting a lack of sufficient staff and medical supplies).

Episcopal Relief & Development 800.334.7626, ext. 5129 … has a disaster relief program and may have a channel for volunteers.

The Episcopal Church of Haiti … http://www.egliseepiscopaledhaiti.org and the local contact through the diocesan offices in Haiti is The Rev. Kesner Ajax … kesnerajax@yahoo.com . Though communication in Haiti is currently a challenge, Kesner has had some internet access.

Credentials

It’s recommended that you carry a copy of any current valid medical credentials or licenses. You might plan to keep one in your bag and another physically on you. That’s also the case with your passport. Be sure to keep a copy of your passport separate from your actual passport. (If your passport is lost or stolen, a copy will significantly expedite replacement.)

Self-care

You’ll be going in to difficult places and be exposed to increasing health risks. If you haven’t been to a travel clinic recently, you should do so. Get things like malaria tablets. Unlike a typical mission-related trip, you’ll want to remember to take supplies such as water treatment tablets which are usually available in stores like Eastern Mountain Sports and REI.

Packing

Plan to pack “extremely” light. You’ll probably be carrying your personal belongings much of the time. A good rule is for all of your personal items to fit in one carry-on. Keep in mind that you’re in a disaster area, so keeping up appearances isn’t really an issue. If you’re a medical professional, you may want to restrict the majority of your wardrobe to scrubs. Scrubs are appropriate for just about any healthcare environment and provide an added advantage of identifying you as medical.

Take as many checked bags as you can handle and that are allowed … filled with all types of medical supplies (you might call the airline prior to departure to see if you can get luggage fees waived for humanitarian efforts). Think in terms of any kind of bandaging or wound cleansing materials, as well as any antibiotics, Benedryl, Ibuprofen, extra strength Ibuprofen, Vitamins, Children’s Tylenol, basic personal items such as a toothbrushes, lotions, hand sanitizers, and so forth.

Provided by:

The Global Mission Partnership Task Force

The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts

In Port-au-Prince, our medical mission team stopped at an orphanage to provide lunch for the children (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we made the night before), to make donations of clothing, school supplies, and games, to provide basic medical care to those with the greatest need, and to spend some time playing with the children.

Many orphanages in developing countries lack adequate services … running water, electricity, sufficient staffing, and medical care. In addition, the children come from deplorable situations, often carrying physical and emotional scars from their difficult situations. Some children are simply dropped off by family members, because for some reason they feel unable to care for them. Then there are others who are found in the trash. Sometimes, children have had some kind of medical situation that their families were unable to attend to, compounding a situation that may lead to a permanent condition or amputation. The permanent medical condition they created by not being able to access or provide adequate medical care often leads to abandonment. Some children are born on the streets to prostitute mothers and are abandoned or brought into the world of prostitution at an extremely young age until rescued by someone who cares enough to bring the child to an orphanage. Sometimes a mother will move in with a new boyfriend, bringing the child with her, and then use the opportunity to abandon the child at some point in the future hoping the boyfriend will see the child as his responsibility. In some cases, children are left in abandoned homes, or are locked in closets or small rooms for long periods of time, because no one is available to care for them. While the stories seem endless, the reality is that NO child should have to experience any of these life scenarios. And yet, many do … daily.

An orphanage visit definitely emphasizes the point that mission is more often about “being” than “doing.” Orphans need someone who will be with them, staying long enough to let them know they aren’t forgotten … that they are loved. On this hot sunny day we arrived to a very warm and energetic welcome … in fact, it was a bit overwhelming, particularly after four very full days of medical clinics. All of the children were excited to be touched, held, or to be played with. Many signaled that they wanted to be picked up. Once raised into our arms, most didn’t want to be put down nor did they want to let go. Like several others in our group, I quickly ended up sitting on the floor so that I could hold more than one child at a time.

One young boy (~ 4 years old) will be in my thoughts for a long time to come. I never knew his name, and he didn’t say a word to me. He sat on my leg for a long while … just sat. At one point, another child tried to monopolize me and he got very upset. He didn’t say anything, but used his presence to make it clear he wouldn’t be moved. What sticks in my mind about him was that he didn’t seem to have any kind of emotional affect (outside of that brief forceful standing of his ground on my lap). I spoke to him, touched his arms, handed him things as they were passed around by others, but he never did anything but look forward with a blank stare. He didn’t take things from me. He didn’t smile. The only emotion thus far was the few moments when he thought his spot on my lap would be threatened. When I was ready to resign myself to the assumption that maybe he had a learning disorder or some kind of brain damage, I noticed a tear running down his face. Though there was no change in his facial expression, he was crying. Tears ran down his cheeks for several minutes. I wiped away his tears with my finger. There still wasn’t any movement or change in expression. He didn’t offer any kind of emotion other than the tears. But after I wiped them away, he leaned back into my shoulder, snuggled into the fold of my arm, and fell into a deep sleep. I continued to hold him until we were ready to leave, at which point I laid him down on a padded bench and walked out of the building.

It was difficult to put him down. It was difficult to leave the orphanage. As short term missioners, we know we have to leave. But those who touch are lives, somehow change us … they become a part of us. I guess, in this way, we are living out one of the blessings of the Eucharist … where we are all one in Christ.

Arguably, this may be one of those times in history where it’s clear we need strong cross-cultural relations. Challenges in the Anglican Communion, war in Iraq and Afghanistan, issues related to immigration, and so on, all point to our need to understand and appreciate each other’s perspectives. One of the ways in which all of us can strengthen our ties within the Anglican Communion, develop and share new perspectives, and ultimately, be spiritually transformed by our encounter of Christ in others, is through global mission activities.

The Global Partnership Task Force is focused on providing leadership and support for churches to develop their own unique global mission program. In some cases, churches encounter problems and need some assistance. Last year, for example, Christ Church Needham was scheduled to travel to Haiti on a medical mission. Given the environment in Haiti at the time, they needed to make a last minute change. I was able to facilitate contact with the diocesan offices in Guatemala and arrangements were made for the team to stay at a mission and provide medical services through congregations in the Lake Izabal region.

The majority of this year’s work has been focused on revamping our web site (which you already know or you wouldn’t be reading this), continuing the success of the Mission Leadership Program, and developing a global mission event for the Diocesan Resource Day. If you’re interested in getting involved, I hope you’ll take a minute to drop me a note or give me a call (tjgaiser@earthlink.net or 617-782-1577).

Often when I present on global mission, after I’ve made a lengthy pitch about parish discernment and ways in which I can support the discernment effort, someone inevitably says something like, “just tell me what you need,” or “is there a list somewhere of things we can support?” While that’s an understandable desire, particularly when the work of discernment is difficult, it, unfortunately, doesn’t make for sustainable partnerships.

I could tell you about some possible projects in Tanzania. I could share that Wilfred, the headmaster of the diocesan secondary school in Hegongo could use a few thousand toward a new chemistry lab or the reconstruction of the chapel. I could advise you to give medical books to the library of the School of Nursing at Teule Hospital. If you asked about Central America, I could encourage you to donate to the diocesan road construction project in El Maizal, El Salvador, or how to sponsor a child at El Hogar in Honduras, or maybe how to support the Diocesan school, Holy Cross, in Belize. But then who has the relationship with the organization? … me. We need to ask ourselves what makes a relationship sustainable and whether or not giving another $1,000 from next year’s mission budget constitute “sustainable” or a “relationship?”

If you're looking for opportunities to donate money toward mission, then there are many. On the Diocesan website, www.diomass.org , you'll find a link to Jubilee. The committee is doing great deal of work in Africa and would welcome your involvement and contribution toward their many AIDS projects in East Africa. If you’d rather, Episcopal Relief & Development (ERD), www.er-d.org , raises funds for a variety of programs from emergency relief around the world to specific projects such as the distribution of mosquito nets for the prevention of malaria. If you’d like more options, there is Save the Children, Children International, Feed the Children, The Heifer Project, Direct Relief International, Doctors without Borders, and … take your pick.

Go ahead and donate. Donations are necessary, and our contributions go a long way in addressing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). But don’t fool yourself into thinking that means you have a “relationship.” Relationships develop when you “relate.” Relationships take time and effort. They require action and interaction. As we get frustrated by the differences in our uses of technologies, negotiate times to call that compensate for differences in time zones, deal with snafus in the itinerary, learn about added fuel tax for our trip due to the rising cost of fuel oil in the region where we’ll be travelling, discuss food allergies and medications for warding off regional illness … a relationship begins to emerge. When we see commonalities and dissimilarities, talking about raising our children, addressing typical challenges at church, learning about new liturgical ideas … these are the ways in which we begin to plumb the depths of a new friendship. These are the signs of a relationship. These are the signs that a global partnership is forming.

In El Salvador, Bishop Barahona expressed this well when he shared with the Mission Leadership participants that he once turned a visitor away. He shared that he was talking about relationships and the desire to be in relationship with the visitor’s diocese. He then shared the kinds of things they might do together. At that moment the guest pulled out a check book and asked how much he needed for one particular project. His response was to ask if the person had heard anything that he had said. He wasn’t interested in his money, because if it’s about money, there are lots of places to get it. He was interested in relationship. He was interested in the empowerment that emerges when people from other countries show interest in the work of their church and in learning more about their experience. He wants the church of El Salvador to have the opportunity of experiencing that they are seen as brothers and sisters by their Anglican colleagues, evidenced by our willingness to come work beside them in El Salvador as they, too, work to fulfill God’s mission in the world. He concluded his comments to us by summarizing as follows, “You can’t fix our problems, nor do we want you to. But we all share in the same baptismal covenant … we are all called to the same mission … God’s mission. Come work beside us, joining together in mission.”