While on our way to the Turks & Caicos Islands in the Caribbean we noticed a number of what we call Jesus groups with T-shirts stating that they are going to do missionary work in Jamaica, Haiti or some other “poor” country.
Although I believe some missionaries actually accomplish some good for the people they go to serve, I still believe that the main impetus behind all this “good” work is to get a good place in heaven for themselves, add converts to the faith and spread the Word.
I have been watching the Baptists missionaries imprisoned in Haiti for child smuggling and I am trying to get a handle on what they were really up to. I don’t for a minute think they were collecting children to sell but what were they really doing, since most of those kids were not orphans? I guess you could say they were trying to give those children a better life…?
I read one report saying that Haiti needs help to establish itself as a viable culture; you cannot rebuild what has never been built in the first place. Haiti does not need Jesus people taking their kids away; they need help as a society to get to a position where they can take care of their own children as well as themselves so back to the Jesus people…
The leader of the imprisoned group is Laura Silsby from Idaho. It seems she is a single parent with a house in foreclosure and a business in bankruptcy with employees filing suit against her for various reasons. She says she heard God’s call to go to Haiti and led a group of people who have since told authorities they were mislead by Laura as to their actual mission there, to collect children and take them to an orphanage that she controlled (?) in the Dominican Republic.
I guess what aggravates me, and this is turning into a much larger aggravation then I originally envisioned, is people like Silsby who seem to know what God wants or what His plans are. I am now reading about missionaries baptizing people (Voodoo people I presume) and issuing them a baptismal certificate which happens to be the only legal document these people have to identify themselves - so they are issuing identity cards if you agree to be baptized a Christian?
I am reading that the Haitians are being told that God was so pissed at them for practicing Voodoo that he sent the earthquake to punish them and if they become good Christians and abandon Voodoo, their lives will improve dramatically and no more disasters.
I realize that the Haitians need help desperately, in fact, their whole culture needs help; they need to change the way they think and the way they act and that may mean switching from one superstition (Voodoo) to another (Christianity) since Christian communities have a history of social and commercial success whereas I have never heard of a Voodoo culture / community building a Wall Street.
On the one hand I hate to see those self-serving Christians handing out Bibles to desperate people in need of food but on the other, I don’t know how to change their culture so they can become productive people with a future for themselves and their children.
Although I believe some missionaries actually accomplish some good for the people they go to serve, I still believe that the main impetus behind all this “good” work is to get a good place in heaven for themselves, add converts to the faith and spread the Word.
I have been watching the Baptists missionaries imprisoned in Haiti for child smuggling and I am trying to get a handle on what they were really up to. I don’t for a minute think they were collecting children to sell but what were they really doing, since most of those kids were not orphans? I guess you could say they were trying to give those children a better life…?
I read one report saying that Haiti needs help to establish itself as a viable culture; you cannot rebuild what has never been built in the first place. Haiti does not need Jesus people taking their kids away; they need help as a society to get to a position where they can take care of their own children as well as themselves so back to the Jesus people…
The leader of the imprisoned group is Laura Silsby from Idaho. It seems she is a single parent with a house in foreclosure and a business in bankruptcy with employees filing suit against her for various reasons. She says she heard God’s call to go to Haiti and led a group of people who have since told authorities they were mislead by Laura as to their actual mission there, to collect children and take them to an orphanage that she controlled (?) in the Dominican Republic.
I guess what aggravates me, and this is turning into a much larger aggravation then I originally envisioned, is people like Silsby who seem to know what God wants or what His plans are. I am now reading about missionaries baptizing people (Voodoo people I presume) and issuing them a baptismal certificate which happens to be the only legal document these people have to identify themselves - so they are issuing identity cards if you agree to be baptized a Christian?
I am reading that the Haitians are being told that God was so pissed at them for practicing Voodoo that he sent the earthquake to punish them and if they become good Christians and abandon Voodoo, their lives will improve dramatically and no more disasters.
I realize that the Haitians need help desperately, in fact, their whole culture needs help; they need to change the way they think and the way they act and that may mean switching from one superstition (Voodoo) to another (Christianity) since Christian communities have a history of social and commercial success whereas I have never heard of a Voodoo culture / community building a Wall Street.
On the one hand I hate to see those self-serving Christians handing out Bibles to desperate people in need of food but on the other, I don’t know how to change their culture so they can become productive people with a future for themselves and their children.
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