I wanted to take a minute to respond to this comment from Jackscolon -- and I wanted to do it in a new post, because it coincides with something I've been wanting to post before we go to Uganda. Here's what Jacks' said:

With the exclusion of you (who I've talked to and am pretty convinced that the motivation for the trip is out of a genuine motivation to make a difference) is a lot of Christian missions more like "Field Trips W/ Jesus: How Ten days in El Salvador Made Me Feel Less Guilty"? Because that's how I've kind of always viewed them, and I'm wondering if I'm the only person who has this aversion to them...

I think he hits on something here that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. It's really easy to see short-term missions as these kind of things. When we, as a team, started talking about our mission in Uganda, it quickly became clear that the 6 of us had the same goal in mind. We call it "humble presence." Shortly after we began talking about the importance of exercising a ministry of humble presence in Uganda, a team member, came across this article in Christianity Today -- an interview with the assistant bishop of the Anglican Church in Kampala. Read it here. It's short and really profound.

The best part is where the interviewer asks the bishop how American Christians can best cultivate relationships overseas. He said: "It is very simple. Come and be with us, with no agenda other than to be with us." So, that is what we are doing.

It's been a hard mission to "sell" to a lot of people. As Westerners, we think that we always have to go to the poor with a mission to fix things for them. This is important, but as the bishop points out in the article, shouldn't always be the focus for missions. He says:

We need to begin to read the Bible differently. Americans have been preoccupied with the end of the Gospel of Matthew, the Great Commission: "Go and make." I call them go-and-make missionaries. These are the go-and-fix-it people. The go-and-make people are those who act like it's all in our power, and all we have to do is "finish the task." They love that passage! But when read from the center of power, that passage simply reinforces the illusion that it's about us, that we are in charge.

I would like to suggest a new favorite passage, the Great Invitation. It's what we find if we read from the beginning of the Gospels rather than the end. Jesus says, "Come, follow me. I will make you fishers of men." Not "Go and make," but "I will make you." It's all about Jesus. And do you know the last words of Jesus to Peter, in John 21? "Follow me." The last words of Simon Peter's encounter are the same as the first words.

There is so much good stuff in the bishops words. I want to give one more excerpt to inspire you to read the whole article. He talks about the importance for a Christian of experiencing life at the margins. He says that God is always at work in the margins, and most of the important events in the history of the church have taken place at the periphery -- not in the center. He admonishes:

But we lose our legitimacy as Christian leaders in an affluent country like [the U.S.] if we can't use that affluence in order to experience the situation of those on the margins. "God so loved the world"—how dare we say we identify with him in that love if we don't go there, if we don't choose the margins?

I'm reading The End of Poverty by Jeffery Sachs right now, and it is becoming very clear to me that there are more margins in the world than we ever fully realize -- and that to experience life in these places is an important thing, especially as a Christian. It is difficult, and harrowing, to imagine going in to a place of such brokenness and poverty, and suffering. But it is my hope that in doing so we will also find resiliance, joy, and hope -- the kind that rich Americans can not imagine possessing. There must be something more real about African Christianity. To trust God, to praise Him, and to have joy in material circumstances that do not call for it speak to a depth of faith that I cannot imagine having. I hope that in going, I am made into something new; something more real.

So, it's not really a field trip with Jesus, or a way to lessen my guilt. If anything, experiencing life at the margins should increase our guilt. The trip is about fellowshipping with African brothers and sisters, seeing their lives, being with them, and loving them. We go with no agenda other than what God will lead us to as we go.