Friday, September 02, 2005

student teams and disasters

When the Tsunami hit, I had a few people ask me if I thought about taking a team there to help.  No.  Same answer when it comes to New Orleans.  Now, I realize that I might be the minority when it comes to this opinion.  And I'm okay with that.

Right after the Tsunami hit, we had a team from GCC go to Southern India to help a church planter.  They had planned this trip way before the disaster.  As soon as the tsunami hit, I was secretly against them going.  If anyone asked me for my opinion, I would have told them.  I'm glad no one asked because they had a really good trip. 

There are contexts where student teams are great.  Disaster relief situations are not one of those contexts.  You will:
- Expose your kids to a lot of death, destruction, disease, etc.  Disaster environments are environments where people can barely live.  Think post traumatic syndrome. 
- Spend a lot of time and money that could otherwise be used for daily needs for people already stricken.  It is far more efficient to give that money to people and organizations that are already on the ground working the relief. 
- Probably get in the way of a lot of professional people that train all their lives for situations like this.  Those people are the professionals.

So, just in case you asked.  (Sometimes I know I should keep my mouth shut.)

No comments:

Post a Comment