Friday event

Some two and half dozen folks from Crescent Hill, Highland, and Springdale Presbyterian churches (as well as from Habitat for Humanity) braved the ice and snow Friday evening and gathered at the Crescent Hill Fellowship Hall to hear Princeton graduate student LiErin Probasco talk about how Latin Americans interpret gifts from North American church groups.

LiErin described how she spent time with a dozen North American mission teams traveling to Guatemala, as well as with the Nicaraguans whom they visited. North Americans were uncomfortable, LiErin said, when Nicaraguans interpreted gifts through the lens of patronage (with the North Americans as the patrones, the jefes). Less discomforting was interpreting gifts and aid as part of a triangular relationship. God sends North Americans, as angels, and they help the Nicaraguans.

Reciprocity is supposed to be a hallmark of the exchange of gifts, and the relationship between North Americans and Nicaraguans often seems unequal because it doesn’t seem that Nicaraguans can reciprocate.

In wide-ranging comments towards the end of her presentation and during a question-and-answer and broader discussion, LiErin ruminated more broadly about the pitfalls of mission trips and mission relationships and made some general suggestions. These included: have meals with your partners (not separately), talk about problems with aid among yourselves and with partners, and – through prayer or in meetings or even in ceremonies – publicly recognize the gifts that partners have shared with you.

Participants shared peaks and valleys they have experienced within mission relationships, including the current challenge the Crescent Hill-Guatemala mission partnership faces, and hinted they might reconvene for additional discussion.

Andrea, Claudia, Lowell, Soni, and Stephanie provided soup, burritos, and salad, Andrea provided the flyers, and Carlos provided a ride for the speaker and a blessing for the meal, and a group of folks visited with LiErin after the event.

-Perry