Peace Corps Told--- "Have Nothing to Do with Missionaries!"

“The Peace Corps man, who lived in a village near where I worked, always avoided me. But once I found myself going up a steep narrow street and saw him coming down. I instantly knew that we would at least have to exchange a greeting. I had heard that his two-year term was soon to end and wondered what he had understood of what I was doing. When he approached I stuttered out a hello and asked him how the chicken farm was going. “Lousy,” he complained. “I don’t think it will continue when I leave.” I knew he had put his heart into it, so I asked him what was the problem. He snarled, “You can’t trust these Guatemalans. When I leave each month to go to the capital for our Peace Corps briefing, the egg production drops on exactly those two days. No, you can’t trust these Guatemalans.”

By this time I had been in Guatemala for almost ten years, so I took some offense. I found myself replying, “Look, you want to find an honest Guatemalan? That’s the business I’m in. I can find you an honest man in any village of Guatemala.” By then every village in Guatemala had at least one Evangelical congregation of humble people whose lives had been renewed because of a heavenly hope and a new earthly Master for whom deceit and dishonesty were detestable.

I could tell he didn’t believe me. Maybe I exaggerated a little. Nevertheless, mission work still has an inherent advantage. The diversity, mutual antagonism, and lack of coordination of the earnest efforts of the agencies I have listed above is a real burden and hindrance to development and hope. This burden and barrier is really only nearly erased when you get into the world of the religious agencies, particularly the standard missions. By “standard missions” I don’t mean the specialized religious relief and development agencies. They also cannot be effective in most cases unless the religious agencies get there first and generate honest people. All agencies need enough renewed people to create the minimal integrity required to manage the essential developing infrastructure of a country.

("When Business can be Missions: Where Both Business and Mission Fall Short", By Ralph D Winter. Mission Frontiers , Nov-Dec 2007, Pg 11)