I was a Cog in the Missionary Machine…
I spent my high school summers as a teen-aged missionary
Honestly, this is a topic that I have wanted to avoid writing about. It is hard to face that you were duped and manipulated. But it is even harder to deal with the shame of contributing to a system that promotes something as ugly as colonization and bigotry under the guise of altruism. In addition, over 25 year have passed and I still have effects from the spiritual abuse that I was exposed to while involved in a toxic Evangelical ministry that has since had to close its doors due to a pattern of financial mismanagement and abuse of minors. I was almost 17, sheltered and naive, when I went to Eastern Europe on my first missions trip. At the time I felt that “God was calling me to the mission field” and the enthusiasm of my recruiter made me feel like the organization I chose was cool and special. I was intrigued by the mystery of the “iron curtain” and grew up with stories of Brother Andrew who smuggled Bibles into Eastern Europe and Russia. Being that the wall in Berlin had only recently fallen, the Eastern Bloc was wide open to the influx of the west and one of the main imports during that period was religion. The group I worked with explained that that was because everyone has a God shaped hole and we were there to tell them that the only thing they were missing was a personal relationship with Jesus and the blessings that were sure to follow that decision.
First time away from home
I was able to raise financial support from family and friends. The three month trip cost over $3000.00. I grew up in a rural community and was not part of a big church, so it wasn’t easy to raise the funds. I contributed my own earnings from my high school job and I recruited family members to help me bake pies for a fundraiser. Truthfully, this trip was a great adventure for me and I do have some positive memories of this first summer. It was my first time out of the USA and away from my family. I was able to roll with most of the inconveniences and hardships that the missions organization created or did not plan adequately for. But I had people on my team looking out for me and I was in love with meeting new people and learning about the culture and history of the country I spent the summer in. I was living my dream of bringing the gospel to those who had been behind the iron curtain.
Drama ministry and failed cultural contextualization
We traveled all over the country and performed our evangelistic drama to large crowds of people. Several of our performances were paired with evangelistic crusades that were tied to a number of Word of Faith (prosperity gospel) churches in that country. Our main goal was to connect our audience with this chain of churches. Anyone familiar with evangelistic campaigns would recognize our routine. First we located the stage, we set up our sound equipment and then we started performing a song or short skit. After we had drawn a crowd of several hundred to over a thousand, we would perform the 20–30 minute drama which was our main evangelistic tool. A few of these rallys were advertised in advance and drew immense crowds where we were paired with a CCM (Christian Contemporary Music) artist who used the video footage to make a music video. After the performance one of our leaders would give an alter call which was translated into the local language by a translator and included an explanation of the alegorical drama and a plea for the audience to “accept Jesus into your heart and he will make all the pain go away and give you the desires of your heart”. Or whatever their personal interpretation of the gospel was. Then we would disperse into the crowd with a translator if we had enough to go around. We were encouraged to memorize the plan of salvation and recite it to the people we were trying to win over to the message we were promoting. Following that we were supposed to share a finely polished version of our testimony of how we became a Christian and all the benefits of doing so.
Before we left for the country of our choice a couple thousand teens met in Miami for 3 days of intense training and indoctrination. The main goal was for us to learn the drama which was choreographed and a pantomimed presentation that was meant to be an allegory of the gospel. The first two summers I was with this group, we used a drama called “Allegiance”. It was a narrative with sea captains, crew, pirates, mimes, and a mix of characters that seemed like the cast of the Village People. The pinnacle of the drama was the crucifixion of the captain. The most handsome, tall and white male on the team was usually cast in this role. There was a resurrection scene, a banishment of the pirates and a conclusion where the Village People lived happily ever after. Truthfully, it was a difficult allegory for me to track with and I was raised on the gospel narrative.
I spent the first summer in Hungary. Our message was fairly well received due to the interest that the Hungarians had in the US and their new openness to religion. I am now certain that our exported message was really just a mix of capitalism, white Christianity and a touch of charismatic/pentecostal theology. We had people follow along with the “prayer of salvation” and then gathered the names and phone numbers of new converts and passed them on to leadership at a chain of growing churches which are now megachurches. The second and third summers I went to south India with the same organization. I am certain that the drama was incomprehensible in India. Our hosts and translators were very accommodating, but we heard rumors that people were scared of the pirates and mimes and confused by the story. But this didn’t stop our fervor to “spread the gospel”. People still made “decisions” and prayed along with the prayer that we would memorize in their language. While we had adequate translators in Hungary, this was less true in India and it was often difficult to get a translator for your group. So we relied on our poor attempts to read the Telugu script of the gospel and lead them in prayer.
The mission agency’s doctrine was translated into the main language of each of the countries they targeted. Briefly it outlined that man sinned and God was not happy. God sent Jesus to die for our sins and all we need to do is ask him to be our “personal Lord and Savior”. This message seemed easily understood in Hungary, but the next year I went to India, where people were essentially praying that prayer and then adding Christ to their pantheon of gods. My third and final year the group changed the drama in an effort to contextualize it more to Eastern contexts, but inadvertently added a cape to the mimes which our watchers interpreted as “death eaters” and it worsened the problem of the drama being incomprehensible. I can say with confidence that this group was not doing a good job of proclaiming good news to India and probably doing a poor job around the world.
Rules, rules, rules
Not all of my experience was positive, I was also starting to be thoroughly indoctrinated in the group’s ultra-legalistic doctrines. I was not able to have close friendships among the opposite gender and if we brought any non-Christian music, it had to be destroyed. All the girls on the team were taught to follow the group’s modesty rules and to only exhibit “appropriate” behavior so that we did not “cause our brothers to stumble”. The girls on the trip were mentored on how to style our hair, dress more feminine and be modest in our appearance. My teammates who had done several of these trips and/or were part of the full year internship taught us the ways and culture of the group. There were so many acronyms and a special language that went along with being accepted into the group. I came home believing that I was special, chosen and a better Christian than anyone that I encountered at home.
Like I said, there were lots of rules regarding romantic relationships with the opposite gender. Most notable was the BV rule, which stood for Bon Voyage. We were threatened that if we started a relationship while on our summer trip that we would be sent home immediately, no matter where in the world we were. Established couples who were not yet married were required to go to different countries if they both went with this group. I heard that couples were sent home for kissing, but didn’t know anyone who was sent home. But the threat was always there. I met a guy that I really liked and it was pretty obvious that he liked me. This was known as “having a sunflower”. The group leader explained that he called it this because wherever that person goes, you would turn your head towards them. Looking back, my little crush was a completely normal part of growing up, but I was made to feel like I was going to sin simply by admiring and wanting to be friends with a person of the opposite gender. We never did anything on our own, always in a group and yet we both got talked to by leadership and told that we “needed to be careful”, but in reality, nothing happened and it was completely innocent.
Rule Enforcers
The first level of leadership in the organization that I was part of was called MA or Missionary Advisor and this role was essentially a camp counselor. Their main responsibility was to make sure their charges (“missionaries”) observed quiet time (reading the Bible and praying) and followed the many rules of the organization. They did not pay their MA’s for this added responsibility or provide a break in the cost of their trip. MA’s had an extra day of training which was mainly being briefed on all the rules of the organization and were told how special and elite a group they were. MA’s were called “world changers”, etc. MA’s were responsible for their charges spiritual and physical well-being, along with making sure they didn’t have any contraband (like non-Christian music or other items that might be an “ungodly influence”. They also took on monitoring their group members’ relationships with the opposite gender and made sure that they didn’t have any budding “sunflowers”. MAs also were chaperones for “missionaries’’ when we had free days or free time at the end of the day and needed to leave our barracks to see the city sites or do shopping. Looking back, I think that this organization should have compensated MAs for their time and leadership that they provided. But instead they love bombed them and made them feel like you should thank them for being able to pay to be there and serve the ministry.
Trauma bonding with teammates
The first summer I went to India, I felt like a pioneer. It was the organization’s first year sending a team there and the majority of my team had been to Albania the prior year. That trip was known to have been rife with safety concerns and hardships. Despite that, these kids came back for another round of hardship. I picked this trip because I believed that the Lord wanted me to go to India, but also I chose it because I thought it would be challenging. And it was challenging. For instance, the missions organization had us take an un-air conditioned 20+ hour train trip from Delhi to Hyderabad. There was an elitism taught by the leader of the organization and we were taught to revere those who suffered for the “sake of Christ” . The missions organization did a poor job of planning for 90 teens and leaders and we were forced to endure unrealistic amounts of heat, humidity and sickness that summer. They had no plan for what to do with us when several of us teens were dehydrated to the point of needing to go to a hospital and be hooked up to an IV. Several of my male teammates were taken to the hospital and did receive an IV. I got very sick during my first couple weeks there and ran a temp of 104. I started hallucinating and stopped drinking water. I should have been offered medical care, but a female team mate and I, with identical symptoms, were left to “recover” in a room by ourselves with no one checking on us for 8–10 hours while the team went to perform the drama.
These things should have scared us off or made us angry at the organization for not adequately taking into account the risks of their decisions to cut corners and save money, even though we had each raised over $3000.00 for the trip, plus RT airfare to Miami for training. But instead we were brainwashed that our suffering was for the Lord and for the sake of the gospel. We craved harder circumstances and didn’t complain when we had to sleep on the hard floor of a church, suffer through stifling heat or eat food that was less than appealing. We were told not to complain and to “do everything as unto the Lord”. After the summer, all we left with were bragging rights.
Looking back now, I realize that this organization acted with negligence in their care of minors’ physical and mental health and that they never were fully held accountable. I have no idea how I convinced my parents that I should go back with this group the following summer.
Spiritual manipulation
One of the ways that this group grew its empire was through the use of spiritual manipulation on their recruits. Because of my involvement with this group, I was convinced that I was a better Christian and I had a more complete view of the gospel. I even considered the spiritual practices at my home church to be “dead” because they were not as emotion filled and my church did not practice their beliefs in the Holy Spirit in the same manner. Anything that was not from the leader of the group or the group’s teaching was referred to as “lukewarm”. I would experience a spiritual high when I was attending the organizations events and trips that I rarely, if ever, experienced at home. The area where I felt the majority of spiritual manipulation was during the worship times. This organization practiced a showy style of worship and the big gatherings were like going to a rock concert, complete with a full band of talented young people who were paying to be there just like me. Now I realize that some of the song and the worship style were conducive to a trance state and I was very susceptible to it. There were at least two occasions where I was “slain in the Spirit”, but now I am convinced that I may have passed out from singing so forcefully. That style of worship triggers a trauma response for me now. Being “slain in the spirit” is often explained by Charismatic Christians as the method God uses to work inner and emotional healing, but whatever relief I found was fleeting and needed to be repeated frequently. I was hooked on a cycle of depression and spiritual highs. All this is weird to try to explain to someone who hasn’t been part of this Christian subculture, but these are some of the reasons that I now refer to myself as a “recovering Charismatic”.
Purity culture as a means of control
Even after I was no longer a part of this group their teachings continued to influence many parts of my life, including my dating life. For instance, I chose to not date at all my first year of college because I signed a commitment to “focus on Jesus” that year. During training, the group offered a generous selection of books and merchandise, which were geared towards making money and also supporting the agendas of the organization. During the trips we had lots time to read with all the lengthy bus and train rides, so I did a fair amount of reading. One book that was pushed a lot was Elizabeth Elliot’s “Passion and Purity”. I read this book 2–3x over the course of those three summers. This book came out before Josh Harris’ “I kissed Dating Goodbye”, but it also held up an unrealistic standard for “purity” and courtship. I was told that the Elliots modeled a romantic and spiritual ideal that I needed to try to live up to. I beat myself up over liking people who were “not marriage material” and refused to date for social or development purposes.
Between my fairly strict homeschool upbringing and this group’s strict doctrines around relationships, I feel like I was set up for failure in my first serious relationship. After several years of dating/courtship, we got married at 21 years old. The marriage did not last after my ex became abusive. I am divorced and remarried to a much better man. Doing things “the right way” did not guarantee me a good marriage and a loving relationship. There are no absolute guarantees in life, but the leader of the organization I was with promised that if I did everything that God wanted me to do, then I would be blessed and prosper. God didn’t let me down, but the philosophies of this missions group did.
This is my story. I am sure that the stories of other people on my team and the people that we ministered to would all be different. Recently, I was surprised to find out that the string of churches in Hungary that we provided free advertisement for are now part of the biggest Charismatic denomination in Hungary. The ties between this church and the government of Hungary are enmeshed and the church has influenced the proposal of anti-LGBTQIA and anti-immigrant legislation. Victor Orban was promoted from the pulpit of this church and he is a proponent of Christian Dominionism. This isn’t the type of religion that I had hoped would spread in Hungary. These aren’t the seeds that I had wished to plant. I wanted Hungarians to experience freedom, truth and love and instead the group I was part of chose to join with those who would limit, exclude and judge people who did not fit their criteria. They would confuse material wealth and power with God’s blessing. I was a teen aged missionary and I brought chains instead of freedom to the people that I had hoped to help release from the bondage of authoritarianism.
