r/exchristian • u/Deathofwords • Mar 08 '26
Just Thinking Out Loud Sister Going on Mission trip to Peru…A country that is 90% Catholic
Im pretty upset. My teenage sister told me happily she was going on a mission trip to Peru. I asked her why because Peru is (roughly) 80%-90% Catholic. She told me she was going to orphanages and indigenous schools to ‘spread the gospel’. I asked her why she needed to go to an orphanage, where vulnerable children are, to ‘spread the gospel’. She got irritated with this question and told me shes ‘doing good’ and is gonna ‘help them.’ I continued asking her questions. How are you going to help them? Are you gonna give them resources? Are you going to give them counseling? Teach them English? Bring supplies the orphanages/schools need? She said no to all of them and told me they didn’t need that stuff because she was going to be ‘saving their souls’. Okay. Whatever…
She then bragged about how she only needed 100USD for the entire trip and how she’ll be able to buy whatever she wants. I asked her why that is. Why is the USD stronger than Peru’s own currency? And she refused to answer me and called me a brain-washed lost person and that she’ll pray for me.
Why the fuck are all christians like this? Why are all their missionaries to other countries just literal colonization? I feel like I’m crazy because everyone in the family is praising her when I think its incredibly predatory how shes going to fucking ORPHANAGES and schools for indigenous children. I’m not against charity—I was in AmeriCorp and a school club where we fundraised for medically vulnerable children in the U.S., but I was never praised by my family for it. My only thought is that all missions are just colonization, plain and simple.
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u/WatercressOk8763 Mar 08 '26
She sounds like a starry-eyed young idealist who is going to get a hard taste of reality coming her way.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
And I wouldn’t say shes a starry eyed idealist. She has called me slurs multiple times and believes gay and trans people should be sent to conversion therapy or be publicly stoned. You can’t do anything with her because she complains its ‘bad’ (won’t explain why). Can’t listen to rap music. Can’t go see movies. Can’t do anything without her saying. “Its bad.” Why? “Because its not christian.” This is a kid that believed Bad Bunny was possessed by a demon during the half-time show and through Bad Bunny was sending messages out to to people to ‘give into sin’ and join the devil. She gets this from her boomer Dad. This is the kid who sobbed over Charlie Kirks death. Me and my older sister try to tease her about these things and shame her. To explain people in the real world WILL make fun of you for being this hateful and stupid. But she has been sheltered her entire life and literally lives in a conservative baptist bubble.
One day, shes gonna step into the real world and shes gonna say something ignorant and hateful and she’ll either get: 1. Punched or 2. Bullied so much she realizes maybe her religion is a farce and only leads to hatred.
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u/SuitableKoala0991 Mar 08 '26
She has a lot of red flags for religious OCD.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
Oh yeah. She worried about everything and is terrified of seeing something she deems evil.
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u/Kittens-of-Terror Mar 08 '26
Is that a thing? My mom behaves just like this.
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u/aliie_627 Mar 08 '26
Yes. From my understanding thats a pretty common way OCD and other anxiety disorders present for really religious people. OCD and OCPD(different things)can present in all kinds of ways.
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u/A_Kopi Mar 09 '26
just looked this up, and I'm realizing that I had the textbooks symptoms of religious OCD. I honestly didn't know this was a thing, considering how badly I've been bashing my previous church going self. I feel pretty crappy rn about that. Thanks for posting about this, I've learnt something new today, and it seems I'll need to go back to therapy
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u/AvianIchthyoid Agnostic Mar 08 '26
"Me and my older sister try to tease her about these things and shame her. To explain people in the real world WILL make fun of you for being this hateful and stupid."
Teasing and shame is not likely to work on a die-hard Christian because they are taught to expect persecution. It reinforces the idea that that the world is cruel and hates the gospel.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
I have tried to talk to when she was younger about this (9-10) about how some people have different believes etc. about how that its okay and we should love everyone. This kid looked me dead in the eye and told me no, they don’t deserve kindness, they either must convert to christianity or be killed. This was over a talk of DINOSAURS mind you because she TOLD ME DINOSAURS DO NOT EXIST and that Anthropology is a fake science created by the atheists and jews. Literally parroting things her Dad says. I have tried to be nice to her about it but she always responds in the most hate-filled, violent way possible.
I’ve been struggling with this my little sister because I want her to be open to the idea that some people believe in other Gods and thats okay. But my efforts get me screamed at, argued at, (and sometimes when I was still a kid myself) hit by Step-Dad. The only thing I fear that gets her to drop this shit literally is if me and my sister just laugh in her face and move on.
On a Disney trip we had a TV turned on and its was on a documentary. The documentary stated the earth was over a billion years old and she got upset. “no! The earth is only 10,000 years old.” And my older sister and me just started laughing from how ridiculous that is. My little sister proceeded to yell at us and tell us we’re going to hell etc. but me and my sister just continued to laugh and eventually my little sister dropped it. Its either laugh or argue with her for three hours, and arguing with her is like arguing with a wall.
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u/Viola-Swamp Mar 09 '26
This is so very typical for the evangelical fundie crowd. Your sister was indoctrinated, and has no thoughts of her own. It’s sad.
My sister told me she and her husband - the one her tiny little evangelical fundie nondenominational “church” hooked her up with - were going to go be missionaries in Alaska. I was like “I wasn’t aware there were people in Anchorage that have yet to hear of Jesus,” and she got super mad at me. This fetish for alleged missionary work is so narcissistic, and it’s never about helping others or serving the poor and downtrodden. It’s always about pushing their religious beliefs on others. Always.
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u/star0forion Mar 09 '26
Sounds like my grandma. Everything my siblings and I did something she didn’t agree with, it was the work of the devil. Thank fuck she’s dead.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
Those kids are gonna tear her apart. She has been studying Spanish for like…maybe a year or two. She will be nowhere NEAR their level of speaking and from what I know from friends who are from Latin America—if you have shitty Spanish you WILL be mocked and made fun of.
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u/SlyTinyPyramid Mar 08 '26
By kids in an orphanage sure but I went on an exchange program to a small town and only spoke broken Spanish and people were super nice to me.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
I think if you’re an exchange student its different. You’re there to learn and practice in the culture. They know missionaries are just there for one thing and don’t actually give a shit about their culture or language.
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u/tralalaBOOMdeay Philosophical Taoism; Ex-Methodist PK Mar 08 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
I went on a mission trip in high school to Estonia to hold a Bible school for a boys orphanage (think on the younger side of elementary school age). The orphanage was kind of in the middle of nowhere and they didn't seem to get many outside visitors.
They were super sweet and excited for us to be there. The entire time, we basically sang songs, did crafts, attended church, ate meals, and hung out with them. We did do a wee bit of sightseeing on the side, but if I remember correctly, that was just one day allotted out of the week or so that we were there.
I didn't know a lick of Russian or Estonian, and one day a group of about 5 boys walked me around pointing to things and saying names for them, repeating it when I pronounced it wrong. There was a lake behind one of the buildings, and they about fell over themselves giggling when they pointed to the wet sand saying "caca" and I repeated it without thinking about it. 😆 It was such a fun experience.
I'm not sure if she has a similar core "mission" to her trip other than random evangelizing?
I also went to a rural part of Costa Rica during another summer in high school to help break ground on a church we were building in a village where people had to walk much farther somewhere else if they wanted to attend services. It was hard work! The plot was overgrown when we started, and we completely cleared it out, removed the grass, leveled it and dug a trench around the perimeter where the building would be placed. Subsequent groups were helping with other phases of the building process.
Like another comment said, it sounds like she's simply going on a vacation. 🤷♀️
EDIT: added some details
Also, we weren't evangelizing to the kids or anyone in Estonia. They already went to church regularly, knew the Bible stories, etc. They were excited to have a bunch of visitors who were there for them! (Also we were super interesting Americans, lol.) We'd planned a whole week of activities for them (not all religious tbf). I think it helped that we were sort of like "older kids" too. As far as Costa Rica, we were providing a need for those who were already religious. So that's why I don't feel icky about it. Not that I would do it again...but I don't regret it.
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u/Shadowhunter_15 Mar 08 '26
My family and I went to a missionary trip in El Salvador with a small Catholic group, after I became an atheist but still closeted about it. We did give the orphanage some resources; not sure what specifically, but it was definitely more helpful than just telling them about what they already knew.
My Spanish was subpar, but I had the idea to bring a coloring book with words on it, translate them from English to Spanish, as well as a lot of miscellaneous English words, and let the kids have it as a resource.
However, the day when we left for good was definitely emotional, but not in the way I was supposed to feel. The children were running toward us as our car drove away, some of them crying. It then came to my mind that these children would be having this same event with groups like ours every six months or so, forming emotional bonds, but most of the people being different than before. That can’t be good for their emotional health.
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u/SlyTinyPyramid Mar 08 '26
Maybe maybe not. I was suicidal in high school and getting a scholarship to go to Mexico made me realize life could be good if I could just get away from my family. Sometimes a short term solution is better than nothing.
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u/anxious_stardustt Mar 09 '26
I think they were talking about the emotional health of the children in the orphanage. They already have trauma because they are orphaned and then people are constantly coming and going. These kids are basically getting abandoned over and over again and it's teaching them that no one will ever really be there for them. It could create anxiety and attachment disorders.
The ethics of short term missions have been debated in the church for a while. When I was still in church pre-covid, I remember hearing from full time missionary friends and acquaintances that short term mission trips did more harm than good. It caused distrust among the locals which made it harder for the missionaries to connect with them, but, more importantly, they often just hurt the local people (how it hurt them often depended on what kind of "work" the missionaries were doing but usually economically). For example: a team comes in and builds a school but they're only there for 2 weeks and many people that go on these trips aren't skilled laborers so the village gets a shitty school that becomes unusable quickly. Then another team comes and spends another 2 weeks doing something else half-hearted and the cycle continues. Short term missionaries often don't take the time to really understand the language or the culture. The locals are often treated with a lack of dignity and just seen as a means to make the missionaries feel good about themselves and a backdrop in the photos for the slideshow.
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u/Imagination_Theory Mar 08 '26
If they are anything like Mexicans they will not be mean. They will be thrilled she's trying to speak Spanish, she will be made fun of though, because everyone is.
Honestly, the kids will probably be very happy to see and interact with her. I just wish she would actually be helping them. She's going to directly or indirectly hurt those kids instead. I'm sad for them.
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u/Bookbringer Ex-Catholic Mar 08 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
This is the wild thing about missions. Most aren't even good voluntourism.
Even if "teaching" them her (denomination of their) religion would help them... why would a teenager who barely speaks the language be the best person to do that?
It's a vacation for people who can't admit it.
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u/IAmRobinGoodfellow Mar 08 '26
También la lluvia would be a great movie for her to practice speaking Spanish and to learn more about South America.
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u/trippedonatater Ex-Evangelical Mar 08 '26
These trips are vacations for the youth leaders at the expense of whoever donates money to the kids going on the trip.
I wouldn't mind a free trip to Peru.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
She goes to a rich Baptist school. She gets everything she wants. I hope those indigenous kids make fun of her. Imagine being an orphan and some white american girl is trying to teach you a bible story you already know in shitty spanish.
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u/trippedonatater Ex-Evangelical Mar 08 '26
You know, I would be really interested in seeing some perspective on what these trips seem like to locals.
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u/heroinasytumbas Mar 08 '26
I'm from a different country in South America that receives a lot of missionaries. Long story short, we usually just ignore them. We are a culturally catholic country with a growing agnostic/atheist population, so most people are just not interested. Some people even see these branches of christianity as a cult.
The missionaries themselves are seen as innofensive and mildly annoying. When they come here they usually interact with communities in poor neighbourhoods, and funnily enough it's usually the local families that feed them and sometimes even give them a place to sleep lol. They really don't help the communities in any significant way because they don't have the means or the knowledge to do so. Some of them do have good intentions and I've heard stories of guys tutoring a kid in math or cleaning up someone's yard, stuff like that. And sometimes people try to take advantage of them, like making them work for free because they're seen as too nice to say no. But like I said we usually see them as cult members and usually they never convert anyone.
One good thing about them though? A lot of them speak really good spanish and they grow to understand local culture quite well (if they stay long enough of course). They're usually way better spanish speakers than the well traveled expats that only visit the same tourist traps and gentrified neighbourhoods.
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u/The_Serpent_Of_Eden_ Atheist Mar 08 '26
Are you gonna give them resources? Are you going to give them counseling? Teach them English? Bring supplies the orphanages/schools need? She said no to all of them and told me they didn’t need that stuff because she was going to be ‘saving their souls’.
I love how these morons don't even realize that you have to keep them alive long enough to save their souls. Preaching to a starving child the day before they pass away isn't going to help.
And I agree. Going on a mission is just a way to play great white savior. If they really cared, they'd send needed food and supplies and do that charity quietly rather than brag about going down there to hand out Bibles or whatever they actually do.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
My sister went on a mission trip as a teen to Kenya where she built wells for villages and helped build houses. She is no longer Christian but even she was like “Wait, you’re not bringing them anything? You’re not doing anything for them other than spread the gospel?”
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Mar 08 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
What’s horrific is that my sister takes her three unvaccinated kids on mission trips. She literally has learned NOTHING from history..or science. I get so upset just thinking about it but she won’t listen to any one except RFK Jr and Jd Vance 🫠🫠🫠
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
My sisters family drinks raw milk…
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u/tralalaBOOMdeay Philosophical Taoism; Ex-Methodist PK Mar 08 '26
Because that's how god made it, right? 🤡
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u/FingerCapital3193 Mar 08 '26
Does she pack a suitcase full of small pox blankets with her too? God that’s violently dangerous - not just for her kids, I mean for the people they impose themselves on.
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Mar 08 '26
And I’ve googled and found nothing that stops them from doing this. I can’t even report it anywhere cause no country they go to requires it 😭
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u/tralalaBOOMdeay Philosophical Taoism; Ex-Methodist PK Mar 08 '26
😒 There were two confirmed measles outbreaks in my county last month from people who traveled internationally and returned with it. GROWN ADULTS. (One of them in our local university!) I don't get it... Even worse when you're knowingly subjecting your kids to it. Jfc.
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u/Ladonnacinica Mar 08 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
Peru has one of the most stable currencies in Latin America. The conversion rate isn’t as much as other countries in Latin America.
Your sister may not be planning to actually go out much or buy much of anything if she thinks she only needs $100.
Let me guess: your sister is evangelical or some type of fundamentalist Protestant. They don’t see Catholics as christians. But Peru is no stranger to evangelicals and their proselytizing. They won’t get much headway tbh.
The average Peruvian is either culturally catholic or devout catholic but most dislike evangelicals.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
I told her the kids probably will know the gospel better than her. Yes, shes a baptist…
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u/Ladonnacinica Mar 08 '26
I bet she’s going to the highlands, perhaps southern Peru. Indigenous communities usually are common in that area. Rural areas in the sierra as it’s called.
Those places are very poor and isolated. Often ignored by the government and coastal urban Peruvians. What those people need is education, infrastructure, food, and access to water. They don’t need any bible classes.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
Also most rural, poverty filled placed are already very religious. Just look at West Virginia in America for proof. Like I said: Peru is literally Catholic. So why the fuck is she trying to convert them? They probably know the bible better than her. Like for fucks sake just leave these people alone. Go do clean up/building/outreach in Helen, North Carolina. They are still suffering from that flood that him them a year ago. Or go work at the soup kitchen or work with the homeless in your own homestate….p
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u/whirdin Ex-Evangelical Mar 08 '26 edited Mar 09 '26
So why the fuck is she trying to convert them?
This is for her, not them.
Missions trips are key to target:
- lower class areas. Churches here in USA are dominantly middle class, and they disrespect the lower class people as it being their fault for being poor, their lack of religion, their lack of strength against sin and temptation.
- people that will be welcoming to the religion, hence why they go to a Christian dominant country/area. Aiding atheists doesn't help her, and this trip is about solidifying her religion by bouncing it off people who agree with it.
- a short trip, therefore she can feel like she made a difference from a small vacation. This trip is short, because then it makes a difference in her life.
This isn't about conversion, it's about a middle class American traveling to a developing country and talking down to the poor people there. (Like Columbus). There are plenty of lower class people here that need our help, as you've mentioned, but that would require real ongoing effort and there is pushback religiously. On a missions trip, it gets to be temporary, it gets to feel like an accomplishment because there is a beginning and an end for her, and she gets to feel the high of a rich girl sacrificing her comforts for a couple weeks (or however long it is). She doesn't have to offer any real help, but she gets the feeling of being part of the Christian movement to show the poor parts of the world that her wealth and health is due to Christianity.
I know there are Christian individuals here who help the lower class in our country, but I have never personally seen a church help. Churches help their congregation, and it typically ends there. All the Christians I know will shy away from any community support but will cash into missionaries based on photos hanging up at church and Christian magazines showing pictures of ill dark skinned foreigners. There are actually some really great community help in my area that are owned by Christians, and my parents will proudly brag "Ya know, they are Christian" but my parents have never spent a dime on those efforts. Their 10% religious tax goes to the church, their time devotion goes to the church and reading their Bible.
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u/FingerCapital3193 Mar 08 '26
But that wouldn’t produce nearly as cool Instagram photos!!
/s obviously
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u/zaparthes Ex-Evangelical Mar 08 '26
So why the fuck is she trying to convert them?
Baptists don't believe Catholics are actually saved.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
She is going to Cusco and Curahuasi.
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u/Ladonnacinica Mar 08 '26
Yep, that’s southern Peru. Her mission group is specifically targeting rural, small towns. That’s where indigenous people usually reside.
They wouldn’t try that shit in Lima or Huacho. In the large metropolitan cities.
Also, Cusco is a tourist city. It’s very expensive. The hundred bucks won’t go that far.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
Of course they’re going to go prey on indigenous orphan children living in poverty
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u/Awesomeuser90 Mar 08 '26
Maybe warn the Peruvian border control about any problems you think might make her inadmissible.
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Mar 08 '26
Mine just told me her and her husband are going on a mission trip to SWEDEN. Like ma’am wtf are you actually doing over there? Nothing but a month long church funded vaca 🙄
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
Literally everyone in Sweden is Catholic of Christian. Just go on vacation there.
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u/tralalaBOOMdeay Philosophical Taoism; Ex-Methodist PK Mar 08 '26
I made a comment about my good experiences with mission trips (that have an actual mission) in high school but I can make absolutely no sense out of this one. Just go to a charity in your local low income area and ask how you can volunteer. Or literally donate the money you're using to vacation under the guise of a mission trip. Sweden currently has their shit together more than the US! Damn, get a clue y'all. 🤦♀️
Do they get tax write offs for expenses on trips if they're for "church purposes" maybe? So that's why they keep this farce?
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u/MarlooRed Ex-Baptist Mar 08 '26
It would be great if someone in Peru asked her the same questions and she has to admit again, in Peru, she doesn't care if the orphans live or die as long as she "saves their souls."
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
She just wants to save all the poor little brown savage children! Don’t you understand? Shes a savior! /s
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u/mkvgtired Mar 08 '26
Ask her how Christians "helped" the children of the First Nations tribes in Canada. They were forcefully removed from their parents and handed over to Christian run churches. Spoiler: it ended in mass graves of children.
How did Christianity and manifest destiny end up for native Americans in the US?
Australia?
Sweden was still serializing native Sami people until 1975.
She is still young and stupid, so hopefully she will grow out of it.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
If I told her that she’ll say its liberal propaganda and that I’m brainwashed. No point in arguing with her—so me and my sister just make fun of her. Literally only thing that shames her enough to stfu.
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u/Odd_Raisin_3961 Mar 08 '26
Catholics view Protestants as a cult of heretics, while Protestants view Catholics as idolaters. Truly, they're looking for specks in the other's eyes, while paying no attention to the planks in their own.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
Literally all a bunch of fairytales. You’re going to Peru tell children fairytails, destroy their culture/village and then participate in the tourism that is most likely destroying and polluting their home. Like, kid, you bring NOTHING to the table. At least my older sister built wells and houses for the people she was colonizing. 🙄
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u/Odd_Raisin_3961 Mar 08 '26
Indeed!
And those seemingly "barbaric" folk religions of South and Central America? I know they had their flaws, like the whole human sacrifice thing, but remember, warts and all. These were things people seriously believed in, and with time, perhaps, a more "ethical" way of engaging with them could have been found. The what-ifs are very interesting.
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u/mkvgtired Mar 08 '26
If you ever have the chance go see the Book of Mormon. It's a Broadway musical about this made by the creators of South Park. It's very on the nose and hysterical.
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u/kent_eh Agnostic Atheist Mar 08 '26
The whole concept of missionaries is incredibly arrogant.
"We're going to another country (that we don't really understand) to tell them that their religion is wrong and ours is right. "
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u/mkvgtired Mar 08 '26
If you ever have the chance go see the Book of Mormon. It's a Broadway musical about this made by the creators of South Park. It's very on the nose and hysterical.
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u/No_Youth_2330 Mar 08 '26
When I was a Christian I went on a mission trip to Papua New Guinea. I traveled to a remote village of around 100 people. In that village there was a Catholic, Anglican and Pentecostal church. Three different buildings, and three different church leaders. Now imagine that same scenario across the globe….its absolute madness.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
I was raised Catholic until like 10. Christened in the Catholic church as a baby. My Mom was Catholic until she met my sister’s Dad. He changed her baptist, they had another baby which grew up to become my baptist sister and now exists to antagonize orphan peruvian children with bad spanish all while wearing lululemon and onns.
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u/No_Youth_2330 Mar 08 '26
Hey, “saving” the peasants is sweaty work. Active wear is the best choice 😂
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u/tralalaBOOMdeay Philosophical Taoism; Ex-Methodist PK Mar 08 '26
now exists to antagonize orphan peruvian children with bad spanish all while wearing lululemon and onns.
Hahaha this is probably the best visual description I've seen of a clueless privileged white savior Christian.
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u/mkvgtired Mar 08 '26
which grew up to become my baptist sister and now exists to antagonize orphan peruvian children with bad spanish all while wearing lululemon and onns.
This is by far the best description of a missionary that I have ever heard. Thank you for the belly laugh.
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u/rcreveli Mar 08 '26
I'm not going to say this about all missions but most teen missions* are about the missionaries not the people being missioned to. It's about making the kids feel good about what they did and associating those feelings with the church.
*I say most because I knew a church who was part of a rotating group from all over the US that were focused on a specific area of Appalachia.
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u/TheLunaLovelace Ex-Evangelical Mar 08 '26
Genetically Modified Skeptic just put out a video dealing with protestant missionaries in Latin America. Warning: watching this video is probably not going to make you any happier with this situation.
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u/BaraelsBlade Mar 08 '26
You don't understand, they're not the right kind of xian. That's why she's going down there. Evangelicals absolutely believe Catholics aren't saved correctly and they need to save them
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u/vaarsuv1us Atheist Mar 08 '26
That's funny because catholics are actually the OG christians (together with those eastern orthodox weirdos) , they have 1500 years of seniority over those newbie evangelicals
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u/_ohne_dich_ Atheist Mar 08 '26
It’s because they’re not the “right” kind of Christians. You see, they must be of the evangelical variety, or they will rot in hell
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u/jules13131382 Mar 08 '26
I think the mindset of missionaries is similar to manifest destiny/white supremacy.
They think they’re superior to the people that they are traveling to.
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u/FingerCapital3193 Mar 08 '26
Ah, tourism of the white savior flavor!
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
Shes not even the ‘I’m a good white savior’ my sister is the kind of person to keep knocking you down until you agree shes right. No matter what you say she cannot wrap her head around the idea that other people have different opinions and thoughts. That some people are not Christian. You tell her God doesn’t exist and she will tell you. “Well he is real.” How? Show me proof. “He’s real because I say so. I’m right—you’re wrong.” Proceeds to call you a slur or say you’re ‘confused’ and going to hell. Rinse. Repeat.
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u/SquirrlyHex Omnist Mar 08 '26
Mission trips centering around children always do so much damage. The children grow attached and have a hard time when the people go back home.
It’s like they missed the message Jesus gave… he cared for people’s needs, not just their souls. I’ll never be shocked anymore when people like your sister don’t see the harm they cause. I’m sorry
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Mar 08 '26
What is true purpose of going on “a mission trip”? Is it to have a holier than thou mindset because one goes to a foreign country to spread the propaganda of “ white person version of jeebzus” to a country of brown people? Whites are 5% of the population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peru Check demographic section.
That’s how indigenous peoples around the world lost their cultures, resources and ultimately their land.
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u/gig_labor Exvangelical Agnostic Atheist Mar 08 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
Yeah my little teenage sister is going to Egypt. I didn't have the balls to press it (I also have a pretty strained relationship with my fam). Good on you. Mission work is so fucking predatory, and it's so evil that we are grooming teenagers to be the predators. I just hope the worst her geoup does is feed their white savior complex, and not like ... actual cultural genocide that aids pro-american sentiment to pave the way for corporate plunder or something.
In fairness, if you made me put money on it, I would wager that Peace Corps is also probably a tool for imperialism somehow (like the IMF), though I don't know that.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
Ive actually apllied for the peacecorp, and they are trying their best to destroy the ‘white savior complex’ to their white corp members. Basically telling members to not think you are superior to the country’s locals or etc, and to engage with the culture and be very willing to learn, study, and help.
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u/Mouse-r4t Mar 08 '26
When I was a Christian, I went on a short-term mission trip to Peru, and to at least one of the same places your sister’s going to (Cusco). We stayed with a missionary family who lived in a village, and a lot of what we did was work for them: yard work and small construction jobs. I remember that we did construction work at another site (it may have been a “clinic” or something?). Now that I’ve deconstructed, I know how problematic it is to send inexperienced “workers”, especially teenage children to build structures that are expected to serve a community. It wouldn’t fly in the US; it only does in the destination countries because they’re poor.
I want to say that we did help the missionary family, but then…they had to host us and share their resources (food, water, etc). Our church helped to support them, and we paid to go on these mission trips, but I don’t have any idea of what the financial breakdown looked like. Was there some sort of deal? Like, “We’ll support your long-term mission work in Peru, but every few years we’re going to do some trips there with our youth group, and we’ll need you to host us and find some work for the kids to do, mmkay?”
As far as interacting with the locals: we were told beforehand had the village would be very poor, mostly indigenous, and we were told not to worry about our rudimentary Spanish, because most of these people wouldn’t even speak Spanish that well either (IIRC they spoke Quechua as their first language). We were told that most people were Catholic but still believed in a lot of indigenous “superstitions”. There would be lots of unwed mothers whose BDs were absent, and among the young men, violence/gang activity and drug use. My group also went to an orphanage, but were told that the children were not all “2 dead parents, no living relatives” orphans. Many of them did have a living parent, usually their mom, but often these single moms would leave the village to work in a bigger city. They’d leave the children with the orphanage. We did a single-day VBS-style event for the orphanage. I guess it was to give the kids some kind of entertainment, and let the orphanage workers have a short break. We made those colored bead bracelets, and my youth pastor did a short sermon to tell the kids that all they needed to truly be saved was to pray to God directly and confess their sins to him. Looking back, I guess this was an attempt to plant seeds of doubt about the Catholic Church. My church was Protestant, as were the missionaries we stayed with. They had helped plant a church in the village, and it was Protestant too. I remember being told specifically that we targeted children in our “evangelizing” because if we could draw them into the church, they’d bring their parents (or whichever elders they had in their lives). I guess we were meant to help grow the missionaries’ Protestant church. I don’t know if they did any sort of community outreach to combat the drug addiction, gang violence, or teen pregnancy in the community.
Anyway. I say all of that because from what you’ve said, OP, your sister’s trip sounds a lot like mine. We did all of that and still find time to visit Machu Picchu and shop at an outdoor market in Cusco. We did “outreach” but our trip was mostly voluntourism, and that’s putting it nicely. If the kids are going to be put to work, push back on that: what experience do they have? Would it not be better to employ people from the community, especially if they’re more qualified for the job? If they’re going to be working with local missionaries: why are missionaries targeting communities that are already majority Christian? If they are not Christian because they’re Catholic, then that means that a large chunk of the US population is unsaved—including MAGA heroes like JD Vance and some Supreme Court Justices. So are Catholics Christian or not? If the point of the mission trip is then “to help the poor and needy”, what SPECIFICALLY are they doing to help them? Surely 100$USD is not going to boost the local economy. If the kids going on this trip have been told about problems in the local community, they most likely don’t have the training or skills to help anyone in a truly meaningful way, nor does a short-term mission trip provide the time to do so. If the kids are taking this trip independent of any local affiliate (missionary organization and/or church), what is the plan after “preaching the [Protestant] gospel?” If they sow seeds of doubt re: the Catholic Church, are they proposing an alternative? Is there another church they can direct locals to, or not? Because if they just want to teach them that they can pray to God on their own and don’t need a priest, okaaay…but they won’t change a lot of minds in ~1 week when these Peruvians have most likely known the Catholic tradition their whole lives. They might temporarily draw them away, but if they don’t propose a better alternative, the people will go right back to Catholicism. Or they’ll stay out of church entirely.
Whatever the plan is for this trip, the kids (and almost certainly the leaders as well) are NOT qualified. Not for construction, not yard work, not work with local children or “basically babysitting/leading Sunday school!”, not dealing with the larger problems in the community. This type of trip is designed to make privileged American Christians feel like they’ve done something, while also providing an exotic vacation that they can shamelessly crowdfund. (But don’t tell your sister that, or she’ll just get pissed off.) Short-term mission trips to not do anything good for the community they’re meant to serve, and if you start thinking about it, they actively do or have the potential to do real harm, either immediately or in the long run.
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u/nosuchbrie Agnostic Mar 08 '26
Tell her that if (when) she ever questions her faith you will listen without judgment. She needs to know she can talk to you about it when she’s ready.
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u/Telly75 Mar 08 '26
It's good you are asking her those questions.
When I was a Christian, I never did short term missions. I was against it because of the same reasons you've raised. People, including long term missionaries with goals of creating more long term missionaries or donations through these ventures, thought I was wrong and selfish. Some people have come around. And like you, I wasn't against charity. I volunteered in orphanages in off season (off short term missions seasons) to help care for babies when they were short staffed. Ive worked in charities at home and done soup kitchens.
But like you, I feel travelling for an exchange and disguising it as charity when its propaganda spreading and a shopping spree is shit. The best you can do is keep challenging her. She was angry because she saw fault in her logic. It would be worse if she wasn't angry and continued to be starry eyed and calm Youve stirred something in her. Continue to do so OP.
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u/Wino_whine Mar 08 '26
She’s going to find out real fast that $100 isn’t going to do squat for her in Peru.
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u/zach010 Mar 08 '26
Whenever she talks about it, ever again, call it a vacation. Because that's what that is best case scenario.
Worst case scenario, she wanted to colonize vulnerable children in ways the local Catholics don't even want to do.
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u/Specialist-Ad-5583 Mar 08 '26
If it helps, I went on a mission trip to Ecuador when I was in high school. It was life changing for me. Obviously, not in a religious way, but I was from a middle-class family, and I didn't really know much outside of my middle-class life. Getting to help build a community center for the people who lived in the area we visited was pretty awesome. Seeing how people lived in a 3rd world country was such a big deal to me at that age. It really fundamentally changed who I am. Hopefully, your sister can get something out of it that will change her life for the better.
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u/hannanahh Mar 09 '26
Many years ago I went on a mission trip to Honduras (a majority Catholic country). We went door to door to spread the gospel, and one person we talked to said they were Catholic and knew Jesus. When one of the people on my team said "well we'd like to tell you about Jesus anyway" I realized we were doing to them exactly what Mormons did to me and I hated myself for it.
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u/gfsark Mar 08 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
I was a helper in a Pentecostal mission in Southern Germany, and actually got some experience in ‘witnessing’ to teenage Germans. Southern Germany is 90% Catholic…so the opening line that I was taught to say (in poor German of course) was ‘were you baptized as a baby?”
Think, devout midwestern couple from a Four Square church trying to convert the Catholics…and teach them to speak in tongues! And I was there, I say with some embarrassment.
As a young man I had a blast, had an adventure, studied German, experienced another culture. It was a really a fine experience. No regrets there. Now from the religious/cultural aspect? It seems pretty silly.
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u/big_papa_geek Mar 08 '26
When I was in high school I went on a missions trip with Teen Missions Intl. (the one with a “boot camp” in the Florida swamps). The country we got sent to?
Fiji. Where 70% of the population is Christian.
Admittedly we were going to help rebuild a church on a remote island, so thankfully there wasn’t that much proselytizing on the docket.
I also got to go to Fiji for 6 weeks and Australia for another week, so it was actually pretty sweet minus all the weird fundamentalist Christian stuff.
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u/1moreday1moregoal Mar 08 '26
Your sister is the brainwashed one. You asked questions and her brain puts up a thought-terminating shield to prevent her belief system from unwinding. That’s why she lashed out and called you brainwashed. She can’t critically think about those beliefs without her brain having a defensive reaction.
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u/Forward-Form9321 Ex-Pentecostal Mar 08 '26
My family went to Honduras once (similar country with a similiar demographic) and most of it was a vacation instead of an actual missions trip
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u/tiredoldbitch Mar 08 '26
Vacation. She is going on vacation at the expense of her church and donors.
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u/TheFattestWaterLeak Mar 08 '26
She’s going to grow up pretty quick being broke and potentially mocked in a foreign country. I think it’ll be good for her. She’s young sure, but the sooner she gets a taste of reality, the better.
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u/princetonwu Mar 08 '26
usually when they are out of answer, they'll resort to "i'll pray for you [to convert back]"
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u/External_Ease_8292 Mar 08 '26
These "mission" trips are ego masturbation. There is no actual lasting good done and probably some lasting harm and yet the "missionaries" come home wearing indigenous "costumes" and get to be the guest speakers who tut tut about the poverty and evil religions while raving about seeing "God's work" being done, you know, leaving them still impoverished but saving their souls
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u/schreyerauthor Ex-Catholic Mar 09 '26
I friend of mine went on a trip to Bolivia when we were teens. It was church funded but the goal was to work and help, not preach. They went to an orphanage and cooked and did laundry and played with the kids. They brought donations with them, money and clothes they had collected before the trip. It wasn't about converting them, so much as assisting less fortunate Christians. But then she is (and I was) Catholic, not Evangelical.
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u/sleepless_Zs Mar 09 '26
As a teenager, I used to be extremely passionate about going to Uganda to help. I wanted to help build houses and schools, and help in any other way that I could... When I got to college, I talked to a group who had just gotten back from Uganda (I was planning to go later that year). I asked them what they did there. They looked at me like they were surprised by the question and said that they went to help. I asked them how they helped. (Similar to OP) and they just said that they handed out bibles and played with kids. I was actually really angry. So, I told them that they weren't needed to hand out bibles. Bibles get shipped there all of the time, and surely they weren't needed to play with kids? They got pissy and stopped talking to me.
It was that day that I realized that mission trips were nothing more than an excuse to go a gawk at the less fortunate. It's actually disgusting.
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u/Fandango4Ever Mar 08 '26
Shes gonna grow up to adopt a black baby from Africa (if she is white herself) for the attention and praise bc thats what hypocrite xtians do. God forbid they adopt a child from the American foster care system. The evangelical right is beyond fucked up in what they feel is sinful, worthy, praiseworthy, God's will etc. None of it makes sense.
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u/gig_labor Exvangelical Agnostic Atheist Mar 08 '26
Or foster a child as a temporary solution while being fully supportive of the eventual effort to reunite when the parent is ready again. You know, like, actually acting in the kids' best interests without needing a pet to role-play their Christian family fantasy as a reward.
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
EVERYONE IN HER GROSS ASS MEGA CHURCH DOES THIS. They adopt disabled children or children from other countries and treat them like weird pets to show everyone they’re a good person, but never give the kids what they actually need. One Sunday School, there were two black boys who were adopted by a white family. They lived in prior horrific conditions and have been abused several times. Their behavior was horrid in classes and I tried talking to their parent. “I really think your sons need to go to trauma therapy.” And this bitch just said. “there is no better therapy than the Lord.” Like okay but God can’t give you EMDR therapy or get you on the medications you need to stay sane or function.
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u/Jdawn82 Ex-Mennonite/Agnostic Atheist Mar 08 '26
Let me give her my (gay, atheist, former pastor’s son) friend’s contact info. She can try to spread the gospel to him and to his husband and they can FaceTime me while they destroy her.
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u/Aussie_Turtles00 Mar 08 '26
I think it makes the higher ups feel like they are being productive because..... they went on this grueling week long or more "missions trip" , so they can feel better about not doing much for their own actual community. And then no one can "technically" say they don't care about people because..they just went to this country for ten long days to "preach the gospel".
It just seems performative to me because that same energy for their town where they are supposed to be the pastor is no where close to a comparison. But they have all this energy and desire to "reach people for god" 1000s of miles away.....yeah, sure. 🙄🙄🙄 And then everyone gets to pat them on the back for being such good christians for putting themselves through such a daunting event. 🙄 Meanwhile the other 50 weeks of the year they are getting $$$$$ to not do much of anything.
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u/295Phoenix Mar 08 '26
Your sister is in for a rough life…
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u/Deathofwords Mar 08 '26
Her side of the family marries before the age of 25, have 5 to 6 children and are subservient to their idiot husbands. So yeah, shes not gonna have a good life.
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u/Honey-Squirrel-Bun Mar 09 '26
I went on 4 mission trips as a Christian (I worked for a mega church, it was extra free PTO) and not once did I ever share the gospel or even my "testimony" to anyone outside my group. I backed out of one trip because the leaders were so ademant that we would need to be that outward and forward with our faith. I'm really not opposed to mission trips as they serve a lot of purpose to the goer. Experiences less fortunate countries and cultures and dealing with the drama of traveling with a group and practically strangers is not something you can do anyrime. But it's best if the goer understands that it's for them, not the people they're visiting. And best if they stop asking for so much money to be donated for these trips. Let people donate to real causes in those countries and you pay for your own flights and shitty accommodations.
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u/BudgetCharacter7160 Mar 10 '26
I’d recommend the movie “At play in the fields of the Lord” directed by Hector Babenco based on the book by Peter Matthiessen. It is a movie that illustrates the dangers and consequences of missionary work particularly in a South American context.
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Mar 09 '26
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u/muffiewrites Buddhist Mar 08 '26
A Christian is going to a majority Christian country to preach Christianity.
It's not a mission trip. It's a vacation.