Snapshot I: Living in Bolivia
June 24th, 2009The starting salary for a first-year teacher in Howard County is somewhere around $40,000. In Bolivia teachers earn about $1000, a typical income. Of course some things cost less, but not always. In the late 90’s massive protests were sparked when the government’s attempt to grant control of the water system to a foreign company resulted in monthly water bills of $20-$30. Imagine if a quarter of your income was going to pay your water bill…
The first day of winter was June 21, and students do get some time off for winter vacation. In Montero winter vacation started about a week early because of swine flu. Catholic religious instruction used to be mandatory in the schools (before 1967 being non-Catholic was illegal), but is now optional. Most of the country is still Catholic, though indigenous religious traditions have been blended in.
I will be in Bolivia until July 11. I am hoping to post every so often…
So, a missions team of 20 could stay home for those two weeks and, instead, support probably 20 Bolivians for a year? Kind of gives one pause, don’t you think?
The disciples went out two by two and maybe had the people they were ministering to supporting them.
I´m mostly causing trouble with that comment. The question of how missions should be done is always interesting. Medical Ministry International focuses mainly on physical needs, for example. They do not even demand or expect that everyone who goes is a Christian. Back to the disciples, I wouldn´t be surprised if someone was saved because of Judas´ ministry.
Of course I´m not saying that is how missions should be done…I think I like the combination approach, which is what we have in Bolivia and everywhere else.
To cause a little more trouble, if you were going to stay home and give that money, you would probably need someone to be here to administer the process of giving it out. And what if there aren´t doctors around to perform the necessary tasks? I expect to be able to speak to that more later this week.
who else?: poor comparison. Shelling out $20K to financially support 20 Bolivians doesn’t give a greater return on investment (even assuming that there is no overhead on the distribution of money) than the result of this type of medical care. I’ve seen presentations on Mercy Ships and the types of things they are doing are radically changing people’s lives - a lot more than 20 people.
The stronger argument could be supporting Bolivian doctors to go around doing the same, but that argument has plenty of problems to it, too.
I suppose what I am really saying is that the best use of 20k is probably more effective for Bolivians — whatever that use might turn out to be — than the usefulness of 20 people from the US who are expecting to get *some* of the benefit for themselves. My argument is not as strong for 19 doctors going to heal the sick (+ one great translator) as it would be for the same number of college kids going to do a VBS presentation.
Taking college kids to some country to do skits is mostly about getting them interested in full-time missions.
Also, it is not like the 20K is available for whatever you want to put it towards. People are much more likely to donate money to send little Joey to Panama than they are to donate money to be sent to the Panama support-a-resident fund.
In this case, skilled medical professionals are donating time which is worth much more than $20K. The same team would probably cost $20K a day if you were to contract them out.