Episode 56: Mission work is not about your satisfaction
|
The Rev. Marcella Gillis is the Assistant Rector for Youth & Family Ministry at Christ & Holy Trinity in Westport, CT.
She received her bachelors in International Development from American University, and her masters from Yale Divinity School. She was ordained in June 2017 at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. Marcella has served in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua, working with local schoolteachers and youth groups. She has also worked as the Director of Youth and Family Ministries at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on Capitol Hill, where she taught Confirmation and coordinated service trips and outreach projects for children and youth. Marcella is passionate about mission trips and work with youth, among other things. She curretntly lives in Westport with her wife Meg. Welcome Marcella! |
|
To begin the conversation, Alli asks Marcella, “what is a mission trip and how is it different than any other youth trip?” The mission trips that Marcella has led include a week long service trip accompanied by year long preparation and reflection. Most of the training and preparation involve group and team dynamics. In addition to the team building, Marcella is intentional about teaching the history of the place and people they are visiting, as well as the current climate of the culture. This also includes how the church has been involved in that history in positive and negative ways, especially how the church has used the term “mission work” throughout history.
This includes the church's “savior complex,” especially with mission work and how it has been a tool of oppression for centuries. This topic is something that Marcella is particularly aware of when prepping her youth members to travel. Her intention in working with young people is to shape their understanding of the church’s role in these instances of oppression and help them walk into these places and spaces with a lot of humility.
Marcella said that when she is promoting these mission trips, she actually deemphasizes the service and work component of the trip, as those are vehicles to relationships and understand the life of the people they are serving. Rather, she focuses on the opportunity to learn about a new place and get some awareness about the poverty, racism, and people living in very different conditions than Fairfield County. And, to help the young people and anyone who joins to understand what it means to stand in solidarity with oppressed groups of people.
There is a difference between calling it a “mission trip” and a “service trip,” which Marcella has struggled with what to call these trips. She has been able to frame these trips in four goals: learning and education, service in a place where you are a guest, solidarity, and advocacy and witness. One thing that has been essential to her work with young people has been to provide the language around the work they are doing, something she said teenagers living in Fairfield County do not have.
Marcella got into this work really young on a service trip to Latin America where she had a life-changing experience. This started her “I’m going to save the world” mentality/white-savior complex, which since then, everything has been a slow breakdown of that mentality. After college, Marcella signed up for the Peace-Corps and went to Nicaragua, which was a very painful exercise in confronting her own privilege, arrogance, and capabilities. And while it was transformative, it was - in her words - "excruciating to unlearn and let go of the identity" she had crafted for herself.
This experience has influenced her life ever since then, helping her ask the questions of herself: what does it mean to stand in solidarity? what does it mean to be of service? This unpacking and reflection continues on within her role as a leader, through her vulnerability and her desire to form the young people she works with in humidly and empathy.
In preparation for the most recent trip Marcella led, one of her youth members said that after learning about Manifest Destiny and the Trail of Tears and how the government has treated Native Americans in this world, that they felt some shame, another said they don’t feel shamed because they didn’t do anything. This opened up the conversation about how to hold the past and enter into these places with a sense of apology. Marcella said these conversations are incredibly powerful before traveling with the group, because although they are challenging, they are also helpful to shift the focus and mentality of the group going into these mission trips.
Alli shares her mission trip experiences as a young person working after Hurricane Katrina and what she has learned from that experience witnessing natural disaster victims and how a downgrade in class affected how individuals were treated. Marcella led a couple trips after Katrina to New Orleans and worked closely with non-profits who are “in the trenches” working with food security and vulnerable populations, which helped her youth members witness how messy non-profit work is.
Mission work, Marcella says, is not about the satisfaction of those working, it can’t be what the group seeks. It is the opposite, it is learning what to do when the group is uncomfortable.
Alli asks Marcella about Jesus, and more specifically how Marcella relies on Jesus and teaches her youth members to rely on Jesus in moments of feeling unwelcome and not satisfied in mission work. Marcella says that Jesus is the “OG this-is-not-satisfying” person — he is never here to make us feel better about ourselves and how we live in this world. Jesus is the ultimate example of what it means to be of service in this world.
This includes the church's “savior complex,” especially with mission work and how it has been a tool of oppression for centuries. This topic is something that Marcella is particularly aware of when prepping her youth members to travel. Her intention in working with young people is to shape their understanding of the church’s role in these instances of oppression and help them walk into these places and spaces with a lot of humility.
Marcella said that when she is promoting these mission trips, she actually deemphasizes the service and work component of the trip, as those are vehicles to relationships and understand the life of the people they are serving. Rather, she focuses on the opportunity to learn about a new place and get some awareness about the poverty, racism, and people living in very different conditions than Fairfield County. And, to help the young people and anyone who joins to understand what it means to stand in solidarity with oppressed groups of people.
There is a difference between calling it a “mission trip” and a “service trip,” which Marcella has struggled with what to call these trips. She has been able to frame these trips in four goals: learning and education, service in a place where you are a guest, solidarity, and advocacy and witness. One thing that has been essential to her work with young people has been to provide the language around the work they are doing, something she said teenagers living in Fairfield County do not have.
Marcella got into this work really young on a service trip to Latin America where she had a life-changing experience. This started her “I’m going to save the world” mentality/white-savior complex, which since then, everything has been a slow breakdown of that mentality. After college, Marcella signed up for the Peace-Corps and went to Nicaragua, which was a very painful exercise in confronting her own privilege, arrogance, and capabilities. And while it was transformative, it was - in her words - "excruciating to unlearn and let go of the identity" she had crafted for herself.
This experience has influenced her life ever since then, helping her ask the questions of herself: what does it mean to stand in solidarity? what does it mean to be of service? This unpacking and reflection continues on within her role as a leader, through her vulnerability and her desire to form the young people she works with in humidly and empathy.
In preparation for the most recent trip Marcella led, one of her youth members said that after learning about Manifest Destiny and the Trail of Tears and how the government has treated Native Americans in this world, that they felt some shame, another said they don’t feel shamed because they didn’t do anything. This opened up the conversation about how to hold the past and enter into these places with a sense of apology. Marcella said these conversations are incredibly powerful before traveling with the group, because although they are challenging, they are also helpful to shift the focus and mentality of the group going into these mission trips.
Alli shares her mission trip experiences as a young person working after Hurricane Katrina and what she has learned from that experience witnessing natural disaster victims and how a downgrade in class affected how individuals were treated. Marcella led a couple trips after Katrina to New Orleans and worked closely with non-profits who are “in the trenches” working with food security and vulnerable populations, which helped her youth members witness how messy non-profit work is.
Mission work, Marcella says, is not about the satisfaction of those working, it can’t be what the group seeks. It is the opposite, it is learning what to do when the group is uncomfortable.
Alli asks Marcella about Jesus, and more specifically how Marcella relies on Jesus and teaches her youth members to rely on Jesus in moments of feeling unwelcome and not satisfied in mission work. Marcella says that Jesus is the “OG this-is-not-satisfying” person — he is never here to make us feel better about ourselves and how we live in this world. Jesus is the ultimate example of what it means to be of service in this world.
You can find this episode and others on our website coffeehour.org. Be sure to like us on Facebook, and give us a follow on Instagram and Twitter.
In Christ and Coffee,
Karin & Alli
In Christ and Coffee,
Karin & Alli