Scars

The three steps that need to be part of all short-term preparation are:

1. Cultivate a compassionate heart:

Sometimes we don't have compassion for poor or needed people because we don't what they're going to do with the money we give them so we think we might be getting ripped off but, we should have a compassionate heart and not try to get excuses to not be compassionate but, just do what God has put in our hearts to do.


2. Develop an understanding of what the bible says about injustice:

We should learn more of what the bible says about injustice so that we know what God says about it. In this point they ask us a question: ¿What's the good news about injustice? and the answer is that God hates it!


3. Be willing to take action:

God wants his people to be involved in the solution so in a missions trip we can't just go to do what we need to do and not pay attention to the problems in the community. In the text it says: "If you are in a mission's trip to the inner city, don't just paint a house, deal with issues of racism". So as I said we need to deal with the problems inthe community, we don't have to come up with the solution for all the problems but, we need to know they exist and pay attention to them.

In mancora we can share with them what the bible says about injustice, we could spend some time getting to know the community and the problems they have, we need to be compassionate and do what God puts in our heart.

Questions of Trust...

1. In the chapter it says that PQT means "Prior Questions of Trust", acording to the Mack and leeann book this question is supposed to be asked when we get to a crosscultural setting. This question is a really good thing to take out all of those cultural obstacles, the question is:
"Is what I'm thinking, saying and doing building or undermining trust?".
This means that if we ignore their culture or the people, that will distract them from listeneing to God's message for them.

2. The 3 nonmoral situations that I think will be more difficult to our Peru team are:

a. Food: I think that the food could be an issue because we might think it looks disgusting or we just don't like it. When they give us the food we have to think that they did that for us and we should try to eat the whole plate so that they feel good and so that they see that we appreciate their effort and service.

b. Time views: Many of you know that in CBC/Crossfire everything is carefully sheduled and very puntual(on time). From what I've heard the people in Mancora are not like that, they're like a lot of panamenians, you can tell them 1:00 pm and they show up at 2:00. In this case we should be patient and understand that in their culture thats normal.

c. Humor: Normally when we are with are friends we use certain tipe of humor that it's ok because we have confidence with each other or we are used to it. But we need to be carefull with what we say in Mancora because the people could take something in the wrong way.

3. I think I will be fine with everything because I'm really pacient and I know how to control myself. The thing I think could give me some problem would be the food bacause sometimes I'm really picky with that, and if I don't like the food I won't eat it but, in Mancora I will do my best to eat all the food and honor the people who prepared it.