My wife and I had a meeting today with a missionary who had been raised in Africa up till the end of high school. I was encourage by what she had to tell me about the prospect of missions in Africa. She told us that in her opinion Africa has been forgotten. I was amazed at the how she talked about living in an unstable country in Africa and being evacuated but she still considered the place her home. Remarkably, she is still on the mission field and continuing work around the globe.
She made a comment that I have heard more than once from people in my generation. She said that our generation (people in their mid to late twenties) seem to be a generation focused on the outward view of life. Our parents generation was more focused on the inward battles of their age and did not seem to understand the need to look toward the needs of the whole world. I agree with her. I heard my best friend say almost the exact same thing. He had been in the military for four years and served his country proudly. His girlfriend has just completed her basic training in the Navy. I was a law enforcement officer. My friend told me that he sees a lot of people our age going out and trying to work to give back to society. We feel this need to contribute something to the greater good and not sit around like previous generations living off the sacrifice of others.
The term "Greatest Generation" has been coined for those who lived through the struggles of the Second World War. It would seem that no generation since then could use that term to describe their generation. I have read books on the jaded nature of generations X and Y. Those opinions may have had an impact on some in my generation to motivate them to try to achieve more. I know that the reason that I got into law enforcement is that I wanted to help and contribute to society. I know that those seem like uptopian ideals that could never be realized but if not be my hand than who will carry the message of Christ to the world. We have been taught in classrooms about the racist and oppressive ideas of colonial Europe and America. Much of the oppression has been tied successfully to missionaries from those countries. It was a bad thing to want to go try to "help" society. So, we tried to come up with short term mission and prayer focuses. Short term missions allowed us to hop in do some good work and leave before we could be accused of trying to oppress the native people. Prayer focus was part of a campaign that was big in the late nineties. We would pray into an area of the map and try to change things not by sending missionaries but professionals who could evangelize while contributing to the work force. Still putting that barrier between us and the natives to help legitamize the work and not lump it in with the past missions work of colonialism.
In the end, we as a generation our trying our hand at changing something about society. We have the examples of generation that did great things with the time God gave them. We also see examples of generations that did not contribute anything to society. We have been accused of not having any substance, and that may be what motivates some to try and bring substance to the world.
