March 7

In class we talked more about the article "Helping, Fixing, or Serving?" When I first read it, to be honest I didn't like it but I didn't want to say so because it sounded like a nice article that would have been a great church talk, however as an academic article I think it was pretty ridiculous. Then in class I found out that people in my group also didn't like the article. I disagreed about the definition of helping, and how you see people as weaker when you help them. I would disagree, because my definition of helping is just to offer assistance to those in need. When we serve people, it's pretty much the same thing. We offer of ourselves, whether it's our talents or our time or both!
In class Ashley erased the words helping, fixing and serving next to our definitions, and then I liked the article better. Without the semantics and definitions, there were concepts. The concepts were the attitudes behind when you are assisting somebody. If you do it because you want to appear better or stronger, then you are doing it for the wrong reasons. If you are doing it because you have love and want to express that, then you are serving in the way that Christ would have you.
When I go do research, I don't want people to think I'm here to fix their ways or help them because I'm a "rich American" and my way of life is better. I also don't want them to think that I'm trying to change them. When I do research with people, I am going to tell them that this information is going back to the US in order to broaden people's cultural understandings, and is in no way to put them down or show that all other ways other than our own are dumb. The way they are is beautiful because it's different, and that alone is a good enough reason to research and study the culture in Tonga. Knowledge of a different culture shouldn't be intended for criticism of that culture, but perhaps criticism of your own, and realizing that there's another way of life other than your own.