{"id":2762,"date":"2010-04-19T16:26:21","date_gmt":"2010-04-19T20:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"\/news_blogs\/john\/?p=2762"},"modified":"2024-12-24T08:38:06","modified_gmt":"2024-12-24T13:38:06","slug":"the-danger-of-good-intentions-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/john\/2010\/04\/19\/the-danger-of-good-intentions-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Danger of Good Intentions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

“God wanted us to come here to help children, we are convinced of that,” Laura Silsby, one of 10 Americans accused of trafficking Haitian children, said Monday<\/a> through the bars of a jail cell.  “Our hearts were in the right place.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A short-term mission team went to Haiti to rescue children and instead wound up in jail suspected of child trafficking. This is a horror story for any mission team. Nine of the ten\u00a0team members were subsequently released, but they are still facing charges. Laura Silsby, however,\u00a0is\u00a0still in jail as well as\u00a0still facing charges, and all are in need of prayer support. But we also need to learn from this fiasco. These good-hearted people were apparently very naive, and the fact that they got as far as they did is,\u00a0in my opinion, the result of\u00a0a leadership failure that I’ll explain in a moment. I don’t know this situation firsthand, so I’m basing all of my comments on published news reports. Even if some of the details or assumptions later turn out not to be correct,\u00a0there are lots of other examples that could be used and the point of this post remains valid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are conflicting reports about what their intentions were, but what is clear is that two churches did this project on their own [the report has been removed from their website] and with no apparent expertise. According to the NY Times<\/em> article linked to above, “the group is not registered as an adoption agency in Idaho and does not appear to be registered as a federal nonprofit. The group also did not appear on a list of accredited international adoption agencies on the Web site of the State Department.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without the help of either a Christian agency or a denominational mission department, either of which could have provided badly needed expertise in the complexities related to emergency relief, child welfare and adoption, the success or failure of this project depended upon the quality of leadership these two churches could provide. Unfortunately, the leadership apparently was not up to the task in this instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaders Are Responsible!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Leaders are responsible for organizational achievement of their respective missions from start to finish. They need to ensure quality control, risk management, applicable standards and regulations, and all other factors related to organizational success are taken into account when launching a new endeavour. Such planning is thoroughly biblical, as Jesus explicitly assumed that good planning would take place before acting on good intentions (Luke 14:28-32). It is irresponsible for leaders to send people out without doing their homework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good Planning Questions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Planning must include two aspects which were apparently missed by the churches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n