When I first discovered I was built to serve people internationally, I wanted a really linear path: Go to a place. Find it’s problems. Become it’s solution. Basically, I wanted a superhero origin story.
The hero complex can be harmful. How many construction people in Mexico and Haiti can’t find work because of how willing unskilled visitors from the US are to go do it for free?
Local leaders are the ones with the vision, knowledge, and investment to really change their areas. What if instead of starting more and more of our own programs that crowd out theirs we looked for ways to be partners and friends?
You can give food, medicine, and housing to people without learning a single name. But when you get to celebrate life with people, their stories become real. They become friends. Friends who you want to be fed, healthy, and secure. And when that happens, you no longer think of other places in terms of foreign policy but friendship.