Recently a USA para-church mission organization came to XXXXXX for a couple of days. Their purpose was to distribute used eye glasses to the poor. A number of persons who prefer to remain anonymous commented that they considered this a put-down. They asked: "Why can't the Americans pass out new eye glasses? Are we ignorant natives? These people were thinking of the $1,700 (more or less) round trip ticket each of the "missionaries" spent to get to XXXXX to pass out used eye wear. The amount spend on airfare could easily have purchased new eye wear for those interested. These questions come from people who access the web site of the mission organization and read for themselves the purposes of the group.
Another asked: "Don't they know that we have optometrists? Don't they know that cheap used eye glasses are available in all the markets?" What would an optometrist member of the church have to say about this "mission effort?" He or she is trying to make a living, and the mission takes away clients.
And of course, if the purpose of the mission is to plant congregations and develop leadership, what role does the distribution of glasses play? How many churches were planted and how much leadership developed?
(Note: The mission organization sponsoring this effort had a difficult time finding "poor" people who were interested in the give away.)
Ask yourself, does this effort cause dependency? One Sunday, after a church service, one of the old time members came up to your friendly observer, showed the glasses he received from the well-meaning visitors. The temple was broken. He asked, in all seriousness: "When are they coming back?"
UPDATE A YEAR LATER: As far as we can observe the eye glass project had no long term positive or negative effects on mission efforts. But that is not the picture you see if you go to the web site of this eye glass mission organization.
(Note: Collecting eye glasses is probably better than collecting left over soap chips. I once visited a USA church where in the narthex a collection box announced: SOAP FOR AFRICA. I can't imagine how any person could hand out that left over stuff to another person! Especially when it cost me thousands of dollars to get to the distribution point!)
(Note: This is the web page of this site with the highest amount of "hits.")