Pet Peeve: One 'friend' sending me a letter asking for money to pay for their missionary trip

[CreekDog]

Anyway, if you don't already know the drill, here's how it works:

1) Friend(s) who is not a missionary, and has no plans to be, decides they want to do a relatively short "missionary" type trip where they act as one.

2) Friend(s) send form letter asking for donations.

The latest 'friend' is not someone I'm close to, in fact, half my experiences with this person I get yelled at. The last contact I had with her was to send her a wedding gift, for which I didn't get a thank you or acknowledgment (and wasn't even aware they had my address). I'm her Facebook friend but there's basically no communication. I only sent the wedding gift as a goodwill gesture to show there were no hard feelings from me (but I didn't say that, I just wished them well).

Now about a year later, the first thing I get is this fundraising letter. :wtf: :eyes:

First, I think this is wasteful. If you want to support missionary work in another country, raise money to support missionaries already there...actually, even less wasteful, support people in those countries who can work with their own people. Don't ask me for money to pay for your airplane ticket to that place. For what the airfare costs for your 3 week trip, I could probably support a local doing the same work for 6 months to a year.

Second, if you can't be bothered to even let me know my gift of money was even received (I didn't attend the wedding), please don't come asking me for more money for which I'll also wonder --did they even get it?

Chime in, please! :hi:

[hobbit709]

1. Only if where he's going still eats long pig.

[Ikonoklast]

19. The Other White Meat.

Or, if not Caucasion....fill in the blank.

[pitohui]

2. you're on this person's sucker list

you should not even be giving a gift for weddings you don't attend, unless maybe it's your mom getting re-married or something

this person thinks you're a mark ripe for the con

i would not respond in any way to further communications, and i might be strongly tempted to forward the letter requesting money for the bogus missionary trip to my state attorney general's office

how many other people are being hit up for this so-called "missionary" trip that isn't really? if an elderly person is bilked out of their money, thinking it's for a real charity, this could even be a felony...

[TZ]

3. Just do what they did.

No acknowledgement of receipt. Basically ignore it. It sounds like an excuse to sponge a free trip off of suckers er I mean friends...:eyes:. Seriously, I've known people who did actual missionary work and I don't recall them ever asking for money from friends...

[CreekDog]

5. If you do it for three weeks, I feel like I'm paying for a vacation or summer camp type of activity

not charity or missionary work, per se.

but the main point of posting this is that these requests have simply proliferated...this is probably the third I've gotten in 6 months.

and the other point of this is my frustration that, if previous experiences with this person are any indicator, my not giving will somehow give her license to say crap about me or to me about it.

[madinmaryland]

6. The "person" sounds someone you need to put on ignore real soon!

[TZ]

8. I think its time to not be friends with this person.

Sounds like a user, and you don't need to deal with that.

[CreekDog]

9. We basically aren't

She tried to get me to go to her wedding.

But because she's in Texas and knows half my friends, I see no advantage in confronting her and telling her off once and for all. The last thing I want is for this topic or this person to be a topic among my friends here because then I will have to spend time dealing with it --time I decided was a total waste 2 years ago.

I won't delete her from FB because, that will make this a topic among...blah blah blah. Also, I can keep track of what is said to some extent.

[gratuitous]

4. I had to raise money for a CPT delegation

I didn't solicit one person with whom I did not have a close, ongoing relationship. I thought it would be tacky in the extreme to put the arm on casual friends and acquaintances. I found out later that some people were a bit put out, thinking that we were closer than I thought we were; I apologized, and suggested they make a direct donation either to Christian Peacemaker Teams or Heifer International.

Verdict: Tacky in the extreme.

[rcrush]

7. A nice good "Go Fuck Yourself" stops those types of requests.

"Friends" who do that deserve no better.

[CreekDog]

10. Not my style, but my sentiment is not a whole lot different

even if the delivery is. :rofl:

[Mojambo]

11. Sounds to me like your "friend" wants you to help pay for their vacation

Pretty good scam trying to disguise it as missionary work.

[murielm99]

13. There are many legitimate mission trips that are being

financed this way.

I know someone who is doing this right now. I received a letter from her. I did not give her money. She means well, but this is not a good idea. She is going to Honduras, and it is not a scam. She has a job waiting for her there, and a church group that supports her mission. She does have to raise the money for some of her living and travel expenses.

She should not be doing this. She is not a trained missionary. Honduras is in the middle of unrest. This is a stupid idea.

My daughter has lived, worked and studied in Bolivia and Mexico. She has traveled in Peru. In Bolivia, she worked at an orphanage that was run by an order of nuns. They were a religious group who did some actual good. The same cannot be said of some of the other missionaries. The people in some parts of Central and South America need education, job training and jobs. They know about God already.

[LeftyMom]

21. Why would a church mission trip go to a country that's almost entirely Christian anyhow?

I looked it up and supposedly Honduras is roughly 97% Catholic and 3% Protestant, with proportions of Mormons and Muslims that are too small to survey effectively.

[murielm99]

22. Because fundy wingnuts do not regard Catholics and other

mainstream Christians as true Christians. They have to convert everyone to their narrow, intolerant way of belief. The person who sent me the letter is that type of Christian.

[quakerboy]

24. They are poor. they need god.

It is well known and established that the poor are not with god, else they would not be poor. Thus your statistics are irrelevant. These people need God, in the form of direct interaction with good white real Christians that speak English. It is known, it must be done.



To be fair, Ive seen that the people who go on similar trips, depending on the setup, can be the better for having done it. They may have used $3000 to accomplish what those on the ground could do with $300, But without the personal connection with the person going, chances are that the $300 would never have been sent anyway, so its a waste, but still a net benefit for the recipients. And in the mean time, they may have learned something to bring back with the interaction, and they may just make a point of sending more resources in the future, now that they have made that personal connection. And it may make them think about what they have in comparison, every now and again, and may even take some action based on that.

[Kat45]

12. Is she going on a mission trip with her church?

A number of churches do that. My church had a mission trip every year, alternating between one in this country and one in the Dominican Republic where they helped build a school for Haitian kids. (The Haitian kids who lived in the DR were not allowed to go to the schools there.) These were positive activities, but as far as I know the people going did not solicit friends and acquaintances for donations. They had fund raising activities like spaghetti dinners, car washes, etc. And those who could afford it paid for some or all of their own trip.

[CreekDog]

20. Yes she and her husband are

Although both of the people requesting a sponsor for their trip are gainfully employed, they made no mention of whether they themselves would be paying any of their own travel.

[raccoon]

14. If I were in your place, I wouldn't send her anything either. nt

[Rambis]

15. God will provide

what ever happened to that:shrug:

[LeftyMom]

16. God provided a form letter, a book of stamps, and a hell of a lot of nerve.

That counts, right? ;)

[Rambis]

18. pt taken

the god will provide context was a friend and his father fighting-

Dad...."John, I found this in your room (father waiving a johnny) You know the church says not to use condoms".

John... "I don't want a buncha greasy kids runnin around and another thing if you didn't give so much fookin money to the catholic church we might have somethin to eat round here".

People have been killin in each other for years in the name of god and I can't stomach any of it.

[LibertyLover]

17. I got one of these letters last year from a young cousin

in Minnesota. In it she asked for money and/or prayer support. Her church was doing a one week trip to a Mexican border town (!) to do missionary outreach. When I researched the town I found that it had one of the higher rates of drug cartel related murders and crime, including kidnappings and rapes, in the area. Yeah, I want to send my hard earned money to a fundy nutjob 16 year old girl from Minnesota to go to a town experiencing major drug related crimes in a foreign country. I sent her a note explaining that I had my own 7 year old daughter to take care of, but that my coven would send her energy for safety. Funny, but I never got an answer back. I learned later that her grandmother had funded the trip, as none of the saner relatives would, and that the kids had been so frightened by what they saw, they came home early, several even flying home rather than endure the bus ride back.

[tango-tee]

23. Why not pretend you never received her letter, and write to her asking for a loan instead?

Hard times and all.... I'd be willing to bet you'll never hear from her again.

[Kali]

25. bwahahahhaha

:thumbsup:

[tango-tee]

26. You and I

would fix their little "missionary" shitwagon, wouldn't we? :evilgrin:

[stray cat]

27. Paying for someone else - ok for your taxes and health care but not trips....

[alarimer]

28. I hate missionaries.

They go for no other reason than to proselytize. In my opinion, no one has the right to shove their religion down the throat of anyone else.

Besides, this "fundraising" letter is just a scam to get someone else to pay for their vacation. It doesn't sound like you are falling for it.