The End Of A "Vision"

 As most may know who read this blog (all tens of you haha), it's been ten years now since I left church and religion behind me and have spent the last decade without going to church, without following a deity, without hanging out with Christians for the most part. It's not necessarily that I have been opposed to being in contact with people who believe in the god I used to believe. It's that most unfriended me when I announced my decision, and those who didn't I don't have a real reason to hang out. When you go to church, that becomes the catalyst for hanging out with the friends you have there. No church? No catalyst.

Anyway, even though it's been ten years, someone who has left faith tends to have some tendrils of the life they used to live. Obviously it takes awhile to change your vernacular. It takes awhile to let go of some of the toxic beliefs that are ingrained in you. (example: the threat of hell) In my case, one of those tendrils was my sponsorship of children through World Vision.

When I was involved in fighting human trafficking (a part of my life that I've been thinking about often as of late. I'm proud of what I did in that arena, and I'm sometimes sad I'm no longer in the arena), I was on a panel about human trafficking at a church in Dayton. I don't remember what the conference was about, I know there were other causes represented there, because in the gym they had something called a World Vision Experience. You walked through a maze that had information about countries that WV worked in, and pictures of kids and at the end you had the opportunity to sponsor a child.

The experience moved me greatly, so I signed up. And for the next fifteen years or so, I was a sponsor of children through World Vision.

My first sponsored child was named Clementine. My daughter was young and interested in what was going on, so she would send gifts and I would tell her what was going on in Clementine's life. It was a good way to teach her how to be a person who doesn't just think about kids in our community, or in our city or in our state or even in the country. I wanted her to have empathy for kids globally. This was one way that we could have an impact on someone all the way across the world. I was very pleased with World Vision and their sponsorship program at the time.

And then 2014 happened.

On March 24 of that year, World Vision made a change to their hiring practices. For the first time in their history, they would consider hiring people who were in same sex marriages. I remember this vividly. I wasn't a huge ally of LGBTQ+ people at the time. It wasn't that I was against them. I'm not sure if at the time I thought they were "sinning" but as someone who believed that we all struggle with sin, I did not put them in a different category than the rest of us. And I thought it was a good move for World Vision to do so.

Right away, evangelical Christians freaked out.

Now note that World Vision said they were only considering hiring gay people. They didn't say they had. They didn't say that they were going to actively seek out gay people. And they made clear that the hiring was only in the administration and call centers; they were never going to hire gay people to go out into the field and work with the children, god forbid.

But the backlash was fierce. Christians who sponsored kids through the organization called World Vision and canceled their sponsorships in the thousands. It was all over the news. Every Christian pundit decried World Vision's decision. And in 48 hours, due to all the public and I'm sure private pressure, World Vision rescinded the decision. In two days' time, it was over.

But the damage was there. And then - and this part gets me so mad every time I think about it - the same Christians who pulled their sponsorships, the same people who decided the life and death of a child who was unaffected by the decision didn't matter because the organization was considering hiring gay people started calling back and asking if they could have their kids back.

My friend Bart Campolo talks about how when his faith died, it was the death of a thousand paper cuts. (I use that phrase often myself) One of those paper cuts for me was this. I wasn't as mad about World Vision's decision to go back on what they had decided. I think they considered the cost of all these kids not having sponsorships because of a hiring decision and felt it was better to take the L and have these kids have sponsors again. I was furious at these Christians who played a life and death game with kids.

I told myself later on after I had left my faith that even though I chose to continue my own sponsorship regardless of me being a Christian anymore or not, that my sponsorship with Clementine was coming to an end as she turned eighteen and graduated out of the program so I would just end my partnership with World Vision. But that's not what happened.

World Vision transferred another child for sponsorship to me - without asking if I wanted to continue - and so I once again continued to sponsor a child through them (her name is Alice, she seems lovely). 

And then 2020 happened.

World Vision once considered hiring gay people. And decided not to. But then in 2020, a woman by the name of Aubry McMahon applied for an adminstration position. In 2021, she was offered employment but then that offer was rescinded when World Vision discovered that she was married to someone of the same sex. Aubry sued, the ACLU took the case, and it was finally decided last year and Aubry won the case, but World Vision appealed and won the appeal. I was mad about what happened because it felt like World Vision hardened its stance even more against LGBTQ+ people.

But I did not cancel my sponsorship. I didn't want to be a hypocrite, getting mad at the Christians for choosing to use a child as a statement. I told myself that I would continue to support Alice until she graduated out of the program.

This spring, I got a letter that said that Alice and her family were moving out of the community and so my sponsorship was ending but look, here's another child that I would be sponsoring starting the next month.

I called World Vision. A nice woman answered. I told her that before I started supporting this child (again, she seems great), that I was canceling being part of World Vision.

"May I ask why?"

(Oh ma'am, you don't know what you're getting yourself into.)

So I told her. All the stuff above. My own walk away from faith. How what happened in 2014 was one of the things that caused me to walk away from controlling religion. She seemed stunned. But still really nice. When I got off the phone, I became emotional. It felt like one more last death knell of a life that I still vaguely remember. Lots of good memories. Lots of bad memories. 

Yesterday I finally received the confirmation letter that says I no longer support a child through World Vision. And I'm sad again. But I'm going to take the monthly support that I used to give them, and I'm going to donate it monthly to organizations that are more in line with where I am now. I've already chose three of them.

Wikipedia. Seems kind of funny. But for some reason a couple of weeks ago that really annoying popup that comes up every time you are on their web page made me actually decide to support them. So I am, monthly

Honeyverse. I adopted a beehive in Italy. They're gonna send me eight jars of honey from those bees every year. Bees are dying off. That's really bad for the world. I'm getting more involved in environmental causes, so this is one thing I can do to help.

The Trevor Project. This organization works with LGBTQ+ kids. I've made one time donations to them on occasion. Now I'm supporting them every month. There are people close to me who are LGBTQ+ and I want them and those I don't know to thrive and to experience love and acceptance.

I'm sure there will be more, and I'll inform you all when it happens. But for now, I mourn a little for the end of an era. The end of a Vision, if you will.