Who are the Good Guys in International Charity?

 I've just finished the novel Good Guys by Newfoundland writer Sharon Bala. There are several important characters in this story about international aid organizations including Claire Talbot, the publicist for Children of the World, started by an aging rock star.  Her motives are good when she facilitates the involvement of an A-list actress at their Central American orphanage. When this celebrity visits she is moved to adopt an infant with special needs who has a family living in abject poverty. While this supposed orphan adoption brings plenty of media and online attention with plentiful monetary contributions to Children of the World the machinations of the "good guys" soon goes south (pun intended?) and the well-meaning white saviours become bad guys. 

Good Guys is a thought-provoking story, well told by Bala. It is also a focused and sometimes cutting scrutiny of the ecosystem of international charity. We have been privy to celebrity adoptions by Madonna and the then-couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Both women have been generous in their support for charitable causes, Madonna began the charity Raising Malawi and her adopted kids are from this African nation. Jolie was named a Goodwill Ambassador by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees at the age of 26. I certainly don't question their sincerity but we are reminded that stars attract eyes and ears, as was the case with Audrey Hepburn decades ago. 

                              

                                                                                Angelina Jolie 

Earlier this year we watched a segment of 60 Minutes featuring the orphanage Have Faith Haiti financed by best-selling author Mitch Albom (Tuesdays With Morrie) in violence-torn Haiti. This compound with 30-foot walls and careful security is an oasis of peace and hope for children who would face a bleak future otherwise. We were impressed. I am an admirer of rock star Bono and his work in the Jubilee movement and AIDs relief. 

There are bigger questions, though, about the inequities between have and have-not nations and how children are rescued from their fate. Bala also circles around the role of churches and other Christian institutions in outreach work and the cynicism of an investigative reporter who left evangelicalism is obvious. Characters in the novel reflect on the mission trips of teens from North American churches to help build schools without much thought to how those schools will be supported into the future. Who are these trips for? We have a friend in ministry who was very involved in these trips on behalf of the United Church for a number of years. Again, we never questioned her sincerity but what is the bigger picture and what are the lasting effects of these trips in the lives of those who parachute into countries for a brief period of time at considerable cost? 

In the end Bala paints a picture that is not a simplistic polarization of good guys and bad guys. It is an indictment of privileged assumptions and actions. 

This would be a worthwhile novel for discussion by a church book club.