The Dumb Gringo by Fred Collom

Dubm gringoI wasn’t sure what I would find when I opened the cover of Fred Collom’s book “The Dumb Gringo.” It could be a book of funny stories highlighting the differences between the US and Latin cultures.

Or it could be Fred’s personal story of 25-plus years of church planting in Mexico.

What it turned out to be was a serious book about the fit-falls of cross culture ministry as well as a commentary on the changing winds in international ministry.

The first half the book is a brief look at the history of modern missions’ strategy. Fred, whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, addresses some of the assumption new missionaries bring to the foreign mission field. Assumptions like assuming that the Apostle Paul’s evangelism strategy is the ONLY way to ministry to people because it is the “one” in the Bible… or assumptions based upon books written by scholars who had NO practical on-the-ground missionary experience.

It is this later assumption that takes up the majority of the book as Fred comes down pretty hard on people who study and talk about missions, but do not “do” missions. One of his biggest pet peeves is mission leaders who a) do not know the language of the people they are ministry too; and b) have never lived on the mission field. In Fred’s eyes, a mission leader is only as good as what they have accomplished on the ground.

One on hand, I agree with Fred in that the decisions about ministry should be handled by the missionaries on the field versus a home missions board. However, as a student of history, I must make note of the fact that some of the best missionary leaders had no or very little missionary experience. Men like Byram Green and Samuel Mills of the Haystack Prayer Meeting, John Mott of the Student Volunteer Movement and Count Zinzendorf of the Moravian Brethren – not to mention Oswald J. Smith.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that why it is helpful to have missionary experience before leading a missions organization, it is not mandatoryas long as that person stays humble and respects the folks on the ground who have given up everything to serve their Lord. It is a both/and situation where both parties are needed.

The last half of “The Dumb Gringo” is, well, full of funny dumb gringo stories highlighting the differences in culture and the need to study one’s host country. And, as I originally expected, there are plenty of stories from Fred’s own life as a missionary.  🙂

In a nutshell, “The Dumb Gringo” raises some great questions and provides some good insides for those seeking to minister overseas.