As you read this column I am in El Salvador with a group of fifteen Broadway members. We are sharing life together with our Salvadoran friends for a week. This short-term pilgrimage is actually a part of a much longer and connected relationship. We have partnered with ENLACE in El Salvador and their mission of connecting congregations with the real needs of their communities. We assist in helping the work of ENLACE prosper. Our periodic presence with our Salvadoran friends serves as a sign of our unity and solidarity with them.

As short term mission teams from affluent countries have multiplied exponentially throughout the developing world in recent decades, a shift has been taking place in how they are understood. There was a time in which these teams viewed themselves in a grandiose, paternal way. They believed they were bringing resources that would solve the problems of poor people far away. They also thought that their superior moral and spiritual sensibilities would lift up the weaker neighbor as well. This only reinforced an unequal relationship of superiority and inferiority.

Today we strive to form lasting spiritual friendships of mutuality. We are not taking the Gospel to them; they already have it. We share the Gospel in a two-way street. And the problems and solutions that these communities find will be explored and implemented as part of a partnership - beginning with the local community, then local churches, then ENLACE, then supporting congregations such as our own.

The theme of our partnership with friends in El Salvador is Caminando Juntos. This means "walking together." That's exactly what we want to do. And our greatest hope is that transformation will come for all of us as a result.