MC Tools—7

Giants, Foxes, Wolves, and Flies

 

 We are sharing some tools to support personal growth, relationship health, organizational development, and overall effectiveness for mission/aid workers. Hopefully you will find them to be creative, useful, and at times even fun. They are some of our favourites.

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These items build upon the 12 tools for “Running Well and Resting Well” that we included as a chapter in Doing Member Care Well (2002). More tools and guidelines specifically for team building are included in our “Tools for Team Viability” article, in the member care book we edited in 1992.

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Our Reality DOSE! website has several self-assessment tools that you may find helpful.  One item in particular is the short article-tool we developed for the faith-based, Christian sector called Giants, Foxes, Wolves, and Flies: Helping Ourselves and Others. We often recommend and use this short article as a creative way for people/groups in mission/aid to look at their life and work—the challenges, struggles, successes, competencies, etc.  It is also available in Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish. Here is the opening section.

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Have you ever seen the movie, "The Wizard of Oz?" Filmed in 1939, this fantasy classic portrays the adventures of a young girl who tries to return home from a magic land lying somewhere over a rainbow. During one scene, Dorothy and her companions approach a dark forest en route to the Emerald City. Anxiously wondering what wild beasts might lie within, they begin to chant, "Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!
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Watch the 30 second clip! ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NecK4MwOfeI

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For cross-cultural workers, frequently beset with analogous challenges, a similar refrain can be heard: "Giants, and foxes, and wolves, and flies!" Who are these creatures, and what do they have to do with our life and work? In brief, they are Biblical metaphors representing the struggles that we often experience as we try to serve God in new ways or unfamiliar places.

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Here's a quick overview. Giants seek to disable us by exploiting our vulnerabilities (2 Samuel 21:15-22). Foxes try to distract us and cause us to drift off our primary tasks (Song of Solomon 2:15). Wolves endeavor to distress us, keeping our stress levels high and our lives out of balance (Matthew 10:16). And flies purpose to disgrace us by the contaminating effects of sin (Ecclesiastes 10:1). The Enemy seeks to use all four of these creatures to sift us like wheat, and ultimately destroy our life an work for the Lord. Let's take a closer look at these creatures and explore some ways to deal with them.