ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange
Abstract
For the most part, mission history has focused on the work and effort of missionaries and not as much on the missionized, those people and communities they assisted. this is a flaw in the field which needs to be corrected, but how do we accomplish this? This article proposes a two-step process. First, by closely reading the traditional histories and the primary documents, we can emphasize and highlight the roles and voices of the missionized. Second, by using oral history interviews we can capture essential thoughts and attitudes of missionized people and communities about their mission experience. This dual approach helps balance out the perspectives to give a deeper, more complex reading of mission history. A case study approach is used in this article, focused on the mission of the Colegio Bautista (a mission of the American Baptists) in Santa Ana, El Salvador
