"So, are you a missionary?" A retired South African physician asked me, his contempt not thinly-veiled. I'd tried to explain why my colleagues and I had come to his country during our many conversations. But, the doctor mistook my words; I was on a "mission."

In 1950, before I was eight, I was introduced to Africa and missionary work when plain looking missionaries returning from Africa would visit our all-white inner city Detroit Baptist church. They would bring out their projectors and show the congregation pictures of the African people they were living and working with and trying to "save."

The missionaries explained that these people were uneducated, living with unchecked diseases, inadequate shelter and often starving. They recounted stories of helping these Africans build homes and schools. They'd provided medical care to the infirm and shared stories from the Bible. They were doing good work.

I was frightened by the images from this far away place. My prior knowledge of Africa had been that of head hunting, savagery and Tarzan. The images these missionaries showed did nothing to dispel my fears. I was afraid to get too near them, as they had been exposed to the scary people depicted through their projector.

Five decades later I journeyed to Africa on two projects. For our missions, we bring the tools of modern photographic technology to neglected people. Our praxis is teaching the skills necessary for them to self produce in stories and pictures their everyday lives to the outside world. On our second mission in 2006 cameras were given to African mothers living with HIV/AIDS in shanty towns near Cape Town.

As I explained to the doctor, these women had volunteered to be in our program. He simply said, "We don't need any more missionaries here." I learned that this gentleman had headed the medical team for the first heart transplant in history and was Christiaan Barnard's supervisor in Cape Town. I realized that the transplant was performed in 1967, the same year that I covered the deadly race-based riots in Detroit, MI.

There didn't seem to be much left to say, so I headed back to our bed and breakfast, a few doors down from the doctor in an all white, upscale and heavily secured neighborhood. On my way, I couldn't get his words out of my head.

As an adult, I find my early reaction to the missionaries and Africa amusing. So, when the doctor had contemptuously dubbed me a "missionary," I wasn't insulted. Back at the B&B, I spoke with some of my colleagues about my conversation with the doctor. They pointed out that being called a "missionary" was far better than being dubbed a "colonizer."

That night, however, I wondered which sort of missionary the doctor had meant, the traditional missionary or the Hollywood missionary? A valid question, I believe, since Africa has recently become the continent du jour and Hollywood has invaded.

Recently, trendy and glamorous celebrities have enlisted in the current cause célèbre. We see them often pictured in the deep, dark continent. Last week it was American Idol's Simon Cowell, before that Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt... and the list grows. These nouveau missionaries are also doing good work or at least trying.

Electronic and print media of the developed world have long been fascinated by Africa, a land offering images of the exotic, the dramatic, colorful cultures, wildlife and human despair and cruelty not normally found in the west. American media is often more comfortable showing people in distress abroad rather that at home.

The vast continent is rich in mineral wealth and cursed with monstrous health and poverty issues. Efforts to save Africa have deep roots in colonialist doctrine. Colonialism was often based on the ethnocentric belief that the morals and values of the colonizer were superior to those of the colonized. Some observers link such beliefs to racism and pseudo-scientific theories dating to the 17th and 18th centuries.

The U.S. government and businesses have vital interests in Africa. Our military is expanding their role there and consider it strategic in our war against terrorism. While human compassion can be a driving force toward helping others, there is an ideological commonality between the missionaries, the trendier types on their mission de rigueur and the military/industrial machine all cherishing the belief that we have a better way.

With all of this concern for Africa, a recent study reveals some internal dysfunction in reporting at-risk children. In fact, a surprising report from the U.N. Children's Fund says the U.S. and Britain are the worst countries in the industrialized world in which to be a child. Many factors, such as poverty, deprivation, happiness, risky or bad behavior puts both major western powers at the bottom of a list of 21 economically developed nations.

Sometimes at night, my thoughts drift back to the contemptuous doctor. I wonder, is our lifestyle what all the world wants or needs? Is a nation with a long list of billionaires who give away one percent or less of their wealth a model? Are a people who invest more dollars in a war machine than human need entitled the luxury of traveling the globe extolling the virtues of their culture? An old metaphor,"lifeboat ethics," comes to mind as lawmakers in Washington debate cutting health benefits for our nation's seniors to provide insurance for our children.

While earning a Master of Divinity degree at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington D.C. and following thirty years as a globe-trotting photojournalist, I pondered some of these issues and explored work in the mission fields. A professor, the son-in-law of a famous missionary to India, E. Stanley Jones, mentored me about work in India and Africa.

He described mission work in Asia and Africa but never mentioned America in these discussions but intimated Americans could always "pull themselves up by their bootstraps," a theme often echoed by former President Reagan.

The popularity to "save Africa" prompts me to examine my own intentions. There are millions of people in many lands who need economic, medical and spiritual nurturing, even in my own country. America is a bright light in a sometimes dark world but America has its own darkness. A barometer of this is illustrated in our pathetically low standing on the list of industrialized nations in the areas of education, health care, housing and other quality of life categories. A recent study showed that one third of Washington D.C., residents are functionally illiterate.

Those given much, much is expected. Within our collective compassion and privilege we can continue finding ways to help save people from natural and unnatural calamities while also examining our credibility and purpose as saviors. This applies not only to me but also to the super-rich, the famous and powerful.

Occasionally, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons will knock at my door with Bibles tucked under their arms. Their mission is in my neighborhood. And they have a point.

The doctor in Africa had a stunning collection of antique cars and equally stunning, yet disturbing, views on the current state of South African affairs. Finally he said, "I am sad for the future of South Africa." I am sad for the future of the United States.