Short Term Mission Trips...

[Jon Estes]

A while back someone wrote an article on short term mission trips and the negative impact it can have. In a Google search, there are many articles on this same subject. As a supporter and participant of STMT's I can see the negatives that can happen and I can also see the positives that have happened.

Now that I am living on the mission field internationally, I actually see this in a slightly different light. For some reasons I am a greater supporter now than before but I am also very aware of how I would approach a group who wanted to come here and do a short term mission project and how to positively prepare the people I serve to do our short term mission projects in a better way.

Though mission trips state side are different than ones that are international (in most areas), what is your thoughts on this matter? I am seeking God's guidance about trying to find a short term mission team to spend 7-10 days with us.

Maybe some testimonies of successes and failures with your STMT experiences.

[Tim Bonney]

Jon,

I wonder if makes a difference as to the goals of the trip?

I've been on three mission trips outside the continental US. I've been twice to Mexico and once to Puerto Rico. The two Mexico trips were with ABC missionaries and the Puerto Rico trip was with UMC mission leaders.

The three trips were work trips. In Mexico we were building onto a battered women's shelter and in Puerto Rico we were painting, cleaning, and repairing churches.

I believe the three trips were helpful to the missionaries and pastors that received our work. We were not starting new churches or specifically doing evangelism.

What are the pros and cons you see for different kinds of trips? What trips do you think work well and what does not?

[Dave Roberts]

There are many different types of mission trips. Our son is involved in a church that has been sending groups in a partnership with a group in Belize. They have been going to the same places and working with some of the same people for a decade now. The partnership has been fruitful because they do not need to spend the first half of each trip just getting acquainted with the tasks and the people. I have participated in both great and awful trips. The worst were going into a setting to find that what we had been told to expect and plan to do was not at all what was needed. At the same time, construction work has been very profitable when it was well planned. To me, some of the worst mission trips are these where groups go conduct mass meetings and claim thousands brought to Christ when they didn't know anything about the culture of people groups with whom they were working. A week after the7 leave, the resident missions representatives can't find any of the people.

[Haruo]

Fremont has had people participating (mainly our pastor, Judy Gay) in short term trips to Haiti that have been very beneficial to the participants, though how much direct benefit the local situation has received may depend on perspective. One thing she mentioned was that some of the work they were asked to do took paid work away from locals who were desperate for paid work. (Pouring concrete, that sort of thing, not something you need to be American to do properly.) Participants and the receiving-end missionaries have been overall very positive about the results.

[Joseph Patrick]

From Joseph Patrick...aka Gerry Milligan

Jon,

As a retired international missionary I have been involved in numerous STMT. Some excellent, some good and several disasters. We learned that there needed to be very explicit and agreed upon goals and policies for the "visitors'" A well planned and executed STMT can reap long term benefits both on the field and for those who come. We still hear (15 years later) from some of those who were part of a more successful trip. And I can still remember the two ladies who came for the Dubai Shopping Festival and tried to distribute Bibles (contrary to what the agreed upon plan was for them) and ended up arrested. (Ask EB about this episode).

But, the bottom line is the person on the ground must be in charge because he/she will bear the joy or disappointment for the trip.

Grace and Peace
Joseph Patrick,,,aka Gerry Milligan

[Jon Estes]

[Jon Estes]

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

I've seen both good and bad experiences with short term mission trips. Much of the perception in a specific church is created by the team when they return and give a presentation about their experience. I've been through three such presentations, all in the same church, led by the same staff member, that appeared to be nothing more than expensive vacations. Two of the trips involved serving a church plant by providing training to volunteers. Both the sponsoring church, and the plant, were made up of expatriate, English-speaking Americans and Canadians living in Central America to avoid taxes, and because it was cheap. Not to say that those people don't need the gospel, too, but the beach scenes and hikes through the jungle that dominated both video presentations didn't sit well with the church. A third trip, to Germany, to another expatriate church, included only two church members other than the pastor and his family, the youth pastor, and his wife. After that, you can see how difficult it was to convince the church to do another similar trip.

I think short term missions are great if there is a specific purpose which the participants can meet, if it is well planned, and if there are requirements that are placed on those participating, specifically those gifts or skills necessary to do the kind of work that is needed, whether it is physical labor, or spiritual gifts. I also think Christians need to look around and see if there are needs they can meet which will have an impact both locally and globally. In our area, there are several ministries made up of local volunteers, who regularly participate in English tutoring for students at several of the local universities who are here from China. Every student they lead to Christ is a potential "missionary" when they return home. And the difficulties involved in foreign travel are eliminated by that kind of ministry, and so is the question about whether the motivation to go is just to be a tourist, or if your heart is really in the ministry.

[Tim Bonney]

The trips I was involved with were paid for by the participants.

I can certainly understand a concern that if the church is footing part of the bill and the trip looks more like vacation than mission that the local church would be concerned!

[Haruo]

No sooner had we arrived in Japan in the summer of 1967 for our one-year stay, which I guess counts as a midlength mission trip, than we went off on a short-term mission trip to a little silkworm-raising village in the Japanese countryside. I keep wanting to call the hamlet Shikashima, but I think I'm wrong. Anyhow, here are three photos from this experience.

The participants in the mission trip, with our family members labeled.

Yours truly helping to build a concrete-block foundation or wall or something. Don't remember what the building was to be.

My brother Graham and me, doing a skit (our first public performance in Japanese; the script read "mizu.... mizu...." ("water... water...") for the mission trip participants at the evening fellowship get-together

[Jerry_B]

We go down to children's home for a week and do work projects, VBS, host the weekly chapel service and encouragement activities for the house parents. We work really hard to fit into their schedule instead of doing what we want. If you go with the mindset that you are there to help what is already being done, it works so much better than the old, let us show how to really do this, go home and make the people clean up the collateral damage of knowing everything.

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

Hauro, cool pictures!

My next intended outside the US trip is going to be to Ireland next year if I can pull together the funds. This will be a vacation trip rather than a church related trip. My wife and I both have Irish ancestry. I also have a long time interest in Celtic spirituality.

[Lou]

[Tim Bonney]

[Haruo]

I've been a couple hundred yards offshore in Cork Harbour, FWIW. Some little old ladies came out in a skiff to sell us cardigans.

[Jon Estes]

Thank to each of you who commented. I enjoyed the read.

My last trip was to Kolkata but it was more a planning trip for future trips. We did help with a few projects while there. Got some awesome pictures of the work and some of the sights we got to see (which I think is a must when going on trips like this). I think it help us understand the culture a bit better.

While in Kolkata I got to stand in William Carey's pulpit... among a few other things.

I was going to post a few pictures but was unsure how.

jle

[Jon Estes]

A few pictures from our trip to Kolkata earlier this year.

If these need to be removed due to space limitations, please do so.

Kolkata was a dirty place filled with wonderful people. An interesting stop we were taken to was Missionaries of Charity (Mother Theresa's ministry). A hard work among hurting people still happening.

The greatest ministry we got to touch hands with was a ministry to women who have escaped the sex trade. This is a ministry that the police work with by getting those they find into the ministry to be helped. It is a Christian ministry making a huge difference in lives of the women between the ages of 11-19.

[Haruo]

So is this Kolkata the place I was raised to call Calcutta? The place where William Carey worked etc.? Mother Teresa, the Black Hole and all? If so, it looks awfully rural compared with my mental image. But I think the alphabet looks plausibly Bengali.

[Jon Estes]

Haruo -

Yes it is. I spell it this way as this is the way the members of my church from India spell it.

The pictures are from a day we traveled about 45 minutes outside of the city to an island (the reason for the stand up boats) to work with a medical clinic. Since I have little to no medical experience, I interacted with the kids who were there as their parents were in the clinic.

We worked with Kolkata Christian Fellowship.