by Evan Sparks (lifted from The Wall Street Journal – Opinion)

This past summer, from evangelical churches nationwide, more than one million of the faithful departed for the mission field, taking up Jesus’ “Great Commission” to “go and make disciples of all nations.” The churchgoers hoped to convert souls, establish churches and meet other human needs. But they did not intend to serve for years or whole lifetimes, like such pioneers as Jim Elliott, who was killed in Ecuador in 1956 evangelizing to native people; or Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission; or even the awful fictional caricatures of African missionaries in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel “The Poisonwood Bible.” These new missionaries came home after only a week or two.

Short-term mission trips to Africa, South America and Southeast Asia have become very popular in the past few years. They are a keystone strategy of evangelical pastor Rick Warren’s plans to help Rwanda. These trips, like Christian missionary endeavors overall, encompass a wide variety of activities, from evangelization and “church planting” to health care and economic development. The billion-dollar question, however, is whether they’re worth the cost. Are short-term missions the best way to achieve the goals of Christians? Critics argue that sightseeing often takes up too much of the itinerary, leading some to call short-termers “vacationaries.”

To continue reading this article, click here.

I’ve heard these arguments many times before. I’m actually getting sick of them. I’d love for someone to write an article outlining what wouldn’t happen if North Americans didn’t go on short-term mission. It’s an easy pot-shot to take at STMs, but not so easy to prepare, lead, and properly re-enter a team that goes with a purpose to serve a real need. Why don’t we start a list here, and I’ll see if I can get it into The Wall Street Journal!

This article appeared in Maclean’s in the September 29, 2008 issue. It raises some interesting questions about the validity of cross-cultural engagement. Do we really make a difference? Are we properly prepared? What’s our motivation for going?

Have a read. Let me know what you think.

Helping the world. And me.

Is volunteering about saving the world or enhancing a resumè?

Posted By Rachel Mendleson On September 19, 2008

Sara Minogue went to Tanzania expecting to make a contribution. A journalist with several years’ experience, she was drawn to a government-funded opportunity to raise the profile of human rights issues. Journalists for Human Rights, the Toronto-based NGO offering the eight-month program, sent her to Dar es Salaam to teach reporters how to effectively report on abuses. But when Minogue, who was 28 at the time, arrived at her placement in the capital city in 2006, she was struck by “how ridiculous” it was for her to be in a position of authority. The week-long pre-departure training JHR had provided touched on culture shock, human rights theory and the West African media, but left her with “very little clue about where I was going,” she says. As it turned out, many of her colleagues at the Media Institute of Southern Africa had university degrees, and all of them knew more about the human rights abuses in Tanzania than she did, she says. “I felt extremely silly and embarrassed.” Within two months, Minogue had quit. Other than writing a report for JHR, she says she spent the rest of her time “hiking around and hanging out” on Canadian taxpayers’ dime.

To continue, click here.

Introduction to A Post-Trip Poem

by Jon Roland

I wrote this poem a week after arriving on “Spice Island” for a two-week short-term mission project. This is not the real name of the island, but that is what we called it for the protection of the undercover missionaries we were assisting.

To understand this poem more fully, you need to know two things about Spice Island. First, it is the poorest island in a Southeast Asian country made up entirely of islands. It is so poor that the infant mortality rate is 1/3. This is due to malnutrition and insufficient medical care. Second, it is a 99% Muslim island where it is illegal to evangelize and Christians are in danger of being jailed, beaten, run off the island, or even killed if discovered by the wrong crowd of people. This is because, from the time they are infants, Spice Islanders are taught three things about Westerners: a) that we are out to destroy Islam, b) that we are all just out to convert them to Christianity, and c) that all Christians are wicked and immoral people from whose corrupting influence they need to protect themselves.

I wrote this to help me process my first experience doing missions internationally in a culture and nation closed to Christianity. It is written from the perspective of a Spice Islander (in particular one of the workers at our hotel or a nearby street merchant). I wrote it as if somehow I was able to hear the thoughts of a Spice Islander as he or she goes through a typical day and then encounters our team. It is called Misplaced Thoughts.

Note: This is a free verse poem meant to be read with a particular pace and intonation that I cannot communicate well on paper. However, to help you the best I can here are three tips.
1) Pause for about a beat at the end of each line, period, or question mark.
2) Pause for about a beat in the middle of a line where I put three dots.
3) You will need to create your own intonation, but single or two word lines/sentences as well as words that are all capitals should be read with a little more power. Most everything else could be read with normal intonation and pace, but play with it if you want.

Misplaced Thoughts

Unspoken.
Broken.
A rift between two worlds; I choke on.

How did they bring laughter with them – and leave it?
How did they get my respect – and leave with it?
What kind of bridge crosses two worlds?
Life is not usual.

Written by Jon Roland
August 3, 2008

I recently received this STM team report from a colleague:

Three ladies on our last trip to Africa made me seriously evaluate my goals for STM. Last August I went with 12 people on a STM to Coffee Bay on the Wild Coast of South Africa (the poorest of the poor in S.A.). The goal was to renovate a building in a remote village to be used as a church. We did it, and it was cool participating in the Xhosa Christian celebration service. However, the real discipleship was not planned or expected…but had long lasting effects….all from the discipling faith of 3 ladies.

After a week in the Wild Coast it was clear that a lot of tribes people were under oppression from the owner of the local shabeen (mud-hut bar). He had money and power. Even though they appreciated our STM project and our long-term 3 year eco-tourism project, it seemed that they would not engage with us without the consent of the bar owner. We heard rumours that this man was an evil man. One morning, during prayers, three ladies said “lets visit the shabeen and it’s owner, one of us will distract him by asking for a tour, and the rest of us will sprinkle anointing oil in every room, on all furniture, and pray for the oppression to be removed”.

I thought these ladies were “whacked out”. Plus, our purpose was to fix the church, not to get involved with some questionable character. Four weeks after we returned we received the attached news article describing that the Shabeen owner had been arrested. This was amazing since there are no police in that area. Our contact in Coffee Bay said that the people were so moved “dashed” by the faith of these three ladies that they finally refused the bribes from the bar owner and told the police about not only 50 young girls that were raped, but also about the people the bar owner had murdered.

One of the 3 ladies sold her counselling practice in Virginia and moved over to Coffee Bay in January to help the AIDS orphans. She got all 12 of us to come up with $200 each to help one 13-year old AIDS orphan, Mbumba, to attend a small boarding school in Coffee Bay. I still remember Mbumba crying at the church celebration saying, through a translator, “how can I believe in a God that let my parents die”. It’s going to be a long-haul relationship with Mbumba before he’s ready to talk about God and the good news about Jesus, but it’s been a year and it’s starting to happening. Pouring all this money and attention into one 13-year old boy seems not to be the thing that SMT supporters want to hear, but it’s what Jesus did, pour his life into 12….who poured their lives into 72….who poured their lives into 3000…..and now millions. The same thing can happen with Mbumba (I had to attach his picture…it was so weird…he wanted his picture taken…and now it haunts me every time I see it).

I learned a lot….fixing a church can seem like a poor excuse for a STM….I’m just glad that these 3 ladies where open to the Holy Spirit.

Matt: It’s always a good thing to be able to pick some fruit off the tree of your trip a year after you came home. This story makes me want to ensure I’m encouraging people to remain open for those God-arranged appointments with others, and to prepare people to be spiritually useful!

Here’s the article about the Shabeen owner, and a picture of Mbumba.

Pensioner In Court For Rape

Take another look at…The Many Faces of Short-Term Mission

Have you ever been to a health club? Why did you go? Did you want to get into better shape? Improve your health? Lose weight?

If we were to survey all the people in a health club on a given day, most would tell us they were there for reasons of health and fitness. Yet that would be only partially true.

Someone who works at a difficult job may go to the health club after work to release some of the day’s stress. A mother who stays home with young children may work out twice a week to have some time to herself while the kids play in the on-site nursery. Other people go to health clubs to visit with friends or meet new ones. Still others go because they do their best thinking while swimming laps in the pool. Although these people go to the health club to pursue health and fitness, they’re also motivated by reasons that have little to do with fitness.

Like health clubs, short-term mission teams attract a wide variety of participants with a number of motives. Some want to taste genuine missionary service. Some go to use their professional skills. Some go for fellowship.

Some people go overseas to visit missionaries they know. Others wish to form cross-cultural friendships. Still others seek personal spiritual growth or an opportunity to disciple another person.

The list could go on; when I ask this question at seminars I usually get at least 25 different responses. People go on mission trips to fulfill the Great Commission – but that’s usually only part of their reason for going.

Praying for a Vacation

I’ll tell you a little secret. The first time I went on a short-term mission, I didn’t even know it! I thought I was taking a vacation with a group of single people from my church who wanted to spend time together while also having fellowship with a Christian community in another country.

To prepare for our trip a handful of us met weekly for six months, praying for God to show us how He could meet our need for community while we served Him. We asked the Lord to guide us into a relationship with a body of believers from another culture. He answered our prayer by sending us on what I would not call a short-term mission trip to Mexico.

At the time, though, none of us thought to use the term “mission.” We hadn’t been praying to be sent on a mission, we had been praying for a vacation – a vacation with a purpose.

We did not take that first trip out of obedience to the Great Commission but rather for fellowship and to redeem those precious two weeks of vacation from our jobs. Were we wrong to do so? Short-term mission is about “mission,” is it not?

I suppose the answer lies in the fallout from that trip. While we were in Mexico, we ran a Vacation Bible School. We painted a schoolroom. We built a roof on a clothing distribution center and played with children at an orphanage. We formed relationships with missionaries and Mexican nationals which have continued for 10 years now.

When the trip was over, one team member sold most of his possessions and vowed to live more simply. Several others became Sunday school teachers, fellowship group leaders, deacons or elders. I changed my plans to attend law school and went to seminary instead.

Eventually our singles group was sending scores of people on short-term trips each year. The singles’ pastors used short-term missions as their primary discipleship training and leadership development strategy. The senior pastor recognized and utilized former short-termers as one of the church’s greatest resources for new leaders and teachers. The missions department sent many former short-termers to the field as career missionaries. Several former team members moved on to become missions mobilizers and key lay leaders. All this happened because 20 singles wanted a worthwhile vacation!

Who’s Going and Why

Although short-term missions involve a wide variety of people who take part in a broad range of activities, we find that some factors are common to certain groups and activities. Although not exhaustive, the list below describes the most typical short-term mission participants and activities.

• Youth teams from churches and Christian Schools;
• Student teams from colleges, as well as individual students who make arrangements through mission agencies;
• Singles from churches or para-church singles ministries;
• Seniors, including individuals, church-based teams and so-called “RV gypsies” – retired couples who travel independently from mission site to mission site in their motor homes;
• Intergenerational teams whose participants range from teenagers to seniors. Family teams which include young children are a growing sub-category;
• Multi-racial teams, often with members from more than one church;
• Professionals – doctors, dentists, engineers, builders, etc. This category includes teams as well as individuals who apply their professional skills to outreach or support ministry;
• Sports teams and professional or amateur athletes who compete at sporting events, then share their testimonies with the assembled crowd.

What Are They Doing?

Just as there are several types of short-term missionaries, there is a wide variety of activities. Below is a sampling of possibilities:

• Construction and maintenance;
• Teaching English, health care or other skills or information;
• Medical/dental clinics;
• Evangelism, including literature distribution, drama, puppetry, music or showing the Jesus film;
• Spiritual warfare and prayer-walking;
• Church planting;
• Mission awareness, which generally involves visiting mission sites to educate short-term missionaries;
• Youth ministry – summer camps, vacation Bible schools, tutoring, sporting events, etc.;
• Inner-city involvement and ‘urban plunges’;
• Agriculture/farm work;
• General assistance at mission sites, involving participation in the day-to-day activities of the career staff and national workers.

Enlightening Reading

The articles in this Special Report were written by leaders who have worked with a variety of the people and situations described above. In their experience they have seen great successes and horrible failures. In spite of the differences in their involvement in short-term missions, their writings and reflections involve several common themes.

The short-term missions movement is no longer new; its benefits and shortcomings are now well known. Speaking to the shortcomings, the authors each describe, to a greater or lesser degree, the need for adequate preparation, genuine reciprocity with the host communities, thorough debriefing and purposeful follow-up.

Some of the articles make for challenging reading. Some readers may come away convicted. All will come away enlightened.

Not by Choice

The health club/short-term mission comparison is useful only to a certain extent. We join a health club by choice; we go on a short-term mission trip because we are sent. Jesus prayed to the Father “As you sent me into the world, I have also sent them into the world” (Jn. 17:18). Days later He repeated this to the disciples: “Go therefore into all the world” (Mt. 28:18).

Regardless of people’s individual motives for service, God is accomplishing tremendous results through short-term missionaries. Lives are being changed, new missionaries are entering lifetime service, churches are being planted, new disciples are being nurtured. God uses short-term service in the long-term work of the church.

Here are some of the creative approaches He is incorporating into the task of worldwide evangelism. For example, teams of surfers are spreading the Gospel among their counterparts on the beaches of South Pacific islands. A team of rural villagers from the Dominican Republic recently built homes for destitute families. This year, a team of children from a Mexican orphanage traveled to Quebec to witness through music and preaching.

Certainly there are problems – after all, short-term mission teams are comprised of sinners. As the short-term mission movement matures, we are recognizing and addressing many of these problems. Some still await solutions. Yet God continues to accomplish His purposes through short-term missionaries – even unsuspecting vacationers.

by Kimberly Hurst

Kimberly is the director of WorldTracks, conducts seminars to train Christian leaders who wish to create or improve short-term mission programs for their ministries. She is co-author of the book Vacations With a Purpose.

Article originally published in Mission Today Magazine & Missions Fest Alberta Resource Magazine.

In light of the last blog on the new re-entry book resource, I wanted to post some coming home deep thoughts from a colleague who just returned from a STM trip to the Democratic Republic of The Congo (DRC).

I think you’ll benefit from reading this honest commentary on doing mission the short-term way:

“DRC was an interesting trip and as usual highlighted all of the things I both love and hate about the place.

I love the hospitality and generally the whole feel of Africa, I love their singing, no-one can quite sing like the Africans. As usual we visited the prison in Lubumbashi and it just amazes me the way they pick up a metal bar and an old wheel and between that, their clapping and their amazing voices the sound is incredible I could listen all day. I love the way that people can be so full of happiness and joy when they have nothing of the things that we base so much of our happiness on i.e. material possessions!

But the things I hate about Africa are the squalid poverty and the corruption and violence; it so often seems to me that there is so little local effort to make life better. I get so disillusioned when we spend all year frantically raising money and the spend even more money and time to go there and build a hospital and then so many of the locals just stand there all day watching you build but rarely offer to help, there are always exceptions of course. I get disillusioned when I hear of the incredible violence perpetrated there for reasons that I will never understand. So every time I go it’s like I sink into a depression and think what is the point, why bother when everything around is such a mess.

At that point I then have to make an effort and look around at the women and children who have been forced into their circumstances and pick out some faces and say we are here to make “your” life better and if slowly one life and then another can be changed for the better then hopefully one day the country can be changed for the better, and that is the hope I cling onto and the reason I keep going back.

Of course I got sick as a dog for a week, which doesn’t help, but as I was laying in bed feeling awful, I was reading a book about refugees who when they got sick where lying in a makeshift tent in 42 degrees heat, with no toilets, no drugs or anything, so even then I was able to be thankful that at least I had a bed to lie in and antibiotics to make me better and a doctor who kept stopping by to check up on me.

So overall it was both good and bad, by the time the hospital is finished in the next few months it will be state of the art in terms of what was there before and I know it will be such an amazing blessing to those that need it.”

Obviously, there are ups and downs involved with STM. Some say coming home is harder than going in the first place. The injustice, corruption, poverty, and disease you can witness while on mission can be enough to drive you into a dark place inside. Like my friend observed though, if you can help make one person’s life better, you’re doing your small part in a much bigger picture. Imagine what we could do with 1000s more people doing their small part?

Unearth: Exploring a Land with No Name, by Christy Vidrine and Autumn Rogers. Waukegan, Illinois: Plethora Publishing, 2008, 94 pages. US$8.99; bulk discounts available.

Being a missionary can sound glamorous until you find yourself in the thick of culture shock, team conflict, and burnout. After such experiences, even short-term missionaries return home hoping for a reprieve from the intensity they felt overseas – only to find the challenges of reentry just as great.

Vidrine and Rogers, former college roommates whose first adventure together was a semester abroad, have participated in 21 mission trips between the two of them. Both have worked for mission agencies, training and leading short-term teams and walking with others through struggles such as they experienced themselves. They wrote Unearth to acknowledge the chaos of reentry and encourage participants to persevere.

The strength of this book is in its fresh, contemporary voice – it has a postmodern feeling that should speak well to a younger generation. Pioneers USA is putting copies in the hands of all its returning summer missionaries this year. Get more details and read an excerpt on the book’s website, here.

I have bought these in bulk, imported them into Canada, and they are available for order through us here.

Myth #10 – God Has Given Up on Americans / Westerners

by Shane Bennett (an American

Conversely, some believers consider the growth of the non-western church and the decline of the church in many Western lands as an indication that God no longer uses people like Americans/Westerners. Or maybe he primarily wants to use our financial resources to fund the work of others. Two things: God certainly wants Westerners to use their financial resources to further his work. Even with the scary economic situation (The Dow closed down over 400 points while I was writing this!), Americans/Wseterners are still among the richest people on the planet. As we have been given much, we are expected to give much.

Secondly, God is free to use whoever he wants, however he wants. His decisions in this regard are often surprising and puzzling for us. Our role is to think carefully about what God is doing and how we might best join in. Sometimes that means writing a check for a budding mission agency in Eritrea. Other times that means writing a cheque for a passport application, a plane ticket, immunizations, and an Arabic phrasebook!

Myth #9 – God Only Uses Americans and Other Westerners (like Canadians!)

by Shane Bennett (an American

Perhaps this is less myth than practical assumption. God has gifted Americans generally with a sense that we can overcome problems and accomplish worthwhile goals. It might go without saying that this gift has been unwrapped and used to whack our siblings on the head more times than I care to count. I’ll say it anyway, just so you non-Americans hear that we Americans (at least some of us) acknowledge and regret this.

Being gifted thusly by God, we can sometimes think we’re the only ones concerned about God’s global kingdom. When we venture to other countries (maybe yours!), we might think that God arrives when we do. We’re pretty sure he wasn’t here before we showed up!

One of the most hopeful trends of my young life is the growth of the church and the embrace of God’s purposes for all nations from the global east and south. God is increasingly raising up mission efforts from Africa, South America, and across Asia. Praise God for you, our brothers and sisters, who are joining or re-joining this great global cause.

See also: The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (and other works) by Philip Jenkins.

Myth #8 – All Mission Effort Has the Same Strategic Value

by Shane Bennett

Say we limit “missions” to work done for Jesus in a different culture. Should we then further distinguish value among different mission work? This is a dicey business and not for the faint of heart. Therefore, let me defer to my friend Rick, in Michigan, as he shares some of his frustration with this myth and myth number six.

“I think the unstoppable myth in our congregation (so far, anyway) is that there is really no difference between shoveling my neighbor’s sidewalk, doing relief work in the slums of Manila, and planting churches among unreached people. So of course in the absence of direct supernatural revelation from God, most people reach for the snow shovel. There is no consensus at all for the priority of frontier missions, and not much idea that the gospel has a purpose beyond making us nicer people who help other people to be nicer too.”

The value you place on a certain activity rises or falls based on the goal you’re shooting for. One of things I appreciate about Perspectives is its emphasis on starting something among all people groups. (See core ideas 10 and 11 here.)

If that is our goal, we prioritize the least reached and the unengaged.