Responses: What about Missions Trips?
just a few
comments. thanks umfundisi for
posting this paper. it adresses
what i and many others have thought for quite some
time. while i was at iwu i took place in a mission
trip. at the time i felt it
was God leading me to wanting to do this, so i like
many other christians went a long. did
i want to help, yes. did i in the long run help the nationals and the missionary
achieve their goal. i am not
sure but this i did learn walking away from the
experience.
1. knowledge- knowing how others live. where others
worship. how the children play. i went thinking i could
help but i became more aware of what was going on in
this particular country.
2. compassion- instead of seeing people on tv, i could experience for
myself why God has a heart for everybody.
3. teamwork- working together to achieve a common goal. we
built a couple of churches. granted churches in
i could go on about some of
the other things i learned but i
want to address a couple of ideas in your paper.
comment 1 "Nationals in two third-world countries
are also saying that it is time to quit treating volunteer short-term
missionaries as spoiled children, and get them out of fancy hotels and into
tents and dirt-floored chapels in the countryside and urban barrios. Some
short-term mission team leaders will argue that the reason they house short-termers in hotels is because they know they can’t push
their team members that far out of their comfort zones."
--i say this with being careful because i respect the missionaries so much. but
if missionaries say this about short termers. i have to refute. one of the missionaries i have
stayed with lived in a beach house. while his maid
lived in a shack in the front yard. the people that he
was witnessing to however lived in shanties. now i am sure that all missionaries are not like this but in
the 3 mission trips i have been on. there house was in a suburb or looked like in could be in
the suburb. maybe it is the missionaries that need to
get a little out of their comfort zone.
comment 2“Your American students must be very rich. I
estimate it must have cost each one of them $10,000
As I sat there a heavy burden weighed upon my heart. Though Moyo
had not asked the question, I knew what he was thinking, “Wouldn’t it have been
better to send money to help national Christians instead of using the funds to
finance our own short-term mission trip?” For eleven team members to go to
-- since i have been back
from the short term mission trips i have started to
give more to missions in general. the experience let
me understand on a small scale a little more about missionaries and the work
that they do. so therefore i am more willing to give
because i have a relationship with the missionary and
if i give money for a church to be built i now understand what that church will look like.
i appreciate the paper very
much and everything you say i do agree with. thank you.
I'm sort of suprised
that such idiots are going on short term trips. I have always assumed that the
purpose is to serve the national church and not the other way round. The only
part of this paper that seems like a bit of an overstaement
is that it's somehow wrong to see short term missions as a part of your own
discipleship. I'm not sure you can honestly say that putting yourself in
situations that will grow you as a disciple is a horrible selfish thing to do.
A few comments to start...
1. thanks for posting this paper! You've
taken on a topic that I, at least, have taken for granted. "Who wouldn't
think short-term missions is great?" Now I see why I need to think this
through a bit more.
2. I'm in a position where I receive a number of requests for short-term
missions support. To this point, as long as it was a blatant vacation, I'd send
financial support. Obviously, I'm going to take a much harder look at it now.
3. Perhaps I misunderstood, but it seems Jim Lo is suggesting that if you're
going on a short-term missions trip, ideally it will
be one that can't be confused with a vacation (i.e., no sightseeing, no
shopping, no "luxury" accomodations). Have
I understood that correctly?
Overall, quite a though-provoking papaer.
I need to give it another reading or two, and then maybe i
can comment more.
obviously that line
should read "...as long as it wasn't a blatant vacation..."
My fingers don't keep up with my mind.
Sorry!
Dr. Lo,
Thank you for your thoughts on short term missions. I never thought about it
this way before. I am in the middle of planning a short term missions
trip to
james
Some simple thoughts:
A mission/service trip should originate from a point of need. Ideally a career missionary
or national leader would specifically request for a team to do X or Y.
The team should approach everything with an attitude of service and humility. I
believe with effective training and preparation even (maybe especially?) a
teenage team could learn enough about cultural sensitivity, service, parternship vs. paternalism, proper motives and
discipleship (some plant and some water) to be an effective and dynamic team.
What I'm getting out of Dr. Lo's writing is that maybe there should be less teams
sent that are more effective (via training, preparation, etc.) as opposed to
ending short-term mission altogether.
If any of these examples are true (as I'm certain they are) or representative (as Jim Lo intends them to be) of short-term missions... I think God must be angry at our pride, our arrogance and our selfishness. A lot of this boil