Global Church

Seven tips for short-term mission trips

I’ve seen short-term mission trips do harm to the participants and to the people being served.

I’ve also seen short-term mission trips work in amazing ways to encourage, equip, and empower current disciples of Jesus and help create new ones.

The Kingdom of God needs more of the latter.

So after going on more than fifteen short-term mission trips and hosting short-term missionaries in both domestic and foreign settings, here are my seven tips for short-term missionaries:

1. God is a lot bigger than this week long trip.

We must remember as we go that God has been working where we’re headed long before we arrived. And God will continue to do amazing work there long after we leave as well.

Our American sense of urgency can cause us to think God’s work around the world is entirely dependent upon our short-term mission projects and us. He’s graciously allowed us to be part of how he extends his reign around the world, but he’s using countless others as well. When we’re discouraged, may we be reminded that God has had thousands of years of turning our most feeble attempts at living out his mission into beautiful reflections of his glory. When we’re tempted to overstate our role, may we be reminded that only God can turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh.
– David A. Livermore, Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence

2. We are missionaries who are to love God and those we encounter with all of our hearts, souls, minds, and strength.

Your presence on this trip isn’t an accident. God wants to work in you and through you this week. God’s plan to grow someone else might be through you. And God’s plan to grow you might be through someone else.

As we seek to love, we must seek to do so in the way of Jesus. The way of Jesus is self-sacrificing love. The way of Jesus is servant leadership. The way of Jesus is humility.

Self-sacrificing love. Servant leadership. Humility.

These three things are crucial to success as a team. Success isn’t getting a project done or coming home with some cool Instagram photos. Success is faithfully serving the people we encounter with love and humility.

3. We are guests in a different culture.

We aren’t tourists who came for an amazing spring break getaway. We are missionaries who are seeking to humble ourselves and serve the Kingdom of God in the way that our hosts recommend.

We’re entering into a different culture. As Americans, we often believe that how we think and live is best. But on this trip we want to be open to learning from cultures and people that we encounter who are different.

I once heard a story about a short-term mission team who discovered that the shared bathroom they were to use during the week smelled nasty and was full of flies. The trip leader discovered that the smell and flies were coming from the trashcan where some people had been putting used toilet paper. Appalled, he emptied the trashcan, took it out of the bathroom, and put it in a common area.

A few hours later, there was soiled toilet paper all over the floor of the bathroom. The leader sat down his team to scold them for their middle-schoolesque hygiene practices. No one admitted to throwing the toilet paper on the ground, but he suspected some of the immature guys were just trying to be funny.

The next day, the trip leader found the trashcan back in the bathroom, full of soiled toilet paper. He was outraged at his group, scolded them again, and hid the trashcan.

When the trip leader found the trashcan back in the bathroom and full of soiled toilet paper again the next day, he finally spoke with the owner of the facility. He hoped that she could talk some sense into his group and explain that housekeepers were having to clean up the toilet paper that some people kept throwing on the floor because they thought it was funny.

The owner laughed and responded to the trip leader, “In our country we don’t flush toilet paper. The sewage systems here clog when we flush it because they weren’t built for it. We throw the paper in the trash, the housekeepers empty it each evening, and then replace the trash can for the next day.”

The trip leader was shocked and embarrassed.

We’ll be learning a lot more about cultural differences as we serve. The key here is to ask lots of questions rather than engage in a lot of assumptions.

4. Be flexible.

Do you love control as much as I do? Probably.

Instead, go with the flow.

We love controlling our schedules, our lives, our safety, our futures, and so much more. But while on this trip, let’s rest from this tendency.

There’s likely a general itinerary. Know that it is very likely to change on a regular basis.

We will deal with broken down busses, late deliveries, different understandings of time, and many other things. Amazingly, it’s often in these moments when we encounter God in unique ways.

5. “Being” and “receiving” is more important than “doing.”

When we’re working, we’re going to work extremely hard with everything we have.

But laying concrete blocks, seeing a freshly painted building, or coming away with tangible results isn’t the most important thing. The most important thing is that we’ve sought to be people of love who are also open to being loved.

The first time I left the country my life changed forever. It wasn’t because we successfully renovated housing for global missionaries. It was because I was open to receiving God’s grace from those we were serving.

6. Watch out for God.

Expect “divine appointments.” God is already at work and we’re joining in His work, so why wouldn’t we expect to encounter Him?

As you eat, work, rest, and meet others, be on the lookout for God at work. This may come through the smile of a child, a special connection you make with someone, a passage of scripture that connects with your day, an answered prayer, or more.

When you experience God in such a way, don’t hide it away in your heart. Share it with others on the team! And if you want some good pillow talk, ask one another where you saw God at work that day.

7. Be hopeful.

As Paul writes in Ephesians 3:20-21, God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us! Believe this truth as you are sent out to be proclaimers and demonstrators of the good news of Jesus Christ.

—

Read more about global and short-term missions here:

My first experience with the global church

Why the American church needs the global church

My time working with the Evangelical Methodist Church in El Salvador

What If Beauty Isn’t What We Expect? Lessons from Worshipping in Guatemala

March 25, 2015 by Jonathan Leave a Comment

Would you help this poor blind man?

Out of all the photos I’ve taken this year, one stands apart from the rest as my favorite:

This is Nicolas.

I met him at a day center for older adults in San Juan La Laguna, Guatemala in July. Nicolas was alot like the other older adults I met that day. He was willing to sing “Padre Abraham” with silly Americans, he was grateful for the bag of goodies the group I was with gave him, and he was ready to talk with anyone who was willing to trot out their mediocre spanish.

But he was also different from the other older adults. He was blind. And he wore a little sign around his neck.

His sign read:

Ladies and gentleman, brothers and sisters, would you help this poor blind man? For the love of God.

“Senor o senora. Hermano o hermana. Podrias ayudar a este pobre hombre ciego? Por amor de Dios”

“Que fuera un buen samaritano”

I understood the first two lines easy enough since he had written the same thing in Spanish and in English. But the last line stumped me. It was in a Spanish tense I’ve yet to learn. After asking around, I found out that it read:

“That you would be a good samaritan”

Intrigued, I asked Nicolas towards the end of our conversation, “Do people help you out alot?”

While sucking on the watermelon flavored candy cane he had received earlier, he answered, “No.”

We continued to make small talk, and a few minutes later, I walked Nicolas out the door and watched as he ventured down a street busy with honking cars, kids running around, and his white cane swiping the air in front of him.

Since that day I haven’t forgotten Nicolas’ prayer, which was directed to the reader of his sign—me.

“That I would be a good samaritan.”

I hope that you won’t forget it either.

“Que fuera un buen samaritano”

December 18, 2013 by Jonathan Leave a Comment

It just makes me feel icky all over

This is a guest post by my friend Andrew Ruth. After graduating from Duke Divinity School, Andrew and his wife Claire committed to being a part of The Phillips Talbot Global Ministry Fellowship through Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in NYC. They have spent the majority of their time in Zambia working with Theological Education by Extension in Zambia (TEEZ). Andrew is a visionary, a disciple-maker, and a preacher of unfiltered truth. You can follow he and Claire on their blog where this post first appeared and challenged me in a profound way.

“It just makes me feel icky all over.”

These are the true words spoken by a fellow mission co-worker in Malawi as she returned from talking to another guest at their door. This guest, like so many guests at a Mzungu’s door, sought a loan, another loan to be more exact. Whether their house or ours, almost daily, especially around meal time or nap time, someone stops by with something to sell or a story to tell—each with the goal of procuring some specified sum of money for some other specified worthy cause.

In my case, it usually happens like this:

Front Door

There I stand, on the front stoop, listening to a single father use what little broken English he knows to ask me for money so he can buy “milk for the baby.” He looks down and lifts up a bag of fresh cassava leaves, “I have these cassava, but we need for the milk for the baby.” The leaves are common enough around and constitute a staple food for many villages, where they are steamed with a tomato or peanut butter, if one can find it. They are usually eaten with Nshima, which is like an unseasoned grit-cake, which can be made from the root of the cassava plant, but is usually ground from maize. He looks into the bag as he awaits an answer. I look into the bag as well—like somewhere in all those leaves there is the answer I need.

In the back of my mind are all the things I’ve read and heard about giving:

sustainable development,non-dependence-producing gifts,
give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,
you can’t help them all,
if you give to one, more and more will just come to your gates
giving just promotes begging,
what if he spends it on alcohol instead,
what if he’s lying,
Jesus said give to everyone who asks of you,
you’re just enabling,
send them to an NGO,
trade work for money,
don’t give cash, always give food,
giving can become a savior-complex,
do unto others as you would have them do unto you,
he who gives to the poor lends to the Lord,
deserving vs. undeserving poor,
the Lord loves a cheerful giver,
be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves,
gold and silver I have not, but what I have I will give you,
I was hungry and you didn’t feed me,
is it tax deductible,
all your aid just hurts
charity humiliates, work dignifies,
give a person an inch and he’ll take a mile,
they probably just made bad decisions with money,
how do I know they won’t waste this like everything else,
anything I could give would just be a drop in the bucket,
what will they do next week, when the formula is gone,
what if I run out of money,
what happened to the money they got last time,
the Lord causes the sun to shine on the righteous and the unrighteous,
how many times must I forgive my brother,
judge not less you be judged,
judge rightly,
love justice, do mercy, walk humbly with your God,
blessed are the poor,
woe to you who are rich,
you cannot serve both God and mammon,
true religion is this, caring for the widows and the orphans,
let us not love in word and tongue, but in deed and truth,
they’ll just be back next week,
nshima isn’t even nutritious,
giving is more about the giver than the recipient,
you’re just doing this to feel good,
you’re being played,
why can’t they go to someone else,
pastor so-and-so would know a better way to give,
there has to be a better way to deal with this,
how can I say, “no” without lying or being a jerk,
we’ve already overspent our giving budget for this month,
how can I go fishing with money this man needs to feed his family,
why do I have money and this man has to beg,
I could give him seeds for a garden, but what will he eat between now and then,
shoot me,
the Lord loves a cheerful giver, but I’m ok with a reluctant one.

“It just makes me feel icky all over. Whether I give or not, it just makes me feel icky, all over.”

I agree. With all those things running through your brain, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. You can already hear judgment passed against you by the imaginary neighbor folks in the USA, who know better how to handle these situations, who know more helpful ways to give, or who give more quickly, or whatever else.

The entire experience is judgment passed. The judgment is already passed by the time you turn the latch on the door.

Poverty is complex, economies are complex, but when you open the door to this man or any other person asking for assistance, giving gets very simple: You either give or you don’t. You either say “yes” or “no.”

Sure you might try to modify the sum or turn the gift into a loan or defer til next month, but each of these is still either a “yes” or a “no.” There really is no middle ground, and the voices of books you’ve read and people you’ve talked to are of no help.

“It just makes me feel icky all over. Whether I believe them or not, whether I give food or not, buy something or loan money, collateral or not. It just makes me feel icky, all over.”

I’m not going to posture like I know the right response, or the best way to deal with this, nor am I going to try and write what I think a pastor or “missionary” should do–such pretense is unhelpful but tempting, except that I don’t even have a clue what to say to make you like me or praise my actions. So I’ll just try to tell you the truth.

After trying to read the cassava leaves like tea leaves in some enchanted bowl, I slowly move my eyes upward from the bag to the creased and calloused hand, deep brown on the outside, coffee with cream color on the palms, fingernails short and thin, no rings; from the hand to the sleeve of his once royal blue coveralls, thin and bleached in the elbow, lined with reflectors as if we’d resorted to human traffic cones; the coveralls have an elastic waistband, they’re tucked into dry-rotted and cracked, black, rain boots. I reach his face and then finally his eyes, which rise with mine until they meet. I hold the glance with the agony of holding my breath, as I read in them not begging, nor anger, nor pride, nor pity, but patience long accustomed to need.

“Let me talk to my wife for a minute,” I say. I do this partly because I try to talk to Claire about our financial decisions, but honestly, I just want to share the burden and the heartbreak.

I walk in the kitchen slowly. “Fred says he needs 20,000 to buy formula for the baby.” I pause as our eyes meet. “He has a bag of cassava leaves he found somewhere,” I say as I let my eyes fall to the floor.

Then we stand in silence, and I make up my mind. You either say, “yes,” or you say, “no.”

We’ve been reading too much of the Bible lately, and my heart is already decided:

Proverbs 3:28 – Do not say to your neighbor, “Come back later; I’ll give it tomorrow” – when you now have it with you.

Proverbs 11:24 – One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.

Proverbs 13:23 – A poor man’s field may produce abundant food, but injustice sweeps it away.

Proverbs 14:21 – He who despises his neighbor sins, but blessed is he who is kind to the needy.

Proverbs 14:31 – He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.

Proverbs 19:17 – He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward him for what he has done.

Proverbs 19:22 – Better to be poor than a liar.

Matthew 5:42 – Give to the one who asks you and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Luke 6:30-36 – Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even “sinners” love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even “sinners” do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even “sinners” lend to “sinners” expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

That is not all that the Bible says about giving to the poor, nor do I pretend that any of that is simple, but those are the verses I’ve read most recently and which resound in my soul like echoes in a canyon. I want to argue with Jesus over all of it. Almost every week I tell Jesus that if I give to everyone who asks of me, I’ll go broke. If I let people take my stuff without trying to get it back, people will steal everything I own. I tell him, “Jesus, I know that’s how the world should work, but that isn’t reality. That’s not the way life works.”

Jesus quietly reminds me that he created reality, and knows it better than I ever will, since this world is always sliding farther from Him who is Real into sin, which is the negation of Reality. Gently he reminds me that he has lived in this same unjust, needy, and often crappy world. He not only knows Paradise, but Paradise-Lost; Reality and Anti-Reality.

That’s when I get even more upset, and rage against the existence of poverty and injustice. I hate being asked for money. I hate that people need money and have to beg others for it. I hate that I hate it. I hate that I feel burdened at all, when I’m not the person oppressed by poverty. I hate holding the keys to a person’s next meal or career or family or education in my bank account. I hate that responsibility, and I hate that God has placed it on me. All that hatred is directed towards the Jesus who has asked me to do something I don’t want to do; and that exposes the nature of my heart more clearly than a mirror ever could. Deep inside of me, I am God-hating, God-mocking, Jesus-Arguing, Jesus-Usurping, I know better than you, I could have created a better world than this, you don’t even know how to take care of your children, Gollum, poor.

And as I sit in all this, consciously and unconsciously I hear Jesus say again, “I know, and your Father knows. We know what it is like to give to someone who might never repay you, who might use your gift against you, who might work destruction with the things you’ve built. I know what it’s like to give to undeserving and I know what it’s like to give until it hurts, and then to keep giving until you have nothing left, and then to give your very body. I know what it’s like to give to the ungrateful and the entitled, the broken and the contrite. I know. I know this is hard. I know because I have done it before. I know because I love you. This is what love does. Love risks pain in order to feel. Love risks death in order to actually live. I love you. Trust me.”

Then I walk back to the door–one hand in my pocket, clutching a wadded bill like Bilbo’s precious ring. The other hand carries a bag with a few cups of ground maize. I hold my face as straight as possible as I ask Fred several more questions: “How much does the formula cost? How long does it last? What will you do when it runs out? Do you have any prospect for work?” He answers them each with kindness and patience, and my heart breaks again as it feels the darkness inside me use these legitimate questions more like circus hoops than empathetic entreaties.

“I talked to Miss Claire, and we’d like to help. Here is some mealie-meal for nshima. We don’t have any formula here. If I give you some money, can you buy it on your way home?”

“Sure. Sure. Thank you sir. Sure. Can I thank the Madame as well?” He says as he looks past me for Claire. “Thank you Madame. Thank you.”

“Fred, where do you live?”

“Garnertown.”

“Garnertown is very far. Almost 5km from here. How did you get here?”

“Just walk. We don’t have for the transport.”

“It’s a long trip. You better go so you can get home before dark or the rains.”

“Thank you, sir, madame. God bless you.”

“Mwende bwino mukwai. Stay well friend.”

He turns, and the door closes.

“Makes me feel icky all over.”

I don’t know if I did the right thing or not. I don’t know if I have a Savior complex, a sucker-complex, a soft heart, ice water in my veins, or a clear conscience.

I’m just trying to trust Jesus.

September 16, 2013 by Jonathan 1 Comment

What If Beauty Isn’t What We Expect? Lessons from Worshipping in Guatemala

A number of weeks back I was sitting in a cafe in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala when a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in two years shocked me.

She said, “It’s so good to see you Jonathan. And it looks like you’ve gained weight since I last saw you!”

The smile on my 185 pound body quickly turned into a slight scowl, and I waited for her to continue.

“You look great. You were too skinny before.” After pausing to reflect on her own body, she continued, “I wish I could put on a few pounds. I’m too skinny.”

My scowl transformed back into a smile. I burst into laughter thinking about the absurdity of her comment.

As I composed myself, I told her, “I can’t imagine this exchange happening in the United States.” And after a few minutes of explaining how people often view each other’s bodies in the United States, we each continued dinner with our enculturated views about weight and beauty challenged and expanded.

The next morning Rev. Juan Pablo Ajanel picked me up from one of the many parks in the city and we rode in his pickup truck to a Methodist Church a few miles away. As we made our way through busy streets, I didn’t know what to expect in worship that morning.

Click here to read the rest of my guest post at Seedbed.com.

To read this article in Spanish, click here.

Here are some more photographs from my trip:

La Casa Del Mundo – Jaibalito, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala
This was my hotel one night!

Paragliding with Realworld Paragliding Company – Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

El Parque Central – Quetzaltenango (Xela), Guatemala

June 20, 2013 by Jonathan Leave a Comment

Why the American Church Needs the Global Church

It wasn’t until years after my first experience with the global church that I began to understand how desperately Christians in America need Christians whose culture and language differ from our own.

This new understanding grew as I began to discover that Western nations are no longer the centers of the Christian faith that they were one hundred years ago. Traveling abroad, reading books about the current state of Christianity, talking with missionary friends, and looking around my community all pointed me to this reality. These facts from Mark Noll’s The New Shape of World Christianity helped me comprehend the magnitude of the geographic redistribution and growth of Christianity throughout this century. They also made me pause in amazement as I read them:

“This past Sunday more Anglicans attended church in each of Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda than did Anglicans in Britain and Canada and Episcopalians in the United States combined.”
“The number of practicing Christians in China may be approaching the number in the United States.”
The average Christian is no longer a European or American male. Instead, it is better to think of a poor woman living in either Africa or a Latin American country.

These facts can evoke a sense of unease and raise many questions in the hearts and minds of an American people who are used to yielding political, military, economic, and cultural power around the world. I’ve heard some Americans wonder what this shift may mean for the church of their grandchildren. I’ve talked with others who bemoan the way many global Christians take miracles, demons, and exorcisms in Scripture seriously, and I’ve encountered a few who would prefer to continue doing theology and being the church without regard to the shifting reality around us.

However, when I see this new rise of Christianity around the world, I see an exciting opportunity. I see an opportunity for the church to grow in faith and knowledge as we are given the ability to see the fullness of Christ more clearly.

Click here to read the rest of my first guest post at Seedbed.com.

While you’re at it, browse around Seedbed–a great new resourcing center for Christians in the Wesleyan tradition.

To read this article in Spanish, click here.

January 23, 2013 by Jonathan 1 Comment