Making mission trips matter
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For short-term mission to be effective, church groups must navigate around the pitfalls
By Pat Cole
 The team of U. S. Presbyterian doctors arrived in the African village armed with valuable skills, altruistic spirits and large quantities of medicines. They set up their temporary clinic near the Presbyterian hospital and were greeted by long lines of patients eager for free medical care. The doctors worked diligently and turned nobody away.
After their two-week stint, the doctors returned to their practices in the United States, but people continued to come to the hospital seeking free care. Though dedicated to serving a low-income population, the hospital was not financially able to dispense free medical care to all comers. To meet operational costs, the hospital charged modest fees to those who were able to pay.
Many patients were disappointed and angry that they were asked to pay for services their neighbors had received for free. Those who had been treated at no cost were chagrined to discover there was a fee for follow-up care.
The problem — which took the hospital years to overcome — could have been avoided if the doctors had arranged with the hospital to conduct the clinic within the hospital itself, says Doug Welch, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s coordinator for Africa. “They could have charged fees, but also contributed to the hospital’s charity fund so that more indigent patients could be seen.”
As exemplified by this true story, better advance preparation is important for short-term mission trips. With the number of North Americans taking part in such efforts skyrocketing, avoiding similar situations is more important than ever. According to one survey, 1.6 million U.S. Christians (2.1 percent of all church members) went on an international mission trip of 14 days or less in 2005.
Participants go on these trips with the intent of strengthening communities and churches abroad and experiencing spiritual transformation. Most of them would be surprised to learn their efforts may do harm. But negative outcomes are not uncommon, says Robert Priest, a missiologist at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
Mission trips “can be terribly destructive and can be the impetus of very bad feelings,” says Priest, one of the first missiologists to study short-term mission. “How to work in ways that do not do that is a major challenge.”
It’s a challenge that many congregations are meeting successfully.
What makes for a positive short-term mission experience? Motivation to build long-term relationships can play a key role, says David Wiseman, a PC(USA) mission worker in Guatemala.
“The pure motive is to build good, authentic, mutual friendships and cultivate ongoing partnerships, and not just sweep in for a week and then disappear,” says Wiseman, whose primary job is to work with teams that visit Guatemala.
Building partnerships in Peru: a group from Broad Street Presbyterian Church celebrating with residents of Huacho, Peru, after completion of an irrigation canal. The Columbus, Ohio, church also has played a role in cleaning up pollution in La Oroya. © 2004 H. Bruce WilsonAt Broad Street Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Ohio, short-term mission and enduring relationships are an entrenched part of congregational life, says Patti Nussle, a former mission committee chair at Broad Street.
“Not a week goes by without something being mentioned about one of our partners,” she says. “There’s always a prayer concern about one of our mission partners. It’s in our blood.”
Broad Street has taken mission teams to Peru since 1999. It is part of the PC(USA)’s Joining Hands Network, which links congregations in the United States with churches and grassroots organizations overseas. Together they work to address inequities and suffering.
Broad Street members say conversations with other Joining Hands congregations in the United States aids their congregation’s mission participation. Other mission networks also spend considerable time sharing information and best practices. The PC(USA) facilitates, but does not control, 28 mission networks that draw together Presbyterian mission enthusiasts around a country, ethnic group or common mission interest. (See “The nuts and bolts of mission,” May 2007.)
Peter de Vries, convener of the Ghana Mission Network, says networks help short-term missionaries see a country’s context more completely.
“One of the problems that comes from a congregation-to-congregation or a presbytery-to-presbytery partnership is that it can become an isolated relationship that’s not part of the greater context,” says de Vries, pastor of Old Union Presbyterian Church in Mars, Pa. “They may support one school in a village, but they don’t address the broader issue of education.”
Networks also create bonds among individuals who have a long-term commitment to a particular place. “It’s really nice to be with people who understand what it’s like in Ghana,” de Vries says. “You learn what other people are doing and build on that for what you’re trying to do.”
Both de Vries and Nussle emphasize the importance of listening to partners and working with them in mutuality. Working in this manner, Broad Street Presbyterian has been able to help its Peruvian partners improve lives for the long run. (See “Trust leads to success,” below.)
Many congregations invest in mission trips because of their potential to transform mission team participants.
At Broad Street, trips to Peru were pivotal in one participant opening a fair-trade business to sell Peruvian crafts, another enrolling in seminary to prepare for the pastoral ministry, and several college students changing their majors.
“My experience in Peru was an affirmation of my call to ministry,” says Emily Krause, a Broad Street member and a third-year student at Princeton Seminary. “It opened the idea for me of being a witnessing presence to Christ with others. I sensed this quiet nudge to ministry and service before Peru, but there were moments there that I realized God was calling me to explore my gifts for ministry in a new way.”
De Vries says his spiritual life and ministry have been strengthened by his experience with Ghanian Presbyterians. “Ghanians offer a spiritual vitality that just knocks your socks off,” he says. “We have been overwhelmed by their spirituality and sense of worship and praise. The spiritual growth we have been able to experience just being with our partners is amazing.”
Yet spiritual growth is not automatic. Some research shows that relatively few mission trip participants report major changes in behavior as the result of the experience.
Calvin College sociologist Kurt Alan Ver Beek studied volunteers who served in Honduras in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch in 1998. His study, published in the October 2006 issue of Missiology, showed that while 40 percent of volunteers increased their praying, giving and volunteerism slightly after their service in Central America, only 16 percent reported significant changes in these aspects of their lives.
Hunter Farrell, the PC(USA)’s director of World Mission, believes mission trip participants are more likely to experience change when they “sincerely encounter Christ in the brokenness of the poor and oppressed communities” where they serve. Farrell worked with many U.S. groups while a missionary in Peru, including those from Broad Street. His Peruvian network called the life-changing experiences “Zacchaeus encounters,” a name inspired by the response of the wealthy tax collector to Christ in Luke 19.
Farrell says such encounters happen when there is focus on strong preparation, team building and reflection, mutuality in mission, enduring relationships with international hosts, and sensitivity to the socio-economic context of the country visited.
Farrell, Priest and Wiseman all say one sign of transformation is when mission trip participants develop a concern for poor people after they return home.
Priest notes that some who work in poverty-stricken areas in international settings don’t think about visiting a slum in the United States. “The sending congregations need to have structures at the local level so that (mission team participants) can live out the possibilities of what they’ve encountered in the mission fields,” he says.
International mission experience should inform attitudes on domestic issues such as immigration policy, xenophobia and health care for undocumented workers, Wiseman says. “Those who show hospitality on mission trips have friends and relatives literally in our own backyards. We can show hospitality to those from our host countries that are in our midst.”
Pat Cole is an associate for mission communication with the General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). |
