Sharing the mission trip experience helps other people in your church learn about people and places with which they are unfamiliar. Telling the story brings others along with you in an experience they didn’t get to have. What you say and the images you show can have a lasting impact on your listener or reader. Use these tips to help craft respectful mission stories. For more information about short-term mission, visit pcusa.org/toolkits/short-term-mission.
Use this list to determine what items you should bring with you on a short-term mission trip. For more information about short-term mission, visit pcusa.org/toolkits/short-term-mission.
Not all short-term, church-related trips outside of one’s familiar, close-to-home comfort zone are considered (or called) mission trips. Some trips are considered study tours to learn about an issue, a people or a place. Some are called partnership trips because they are short-term trips carried out within the framework of an ongoing, long-term “partnership” between two church-related communities, often with a purpose of mutual learning and fellowship. Whatever kind of trip you are going on, and whatever it is called, this workbook is intended for use by the participants of any short-term travel into a context and culture different from …
Mission co-workers Ellen and Al Smith reflect on the importance of having travel medical insurance when traveling outside the U.S. Medical care in many foreign places is not always up to the standards we are accustomed to in the U.S. Even in industrialized countries, medical care in rural areas may not match what is available in the capital. Additionally, U.S. medical coverage may not pay for services rendered in other countries. For more information about short-term mission, visit pcusa.org/toolkits/short-term-mission.
Church leaders should discern whether to go on a trip. Planned and carried out well, in a spirit of true partnership where all participants are equals at God’s “table” of grace and of mission, a short-term mission trip can be a way to learn about God, oneself, the world and the world church. A lot has been written in recent years on the benefits and the harm that can be done in the name of short-term mission. Before you decide to go, it is important to ask yourself and your church deeper questions about the reason for a trip and …
Transitional Ministry Education Offerings 2019 (PDF)
Use this card as you pray for mission co-worker Eliane Menezes. This card includes a photo and overview of her work. Eliane’s call to mission work is to serve in collaboration with CEDEPCA to care for those in need by means of empowering them as they develop and act in ways that they can advocate and promote transformation in their lives. She is serving with CEDEPCA in Guatemala, facilitating intercultural encounters between people from different countries and cultures while offering opportunities for mutual learning experiences. “This is an opportunity to engage people in conversation, learn about the issues that are …
Use this card as you pray for Mission Co-worker Ruth Brown. The card includes a photo of her and an overview of her work. Ruth Brown is a community health facilitator working in Ghana’s Northern Region with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ghana. She supports the church in creating sustainable, community-based programs of health promotion and disease prevention. She and her partners in Ghana help community members build and maintain coalitions that offer Christian education and leadership training for the development of sustainable public health programs. “I’m thoroughly convinced that coalitions, guided by God and focused on the common …
Use this card as you pray for mission co-worker Nadia Ayoub. This card includes a photo and overview of her work. The Evangelical Church of Greece mission is “the alleviation of human hardship regardless of ethnicity, race, and creed. For all of us who share the vision of Perichoresis and work towards its realization, we embrace our destitute fellow man and encompass all people, both native and foreign, in the spirit of inclusion.” As by God’s grace this global partner seeks to minister to the refugees by providing a wide range of projects, including food distribution, protection, logistics, housing, …