Short term trip shortcomings

My parents took our whole family on short term mission trips as children. Out of that I felt called to missions and took a couple more trips to confirm that calling as well as the location to which we would minister. My wife caught interest of missions from two short term trips and that is one major reason I caught interest in her. Many missionaries felt their call to missions after a short term trip and many fields have received a big boost from these trips. Obviously, short term trips play a vital role in missions. 

However, there are several stories in which we look back and see examples of how short term mission work has damaged the progress of making disciples. 

The Great Omission is a book by Steve Saint (son of missionary martyr Nate Saint) who talks about what happened with the Auca indians of Ecuador. While the Auca church boomed after the return of Rachel Saint, the site became a tourist attraction for short term trips. The church was then left in disrepair and short term missionary Pastors took the place of lead pastors due to the overflow of them. 

David Whiting, Pastor of Northridge Church of Rochester cites this example and explains the error in it. We often do not understand the cultural differences that are underlying factors in missions. In this case, as well as many other countries, if you construct something, you are responsible for its maintenance. Upon arrival in the Amazon I felt compelled to dig a well for poor people in our city. I sought advice from other missionaries and found out that they already had a well, they just did not maintain the well. In fact, with several different issues, the nationals would not take initiative because they were used to receiving. When they did receive, they expected more and did less. We hear people boast about taking clean water to many areas of the world and I am sure it happens effectively in many areas, but in some places, due to this cultural difference, they will only have clean water for a couple of months. 

Pastor Whiting explains that places like Haiti and Africa who have received billions of dollars of “help” are none the better. We must be careful with how we give help in both charity giving as well as short term trips to help out. Finding the right organization is important. If you don’t, you could end up hurting more than helping. Probably helping in a way that doesn't just give a fish, but teaches them to fish would be more practical. 

Another story is told of a man who went to the same place each year for short term missions. He was in a pre-service meeting when the question was asked, “so who is going to raise their hand and go forward tomorrow night?” He was shocked and asked for clarification. They said, “well, we value these trips so much and get so much out of them, that we want you all to come back each year. We know if all of us go forward each time, then you will not believe us, but if around half of us go forward, you will all come back each year.” I know this does not happen everywhere and that there is legitimate fruit, but there must be some sort of long term accompaniment in order for disciples to be made (in contrast to apparent converts with little or no follow up). 

A Pastor told of how good it felt to take a team to Mexico and build two houses. After a few years they figured the price it took per house; 30,000 dollars. It would have given jobs to Mexicans that could have done it for 3000 dollars. When they presented the houses to the families, the husband was no where to be found. What should be his job of providing a house for his family, was given to someone else, thus shaming him. 

A lot of this material I am getting from Pastor Whiting’s missions series “The Great Omission” that can be found by clicking here. I feel like I have not done justice in this blog to the strong points he makes. 

I know that short term missions is needed, but I think we must consider some of the consequences, balance the ratio of long term versus short term missions spending, and think about exactly what we are trying to accomplish. Short term missions will never go away because we will always need missionaries and there is so much it can accomplish. The short term trips page on this blog has some great tips in the comments section on how we can think through some of these issues.