Are short-term mission trips a waste?

By Susan Olson

Mai-Anh spent spring break in Florida volunteering at a camp for children with life-threatening illnesses. Now she will tell anyone willing to listen that the trip, an alternative spring break trip sponsored by the chaplain’s office, has changed her life.

In 21 days (not that I’m counting), spring break begins at Yale. We happen to have two weeks of spring break, so I’ll be leading two different mission trips, back to back. For me, as for most chaplains and campus ministers, January and February are a blur of double-checked travel arrangements, marathon meetings to plan menus and schedules, and an endless list of details. Mission trips take a lot of energy and time—and money.

Sometimes I cringe at the money part. I think about how much good that money could do in our local community, or in the places we go to serve. I know that quick one-week service projects are only band-aids on gaping wounds, and that long-term solutions will only come about through local volunteers, local activists, local prophets. We serve the tuna casserole to 600 people on Friday, but by Saturday we’re headed back to New Haven, and to lives markedly different from the spring break experience.

It all feels a bit useless, except for Mai-Anh. Except for Mai-Anh and Kimmy and Terrance, and my 16-old-self. I too was on a mission trip, mine to South Dakota, and it utterly changed my life.

A wise older college chaplain gave me this wisdom. “Move the spring break trip out of your mission budget and put it in your Christian nurture budget.” Although he grossly overestimated the complexity of my budget, he made a good point. I try to think of these trips as being double mission: useful mission coupled with opportunities to transform or at least inform the lives of young adults.

It doesn’t always work. Sometimes a trip is just a trip. Sometimes serving the homeless ends as the van departs homeward. But sometimes a light goes on and the gospel becomes palpable. Sometimes a spark for economic justice back home is lit by a week-long friendship with a homeless person halfway across the country. Sometimes seeing just how difficult pain management is for a seriously ill child ignites a desire to study it, fix it.

So I’m headed out again. And if anyone has a good recipe for dinner for 14 people—three vegans, a vegetarian and one with celiac disease—let me know. We’re on a budget.

Susan Olson is Assistant Chaplain at Yale University.

Comments

[Listing Straight]

Sorry- I don't have any recipes, but I think that you make a good point about these trips being part mission, part nurture.

We (the church I used to serve) would have fund raising for the mission portion but expected the participants or congregation cover the trip expenses themselves... (fundraising for mission, that's a discussion for another time).

It's good to think about this and also good to know that both mission and nurture are good things and when we talk about these trips in this way we open new doors of possibility.

[cheesehead]

I know from experience that trips like this can be life-changing. My own children have done relatively short trips (under three weeks) in and out of this country, and the changes in them are very noticeable.

I firmly believe that no effort to live out the gospel by serving someone else is wasted.

[StCasserole]

Glad to read someone thinking about this topic.

I think mission trips, even weekend long ones, are great for the participants.

Thanks for writing this.

[Dave]

As pastor of missions at my church, I struggle with the same thing. One thing I've been more intentional about is closing the loop between someone's life-changing experience and their opportunity to share it with others.

There's something incarnational about it, too - if students are open to seeing Jesus instead of just playing Jesus.

[Marie]

Our local university sent about 100 kids to the Gulf Coast last year for ASB. Judging from the blog entries and the actual face to face comments, more than one life was changed that week.

This year, they're doing a poverty immersion trip to Kentucky. Clearly this is more about changing the students than changing the world...in that moment. I agree that these experiences can ignite lifelong fires.

Great article. Thanks for the thought-provoking issues.

[Songbird]

I know my trips to the Gulf Coast were life-changing; I almost wonder if they were selfishly so. But I do believe something good happens when we move comfortable people out of their familiar surroundings and let the Spirit get hold of them, whether it is for six months or a long weekend.
I hope your trip goes well!

[Danny]

I know that people often experience God on a mission trip in ways they don't normally. Is it because they're away from their everyday life? I don't know. But for many it is indeed life-changing, and the suggestion to put it in the Christian nurture budget is insightful. In my sermon last Sunday, I even compared the encounter people have with God on mission trips with the encounter with Jesus' glory the disciples witnessed at the transfiguration.

As far as recipes, check out www.whfoods.com (I hope I'm not violating the comment policy with this suggestion.) They have lots of good recipes, many vegetarian/vegan, and most fairly simple to prepare. I made the black bean burritos last night, they were delicious. That would work for you, although the person with celiac disease would not be able to eat the tortilla.

[Pamela Fickenscher]

Fresh out of college I participated in Lutheran Volunteer Corps, a sort of year-long "mission trip" in the inner city of Washington DC. While everyone begins this year wishing to change the world, every former volunteer will tell you that the year in the inner city changed them more than they changed the context around them. Most of my colleagues in the program are now social workers, teachers, pastors, attorneys and so on, all with lifelong commitments to justice and advocacy. Some still live in the city, some live in the suburbs, but our commitments are still clear. The "tourist" aspects of short-term trips troubles me as well at times, but few other experiences have the same potential to change a young person's course in life and faith.

[Susan O]

The tourist thing, bothers me, too, Pamela. I used to run 6-8 trips a year--at my previous college--and it was frustrating to see trip responses based on destination.

I have a friend on staff at the peace corps, (as opposed to being a peace corps volunteer) and she gets very frustrated by week long mission trips "consuming" the culture for the slide show back home. We had a very interesting conversation about this.

[Jason Byassee]

I've also had life changing experiences on these trips. But I lean now toward saying they're an extravagance (not a waste). A bunch of wealthy American kids go over and pretend to do manual labor--which we're not good at--while the hosts show us how not to be so myopic. The Americans gain; I'm not sure the hosts do. A friend used to take her youth group on a short-term mission trip . . . to the other side of town. So the tourist element drops out, the eye-opening element remains, and the churches can have an ongoing relationship with much more frequent exchange.

[Kimmy]

Me? Well I'm the Kimmy. Count me in 100% as someone who's life has been changed by the short term mission trip. I would say that it was only a three day trip that has forever changed my life. A trip to a place I had never been with a few people that I knew and with the faith of my good college chaplain that spoke of a place where kids could just be kids regardless of how unhealthy they were. Me? yes, I am a strong believe in the power of a few days opening the lives of young people to see their world in a different light.

[Rick]

The organization I work for, Christian Outreach International, has been sending people on mission trips for over 20 years.

I like the phrase; "Making and impact..." That impact can be both for the participants and the people's who lives you touch.

There's a good article at http://blog.coiusa.com/2007/03/22/who-benefits-from-short-term-mission-trips/ that details who is impacted by these trips. It's not just the participants and the recipients. A great example of scope of impact can be found in another article at http://blog.coiusa.com/2007/03/22/mission-report-northwestern-college-symphonic-band/.

[chris song]

i think about this topic a lot. i attend an evangelical church that sends annual teams to ukraine (approx $3500/person trip cost), and i myself have extensive experience in short term trips.

over the years though i have become very concerned that these trips are not the best way to serve the communities we are intending to help.

my biggest concern is the whole point of the mission vs. christian nurture point - is our own christian nurturing at the cost of thousands (and cumulatively tens of thousands) of dollars more valuable than the significant impact we could make with the same amount in the form of a donation to that church/organization? if we're so concerned about the life impact aspect of things, how about just serving our local communities (i live in NYC - a cross-cultural experience in itself!) and sending the money instead to build an orphanage, to hire desperately needed staff, etc..?