With an estimated two million Christians going on short-term mission trips a year, the question of how to make these trips meaningful both for those traveling from the United States and for those who live in the countries they will visit is one that, increasingly, Presbyterian leaders are asking.
What works and what does not? What are the trips accomplishing?
The researcher Robert Priest, a professor of mission and intercultural studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, has found, “there’s no statistical evidence to show that these trips are doing anything,” said Dawson, who is director of the World Mission Initiative at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
What are some of the measures of what such trips achieve?
Dawson looks for changed lives — people who come back different from the trip than they were when they left.
“They should be personally transformed in terms of stewardship,” he told a workshop during the recent Mission Celebration ’09 gathering — transformed as in willing to lead a different kind of lifestyle in order to be able to give more to support long-term mission. Most are not.
He looks at whether people who go on short-term trips are starting to have a sense that “God might be calling me to this kind of long-term vocation. Shouldn’t it be feeding more long-term missionaries? It’s not.”
And what about engaging the local community in different ways once the travelers have returned? “We go to Mexico,” Dawson said, and “we come home and we don’t engage at all with our Latino brothers and sisters in the areas in which we live, or with other immigrants. Shouldn’t we be engaged more locally?”
But for the most part, “it isn’t happening.”
So what can people do — both those going on the short-term trips and those facilitating the trips or serving as hosts — to make things better? Here are some ideas.
Plan ahead. “Talk about those expectations and goals you have for the trip,” said Tracey King, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s regional liaison for Central America. If possible, find someone who knows the context and the terrain, perhaps a PC(USA) church partner or mission co-worker. Be clear with the hosting group what your goals are — for example, if your group has a particular interest in health care or education or women’s needs, state that up front, so the host can try to design a schedule that means those goals.
“A lot of teams want to do something, they want a work project,” King said. But she sees the value in education-oriented trips, which help the North American visitors learn more about the places they are visiting and focus on building relationships with people who live there.
A major challenge is “addressing the root causes of poverty and injustice” that contribute to the difficult living conditions the visitors may encounter, she said. “We need to take time to understand the context. Oftentimes in short term mission, we don’t take the time to do that … ” she said. Visitors avoid “that difficult process of understanding in context,” because of a lack of knowledge. “Tell them you want to try to understand the reality, and continue saying that. … Ask your host, ‘What should we be doing? What are your needs, or things you’re proud of that you would like to share with us?’ ”
Consider local realities. If the goal is to build relationships, it’s important for a local group to have the responsibility of hosting, said Pablo Feliciano-Cruz, who served as an international peacemaker with the PC(USA) in 2008 and is a member of the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico.
Sometimes visiting groups, concerned about security or wanting more control, want to bring their own food or arrange their own hotels. But “one of the most important things in Latin America is that we like to host,” Feliciano-Cruz said. And it can be important for the host group to follow certain procedures — for example, to get approval from the presbytery or to contact local leaders in advance to let them know that Americans will be coming, which in some cases can be politically sensitive.
Church officials also will work to prepare the hosting congregation for what to expect from the Americans — to talk, for example, about cultural differences. Sometimes the visitors, uncomfortable with what’s being served, might decline the food that’s being offered. There can be differences in how directly people speak, how much eye contact they make, how firmly they shake hands, which can be upsetting to the host church members if they don’t know what to expect.
“It’s true that we don’t have a lot of money,” Feliciano-Cruz said. “But we have the love of Christ. We want to host. It’s not Kentucky Fried Chicken, but we’ll give you a pot of chicken. … We do our best to show we love you.”
And if the visit does involve a work project, the host church often will prepare in advance to be an equal partner in the work, which can mean months spent gathering supplies.
Some think “Americans have a lot of money,” so they will come and build a bigger church or whatever is needed, he said. “We feel very strongly in Chiapas that when you come down, you have the same power from God as we do. … We share in the construction,” including splitting the costs of supplies and providing an equal share of the labor.
Have a purpose. Think and pray about the reason for the trip, and spend time in orientation for those who’ll be traveling. That includes cultural and spiritual preparation, conversation and reflection, reading and journaling about “why are we doing this, what do we hope to get out of this,” King said. “There is a greater purpose here. It’s not about what I’m going to go and do or the pictures I’ll take.”
When groups arrive, she can tell quickly which ones have taken the time for this – and which have not.
During the trip. Don’t schedule things too tightly — leave time in the schedule for interaction, for getting to know one another, Feliciano-Cruz said. Save time at night for sharing meals, for writing in journals, for informal interactions.
Be ready to learn. Ask the hosts, for example, “teach us to pray. How is it that you get people to come and pray all night,” when many Americans will complain if the sermon lasts a few minutes longer than usual?
Returning home. “A lot of times, we come back and say, ‘Oh, those people are so poor and they’re so happy,’” Dawson said. But what if the visitors try to change that understanding, to better see, both in their own lives and in those they have visited, “a spiritual understanding of the presence of God that gives us.”
The Americans returning home may feel lucky or blessed at their material wealth, at all they take for granted. What about asking, “How am I going to change my lifestyle?” Dawson suggested. “What do we in the U.S. have more than anything else? We have material abundance.”
How is what they have seen and experienced “going to change the way we live an act?”For example, what if the returnees decided to spend less on clothes and to take what they would have spent and invest it in the partner church, on behalf of those who lack clothes? Or get involved with those in their own community who don’t have clothes or shelter, working with the homeless or domestic violence shelters or immigrants?
Dawson also encourages people to tell the story of what they’ve seen over and over — among their travel group and with the rest of the congregation, giving it time to sink in. As you do that, “you start probing deeper about how has God changed my life,” Dawson said. Some travelers, once they’ve returned, write letters to themselves, setting goals for what they want to accomplish. They turn the letters in, making arrangements for the letters to be mailed back to them in six months.
That’s a tool of accountability, Dawson said — to see what changes they’ve actually made, whether the words and best intentions translate over time into a new way of living.
