Doing Long-Term Mission Work in a Short-Term World
Article from Horizons Magazine 2002

          One of the great phenomena in the world of missions in the past 15-20 years has been the tremendous explosion of short-term missions. Most missiologists describe “short-term” missions as being anything from a two week-trip to up to two years on the field. In our brotherhood the overwhelming style of short-term trip, has from ten days up to a month in duration. Short-term mission trips have been a tremendous blessing for the churches that go on them and for the mission fields that are prepared to have the teams come. In our years in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, we have hosted close to 200 teams and our experience has been especially rewarding and encouraging.
          There are, however, some issues that need to be discussed concerning short term mission trips, both by churches that are going and missionaries that are hosting teams.

For missionaries that are hosting teams:

1. Make sure you want the group to come! Hosting teams is time consuming and is a lot of work! The logistics for hosting 15-20 people for 10 days to 2 weeks, making sure they have food to eat, clean water to drink, places to sleep, and work to do takes a lot of a missionary’s time. In the Dominican Republic, where we hosted groups on a regular basis, we had both a wonderful team of National leaders that did as much, and usually more, than my wife, Suzanne, and I did to host groups. We also had adequate facilities for sleeping and bathing at our camp project in Salcedo that made hosting teams much easier. You’re much better off having a team come at a time that is convenient for you rather than try and cram a group in when you are not able to adequately take are of them.
2. Make sure you don’t become a tour guide! Because short-term trips are so time consuming, scheduling has to be controlled, especially if you live in an area that is accessible to the US. Go to the airport in Miami on any day of the week between May and September and you’ll see groups from every Evangelical persuasion, each with their colored polo shirts- heading off for the Caribbean, Central and South America. It is amazing the number of young people going on short-term trips. At Johnson Bible College this year, 45% of our incoming freshman class had been on overseas short-term trips. If you do a good job hosting a group, you will be swamped with requests! Be wise in allocating your time with groups. The temptation missionaries face is often financial-teams will bring funds to help with church/mission construction projects and the more teams you have…..well, you get the picture!

For Teams planning to go:

1. Make sure your missionary wants you to come! It often will take a year to adequately plan a trip. The Short-Term Mission Handbook by Berry Publishing Services, Inc. is an excellent source for information, articles, and web sites to help you plan your trip. If you get bad “vibes” from your missionary about coming or sense that they rather have you come at a different time-don’t go! Make sure that they have the time and energy to devote to your team. That’s one of the reasons you need to begin early. I have used a short-term site questionnaire that is about eight pages long and asks about every question I’ve been asked concerning a team’s trip. It’s very helpful.
2. Set realistic expectations for your team. When you travel to another country, with a different culture and language, there are limitations to what you can accomplish in two weeks! Your work as a team is to be a help for the mission and missionary, an encouragement for the national leaders and Christians. Chances are you are not going to convert whole villages. What teams can do effectively is open doors for follow-up by national leadership or mission leadership. Teams can also raise awareness of the church in the community. Nothing stands out more loudly than a group of Americans in some poor barrio in Latin America or in a village in southeast Asia! People are naturally curious and want to know what is going on with all these foreigners. Teams that are prepared with tracts or Bibles in the national language, perhaps combined with a few phrases the team members have learned in the country’s language, can make a real impact. When the US team can combine with a team from the host country in an evangelistic program, that’s the best! Medical and dental teams have a tremendous impact by sharing the love of Christ through medicine.
3. Make sure your team is culturally sensitive to the customs of the country and area you’re going to. US church construction teams are a real blessing but most construction in the world is not necessarily done like we do it in the United States! Work teams need to be flexible and open to taking guidance and instruction from national construction leaders or you end up having a conflict. The more skilled the US team is the harder it is for them to adapt, or at least that’s been my experience.

My biggest concern with short-term trips is how the mentality of short-term missions is affecting new missionaries that are starting their careers as full-time missionaries. Short-term mission trips are exciting and adventurous!! Life-long commitment to work in a 3rd world country where the lights go off every day, the water’s not safe to drink, and it’s not safe to leave your house without having someone there to guard it may not seem too exciting or adventurous. I just visited yesterday with a couple of missionary friends who were on campus at JBC. They informed me of a young couple who were returning from the field after five or six years of service. I was heartbroken because I know this young couple and the valuable work they have been doing on a tough field. Most missionaries will freely admit that the first 5-6 years on the field we didn’t know a whole lot.  You learn the language, start understanding the culture and begin to get an idea as to which approach will best work in your situation.

As I study the great missionary movements of the past 200 years and the great missionaries that have deeply impacted the world for Christ, one of the characteristics that stands out is longevity. Being able to stay the course. Becoming one with the people you serve.

Faith Bailey writes in her book, Adoniram Judson: Missionary to Burma “He(Adoniram Judson) built a schoolhouse….like any other Rangoon schoolhouse. Judson took his position every morning cross-legged… Thirty-three years before he had made a tremendous sacrifice: he had forfeited the English language. He made his choice when he determined to think Burmese. Since then he had not spoken to a public meeting in his own tongue. Before an audience he could not put more than three sentences together in English. This yellow-skinned, weary missionary was truly more Burmese than American.”

          A Presbyterian missionary friend of mine from Puerto Rico once told me that when he and his family had first moved to Puerto Rico in the early 1960’s they went to the beach one Saturday and brought home some coconuts. He planted one in the back yard and all the neighbors came to watch! One of the neighbors he’d been sharing Christ with asked him if he understood that it took years for a coconut to grow into a palm tree and produce coconuts. My friend replied that he understood that it could take over 10 years! His neighbor then asked if he expected to see the tree producing coconuts and my friend replied that he did. My friend said that he later understood what the man was really asking, “Can I trust you?” “Will you be here long enough for me to get to know you?”

          Short-term trips are wonderful and productive but it’s life-long commitment that sees long-lasting victories won for the Kingdom of God. Christ still needs people like Adoniram Judson, America’s first missionary, who went with a one-way ticket.