Taking the Kids on Short-Term Mission... how to make sure you get it right!

One of the emerging trends I am seeing in short-term mission from both the sending and receiving side of the equation is a desire for families to involve their children in missions.

To that I offer a hearty amen!

All of the pictures here show kids serving on mission with AIL and their families

From my perspective, the opportunity to “train up a child” from an early age about the importance of getting personally involved in cross cultural missions cannot be understated. Whether those children ever become lifelong missionaries will remain to be seen, but in a world that is becoming more multicultural everyday, cross cultural competence and fluency will be increasingly necessary to effectively share the Gospel.

Before I start, let me clarify where I stand regarding children in mission. I am a strong proponent of kids going on mission, provided they do so with their parents. I don’t believe parents should pass that responsibility on to another parent, even if that parent is a close friend. The family experience of serving together is central to a child understanding that this is a big deal for his or her parents, and the kingdom. It becomes about modeling the value of mission and self sacrifice together.  

As a host receiver, I have had a front row seat to some of the perils and pitfalls of family mission experiences. Generally in my role, I have tended to always say yes to parents and families wanting to be part of our work, provided I can reasonably accommodate them within the ministry we are doing.

This means there are going to be limits. If your host receiver primarily works in high danger areas, or in specialized ministries like rescuing women from the sex trade, those would not be appropriate places for kids and families.

With the above as a backdrop, here are a few thoughts 

Parents are more the issue than their kids. 

US parents are significantly more over-protective of their kids than many other cultures. This is not to say one parent loves their child any more than another. I simply want to suggest that if you are a “helicopter parent”, missions might be a struggle for you and your family.

Effective mission takes place when we enter into a culture, as opposed to standing outside of it as a pseudo-observer. One of the first points of contact, and struggle for kids and families on mission, is at meal time. When you are in another country and the food comes out looking different, smelling different and tasting different, what are you, as a parent going to expect from your son or daughter.

My son started coming with me on mission at a young age. From those very first days, he understood the biblical model of eating and drinking what is put in front of you that we learn from Jesus in Luke 10. To this day I still hear him respond to friends when asked how he could eat something so different at someones house with two simple words... “Missionary meal.”

Before you head out on the field with your bundle of joy, are you prepared to force the issue when it comes to food, or are your going to travel with a secret stash of goodies to give to your son or daughter when they tell you they don’t like what is being served?

Missions is about sacrifice. 

One of the reasons many parents want to bring their kids on missions is for them to learn about sacrifice. Don’t short circuit that lesson out of a perceived need to cater to your child. Once they learn that you expect them to eat what they are served, and that there are no other options, believe me, they’ll eat, and quickly learn the importance of the term “missionary meal.”

US kids have significantly less stamina than many children around the world.

Generally when I think of appropriate mission opportunities for kids, I like to see them involved in kid friendly activities. This usually means ministry to children. If you want to bore a kid to death, take them on mission with you where all the work is focused on adults. If you want them to thrive, make sure they have time and opportunities to interact with the kids their own age who they are going to serve and get to know.

This however can pose a serious challenge because of the stamina issue. Let me give you an example. Each year my ministry facilitates a series of children’s camps in Oaxaca, Mexico. The kids we serve are from very poor rural backgrounds and are often expected to help work the family land along with school and any other “chores” around the house.

They get up before dawn to work the field and leave for school around 8:00am. There is no bus, or car, so they walk. When they get home in the afternoon, they return to the field until dinner is served, around 8:00pm. After dinner they finally get a chance to do their homework, getting to bed between 11:00 and 12:00 each night. The next morning before dawn, it starts all over again. Every day, every week of their young life. 

When these kids come to camp, they are loaded with enough energy and stamina to go full bore, all day. Unfortunately, their peers from the US are not able to keep up. Before bringing your child on mission with you, think about this. We want people set up for success, not failure and if your child lacks the stamina to keep up, perhaps it would be better to wait a year and work on his or her physical endurance.

Recently I had a group serving with me and they were adamant that their kids were in good shape and well prepared for the ministry awaiting them. As would happen on any camp ministry in the states, we divided all the locals up into teams and then placed the Americans kids on teams with them.

We gave points and awards for everything from attitude to participation in the various activities at the camp. Across the board, the teams with more participants from the states scored the lowest amount of points. One of the primary reasons for this was because those kids from the US were simply not physically able to keep up with a full days’ activities. 

Incarnational Mission is not a museum.

One thing we do not need more of on the field is observers. We need people willing to role up their sleeves, get into the hard work of sharing the Gospel and helping the local church build bridges into the communities where they are working. We need people willing to actively seek out ways to live the Gospel for whatever length of time they are here.

This means that people on a mission site, whether they are 5, or 75 years old, will be expected to get involved. One way to gauge this is to see what your kid is doing as opposed to what the local kids are doing.

If the locals are playing a game of kickball, and your child is sitting quietly reading a book, or has decided it is time for a nap, what message does that send to his new international friends?

Trust me on this... the only way to ultimately get what you want for your child on mission is to arrive prepared to make sure he or she gets involved, whether they like it or not. It is that involvement, that living outside of a comfort zone that will stretch your child. It is that incarnational witness and decision to be directly connected to the life of another that leads to effective transformational mission.

Asher Sarjent of 16:15 Church Mission Coaching has a few rules for anyone going on mission that he always shares when he trains a team. Two of those are especially relevant here.

"Do everything you are asked, or told and no complaining."

As an adult, it is fairly easy for us to live this. For kids though, unless they are well prepared ahead of time, and constantly reminded, this does not come naturally. This is where the rubber meets the road because given the option, most kids prefer a mission that is a museum.

Let me introduce to you Jim [not his real name]. Jim was 12 when he and his parents served on mission with us in Oaxaca. One of the activities we had for the kids at our camp was a chance to go to the theater and see the latest animated movie that was showing. For most of the kids at our camps, this was the first, and maybe the only time they would ever see the inside of a movie theater.

Like a lot of theaters in the US, this one was connected to one of the local shopping malls, so when we announced to the group of Americans where we were going, they were all excited.

What was interesting about this group of kids serving with their parents was that their excitement had nothing to do with mission or building kingdom relationships. They were excited because they were going to a mall. You could sense their disappointment when we told them we were not going shopping but to a movie and that they could only go if they were willing to spend time with their new Mexican friends and see the movie.

Every single young person in the group decided not to go except for Jim. As we were driving over to the theater, I asked Jim, all of 12 years old, why he decided to go. He said to me “Dave, I may never get a chance again in my life to a movie I Spanish, in Mexico, with a group of my friends.” 

It should not surprise you that Jim was the star of that camp. The attitude he showed that day, being willing to stretch himself and live incarnationally among the people he was trying to serve should be an example to all of us.

If you are going to bring your children on mission with you, and I strongly recommend and support this, neither you or your children should treat mission like a museum. Mission that is effective, or that makes a Kingdom difference, is not to be observed, either by adults or by your kids. It is to be lived, all day long in relationship with the people you are trying to serve.

Final thoughts for parents.

Don’t bring your child before he or she regularly does not need a daily nap. We all know how kids are when they do not get the nap. Cranky, tired, whiny and everything no one wants to see on the mission field. Set your children up for success by waiting until they have passed this important developmental step.

Wait until your kids are potty trained. No one likes cleaning up a messy diaper. Trust me on this, you are gonna like it even less on some far away mission field location. You, your kids and your host receiver will all appreciate it if before you pack your future missionary off on mission, he or she knows how, and when to use a restroom.

Your kids are your responsibility. Period. No team you are serving with is there to baby sit your kids and neither is the missionary. Understand that if you have a relationship with a missionary host receiver who is willing to let you bring your child, that is going to be the exception. Honor that and take to heart the above points.

Final thoughts for missionary host receivers.

Be open to the idea of children on site with you. In todays world, kids are going to travel. Do we want a generation of children growing up feeling like God’s servants around the globe don’t want them around? Of course not. Who knows, one of those kids might just grow up and be the person who continues your ministry into the next generation. 

I am not saying allow kids on every site where you are involved. What I am saying is take a look at your calendar, see where it might be appropriate for young children to be involved and when a parent asks about bringing their child, give it a try.

In closing.

The idea of bringing children on short-term mission is enough to sometimes send even the most laid back host receiver over the edge. For parents, the thought of trying to keep a growing boy or girl under control in another country, where they speak another language, may be just too much.

But let me offer this encouragement to both sides of what I am sure we will seeing more of in the coming years. The Kingdom, the mission field, your family, and our ability to attract new leaders to the global Great Commission will be strengthened by having children on mission with us.

That alone should cause us to explore ways to make this happen.

A Village, A Mission, A Ministry, An Opportunity

We made it.

Leaving Oaxaca City about 9:00am Sunday, we arrived in Eloxochitlan de Flores Magnon [formerly San Antonio de Eloxochitlan], site of our medical clinic last week, about 4:00pm.

Along the way we ate a great lunch, sucked down a few Dramamines, passed through a cloud forest, crossed the Continental Divide, and even saw a few waterfalls before finally arriving.

As we got out of our vehicles, about 150 people were crowded around the house we would use for our clinic getting a small bowl of beans and a handful of tamale masa to dip in the broth. I wondered how many of them would be at the clinic the next day.

When I woke up, there were already people lining up. By the time the day ended, we had seen well over 100 people. But the number doesn’t really matter, it could have been 50, it could have been 500.

Our intake and triage center

What really mattered was the church... and God... and Jesus.

For the community of Eloxochitlan, what mattered was that Jesus showed up in ways many had never imagined. People walked hours to be seen by a dentist, an internist, a pediatrician or a physical therapist who was literally working miracles.

Dr Sue seeing one of our smaller patients on our second day

They came in the back of trucks, in friends cars, any way they could to get a chance to see a doctor, or get some level of medical care. And they came in waves. Just when we thought there would be a break, or perhaps the day was winding down, another collectivo with a dozen patients would arrive.

We saw children with untreated extreme cerebral palsy, people who would soon lose their toes and feet, bad backs, colds, gastritis and sore knees. Almost everyone we saw had at least one cavity. We saw people with Parkinson’s disease, parasites and cases of lice so bad kids had literally ripped their faces off. 

When Pastor Chable was not talking with his community, he helped out by sterilizing medical instruments

And we saw Pastor Chable in his element, serving his people. The people God had called him to years ago. This was the first place he pastored and he has never really left. It’s where his son Abi calls home. His daughter Cesi was born there. It’s where he held a little baby many years ago that died in his arms. 

That baby changed his ministry, and many years later, me and Adventures in Life.

Chable’s son Abi told me I was only the second “gringo” to ever work with the people in Eloxochitlan, the first being the missionary who helped his dad plant a church there years ago. As I listened, I learned that there had never been a clinic in town with more than one doctor. We brought four. I learned that no clinic, including the town health clinic, ever had medicine for the people they treated. I learned that no church sponsored clinic had ever treated non-Christians before. We treated all comers.

Here I am with Doctors Milton and Ita between patients

This time, this year, last week, the church showed up. People were cared for, prayed for, held, touched and loved in ways many had never experienced. The Gospel was shared in word, deed, action and proclamation. 

It was shared people to people, as when Pastor Chable sat with a couple that needed counseling, or when one of our doctors prayed with a patient in need.

Looking back, I shared with my ministry community last week that I was scared. Scared of the unknown as we prepared to head up to our location in Eloxochitlan. Now I ache.

Without a doubt this was the hardest week of ministry I have ever experienced in over 20 years of mission. I know it will never leave me, even as I struggle to understand what I saw there and what should be the role of the church in addressing incredible pain, suffering and poverty.

What I do know is this... we’re going back next year. And we need you. 

In addition to our current, already committed group of physicians and dentists, we need nurses, dietitians, dental hygienists and people who understand public health issues. We need an eye doctor or two to help provide sight to people who have struggled all their lives to see clearly.

We also need a team chaplain. This is a ministry that needs a pastor’s heart to hear the struggles of God’s servants, as they work, and to be praying for, and with them. It is that hard.

Viktor E. Frankl writes in his landmark work, “Man’s Search for Meaning” that everyone must have something for which they live. Perhaps this ministry is that something for which your soul yearns... that something for which you live. 

We are trying to change a pueblo. The pueblo of Eloxochitlan! We are striving to meet immediate needs now, while sowing the seeds of Christian development for tomorrow. Imagine if in a few years, the people of this area could say that God heard their prayers and sent some men, women and children from the church to help.

Then imagine if those He sent, included you.

Please pray about it and if you have any questions, contact me.

A big thank you to Mission Focused for their help documenting our work with their excellent photography. All pictures here are copyrighted and cannot be used without the express permission of Adventures in Life Ministry and Mission Focused.

Maybe Bucket List Christians are the problem and not short-term mission...

AIL Ministry Executive Director
Dave Miller

Recently Noel Becchetti, formerly of the Center for Student Missions wrote an article titled “Why Most Mission Trips are a Waste of Time, and how to make sure yours isn’t” that was shared by a friend of mine on Facebook.

In his article, Becchetti brought up all the requisite failures we’ve heard for years about short-term mission and ministry, and they all start with our need...

• to control

• to define the ministry

• to see results

As someone who has served in short-term mission [STM] for over 20 years, first leading teams and then ultimately, receiving teams and participants, let me begin by affirming Noel’s list.

There are few leaders in short-term mission, myself included, who would not agree heartily with each of these issues. As leaders, and in many cases, pioneers of the short-term movement, we’ve been guilty of each of the offenses Noel cites, and probably more. Look closely at each of the problems mentioned and you’ll see a central theme... US! Broken, sinful, prideful, controlling people who have grown up in a world that tells us it’s all about us. Sadly, lest we get too puffed up, that includes our churches too. 

What’s encouraging is that in response to a history of at best lackluster short-term mission, those of us in short-term mission leadership chose to do something radical about it.

We looked critically at our mission. We examined our methodology, our ministry, our planning, everything. You know what we found out? Our critics were right. About the only good thing we saw were hearts that were beating for people to come into an eternal relationship with Jesus Christ.

And with that as a backdrop, we set about to change the way short-term mission was done. No longer would our mission trips be all about us, the primary villain Bechetti finds in his Pogoesque “the enemy is us” critique.

This effort soon came to be known as the US Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission, an accrediting and resourcing body for those who send, receive, facilitate and support short-term mission. Not only did we not want mission trips to be waste of time, filled with busy work like painting fences for the 100th time, we wanted them to truly be about God and His glory, lived out on the mission field. 

7 Standards were soon developed by the short-term community that literally address all the issues that critics of STM have raised for years. Unfortunately, not enough people involved in sending short-term teams are even aware of the standards. Worse, some people and churches have simply decided to reject them as too difficult to embrace. I believe Standard 1, calling for a God centered life and Standard 2, calling for empowering partnerships are the biggest stumbling blocks for large numbers of churches and groups, known as senders. 

Let me explain.

Standard 1, a requirement of a God centered life would seem to eliminate many people without a faith in Jesus. As logical as that may seem, this requirement smacks up against the desire of many leaders, particularly those working in student ministries to use short-term mission as an evangelistic tool.

What should a youth pastor do if little Johnny wants to join his friends on a short-term mission trip, yet has never made a profession of faith, or is not currently living a faith centered in Jesus? Should he be allowed to participate in the hopes that he might make a life changing decision as a result of his time serving?

Let me put that question another way. Should churches and groups be sending people on mission trips to hear about Jesus, or should they be sending people whose lives already testify to life changing power of our risen Lord?

Standard 2 clearly states the primary focus of your mission needs to be on those we serve. Focusing on those we serve means that our mission isn’t about us or our spiritual development. Sadly, that realty stands in direct opposition to how many leaders and participants currently think about mission trips. 

Recently I have started hearing from people, God centered committed people, that going on a short-term mission trip has been on their “bucket list.” Even a best case interpretation cannot find a way to interpret this as putting the primary focus on someone else.

There is no calling from God involved in Bucket List Missions. An understanding that a short-term mission can, or even should be reduced to some sort of ‘bucket list” of things to do in life is very hard to square with Standard 2.

If people are still struggling with even the idea of short-term mission, and the comments I see whenever anything STM is posted bear that out, then there is still work to be done. But maybe all of the fault does not lie with the short-term community itself.

Short-term mission is here to stay. Making sure STM is not a waste of time will take all sides of the mission experience, senders, goer-guests and hosts, working together to more effectively grow God’s Kingdom.

Noel Bechetti’s post raises some valid issues that many in the short-term mission community have taken seriously and strived to improve. The next step I believe, is for the leaders on the sending side of this issue, those in churches and other faith communities to also step up and accept responsibility for their part in improving short-term mission.

More on that later.