Short Term Mission... Solving the Riddle of Your Return Home

It’s been more than three months.

In that time you’ve prayed like never before. Clearly you understood that God was calling you to join the short-term mission team your church was sponsoring. As you thought about that, you became convinced that in order to present yourself holy and pleasing to God, you had to make some changes in your life, both public and private.

In addition to prayer, you attended every pre-trip training meeting and have even been doing a daily bible devotional so you’ll be ready once you get to the field.

Your fundraising went well and you were able to raise over and above your goal, helping others on the team get over the hump. Once you arrived on the field, everyday seemed so vital. If you were not sharing Christ directly with your words, you were serving others in his name, a visible witness to the loving and transforming character of Jesus.

Each day seemed to show a new level of the depth of Jesus as you poured yourself into his mission 24/7. You had never experienced anything like this in your faith walk before. You were alive in Christ, living each moment for him. It was challenging, stretching and frightening, all at once.

And then the dreaded day came… the end of your mission. You found yourself at the airport with the rest of your team and that’s when you started to notice it. Looking around, with the trip in your rearview mirror, the team started to change. Incredibly, before even getting on the plane, many had already returned home.

Instead of the simple cup of tea your hosts made for you each morning, everyone now needed a Caramel Frappucino from Starbuck’s. No one even noticed that most of the drinks at that coffee house cost more than a days wages of the people you were serving. No longer was the team looking for ways to build each other up. Making fun of the way people looked as they traversed the airport was way easier. And a lot more fun.

When you arrived home the first place you went was to the bathroom. Your bathroom. You had never dreamed that the simple task of flushing paper could bring such great joy, but it did. Next was the shower, and gallons upon gallons of hot steamy water. You weren’t aware of it at the time, but you were washing your mission experience right off of you and down the drain.

The next day you and the team shared at church. Each team member brought up a moment when they felt uniquely connected to God and the people you went to serve. The pastor asked about future plans and most of you said you were already making plans to return, praying daily for your new friends on the other side of the globe and sharing Christ more in your home circle of friends.

And then it was over.

You went back to school, work, or the challenges of daily life. The remote control seemed like it was calling your name the moment you walked in the house. Texts from your friends started filling your phone almost immediately and when you opened your email for the first time in over a week, you had almost 800 messages waiting.

"Coming home from your STM without a clear plan in place to consider and apply the lessons of that mission is a recipe for disaster, one countless people and groups serve up every year."

Soon not only were you not reading your bible, you weren’t even praying. Life had crowded out your mission, making it indeed a short-term experience. You felt like a failure, to yourself, your friends and perhaps most, to God.

Relax, you’re not alone.

You’re not evil and you are definitely not a failure. You are like thousands of other people who have gone on short-term mission. You were incredibly impacted by God, but now back home no one seems to understand what you went through. You are struggling to keep your mission “game face” on as you navigate a world that seems designed not to encourage faith, but to push you everyday into a more self absorbed individuality apart from God.

So what should you do? The answer lies not so much in what you should do, but in what you should have done.

I’ve found in over 25 years of receiving short-term mission teams that the single most important part of mission prep is not getting ready for the trip. It’s getting prepared to come home. If leaders and participants are not preparing for the reality of reentry and the impending faith challenges back home, short-term mission participants will continue to struggle when they come home.

Coming home from your STM without a clear plan in place to consider and apply the lessons of that mission is a recipe for disaster, one countless people and groups serve up every year.

So, what should you do? Here are three simple steps to help you cement the faith and life lessons you learned on the field.

Set aside time for reflection. This seems so basic, but it is often overlooked. On mission, every day you were intimately connected to God, and you also should be when you get home. Pray and spend time doing nothing except listening to Him, seeking wisdom for your life in light of your mission experiences. As on the field, make Him a priority.

Don’t go it alone. Proverbs 12:15 says “The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice.” In business we call this taking a partner. Get a trusted elder, pastor, leader or friend to walk with you on your return. Often they can help you better navigate the feelings, struggles and difficulties of coming home and understanding God’s will.

Get involved. Find a local ministry where you can serve others as you did on the field. God does something in us when we serve. We should do it at home with as much excitement as we do on the field.

Three simple steps. But they come with a caveat.

You’ve got to plan them ahead of time. Completely. Set dates, times and appointments with people before you even leave on mission. Otherwise, you’ll be like so many others when they return… wondering why just a few weeks ago God was so close to you, but now seems so incredibly distant.

A Cross Cultural Covenant... Stopping short term mission team disaster before it strikes!

Rod Fry in Oaxaca with my Men's Ministry last February

One of the hardest things for people serving cross-culturally is giving up the comforts of home. That’s true if you go for a week, a month, or years. There is just something about having things your way that causes us to struggle when we are faced with something that changes that reality.

Recently I was in Mexico City with Rod Fry, a 20-year Missionary there with Mexico Matters. We work together on a program called missionXchange where people come to Mexico for 6 weeks alongside both our ministries. Rod’s in Mexico City and Adventures in Life in Oaxaca.

As part of our orientation, we touched on the subject of our “right” to have things as we want them. We included them in a Cross-Cultural Covenant that Rod developed. Everyone who serves with us reads and agrees to follow the covenant their time here in Mexico.

Today I’m going to share part of that Covenant. It has been my experience that if someone going "over there" can get, or understand this, their time serving will be much more effective and rewarding. It can even save your mission and ministry by heading off difficult issues before you ever get on a plane. And, it gives you a basis for resolving the inevitable conflicts that arise when you are in a foreign place.

Thanks Rod for all of your work on this!

Cross Cultural Covenant

We live in world full of rights. Our particular culture is one where we take pride in rights. As a matter of fact, the rights of the individual are constitutional, but as we see the demanding of those individual rights increase, we are seeing the moral fiber of our society decrease. Jesus laid down his rights to the heavens and all his glory to become man and serve, not be served. 

We are asking you to consider laying down your rights on this short-term mission. Not to lay them down for better or worse, but to entrust them to Jesus. While many of these rights may seem reasonable, indeed, who can argue about a comfortable bed, on short-term mission, they can become an unnecessary distraction.

Please take the time to search your heart and consider this… are you willing to surrender your rights to God?

I Give Up My Right To:

• A comfortable bed
• Three meals a day on a set schedule
• Eating familiar food
• Dressing cool and fashionable
• Seeing the results and fruits of my labor
• Control what I do
• Control what others do
• Control the circumstances around me
• Have pleasant circumstances around me
• Make decisions about all that I am doing
• Be offended
• Be successful
• Be understood
• Be heard
• Be right, or correct
• To worry

I Will Entrust To God

• My strength and energy
• My health and hygiene
• My likes and dislikes of food
• My security in him
• His purposes, results and fruit in His time
• My need for the Holy Spirit
• His work in others
• His purposes in making me more Christlike
• The privilege of suffering for His sake
• His sovereign hand on my life
• My deepest needs
• My security in His love
• My reputation
• My need for recognition
• My need for His righteousness
• Divine Control

If you like what you see and want more info, contact us.

Culture and Missions... Don't get caught with your pants down on your mountaintop moment!

Culture. 

noun cul·ture \ˈkəl-chər\ 
     1. The beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time
     2. A particular society that has its own beliefs, ways of life, art, etc.

Few things in long term cross cultural missionary work or service are, or should be as important as culture. The moment we cross a border we are entering into another culture, that essentially has, another culture.

Sadly, in my experience in the field, and within personal relationships with hundreds of missionaries [both long and short term] and pastors, the understanding of local cultures and mores takes a back seat to all the other things that are believed to more important.

Recently a group of tourists in Malaysia was hiking on Mount Kinabalu. One of the members of the group decided to issue a challenge to the others. Who could strip and stay naked the longest on the cold mountain top. Despite pleas from their guide to not do so, the group was soon buck naked on the mountain top. You can read about it here.

What they didn't understand was that this particular mountain is considered to be sacred ground by many locals. That lead to arrests after an earthquake hit the region, killing 18 other climbers. The people who stripped, the Deputy Chief Minister said, had disrespected the mountain by posing naked, thus causing the earthquake.

Now, we can argue all day whether or not their nakidity had anything to do with the earthquake, but that misses the point. If the travelers had understood the culture, or had listened to and respected the advice of their guide, they would not have been arrested and facing a host of charges and fines.

One of the hallmarks of Adventures in Life has always been our desire to learn, and give others the opportunity to learn about the culture of the people they are serving.

The Cathedral of Guadalajara

Years ago, on our first mission in Guadalajara AIL Ministry Co-founder Grady Martine and I took our team to the Cathedral of Guadalajara. As we toured the cathedral and walked on what for many people from Guadalajara was sacred ground,  one of our team members came up to me.

"Dave" he asked, "why are we wasting time here when we could be outside witnessing and saving these people?"

That attitude, that any time spent learning about the culture, is time taken away from "real" Gospel work, in my opinion, tells locals that their culture has no value. It is a prideful attitude that hurts, and ultimately builds barriers to the types of relationships we need to share about Jesus.

Chances are you will not find yourself in a situation like that group of tourists in Malaysia. But a refusal to learn the culture of the people you are called to serve, can render you just as clueless as they were, and negatively impact your Gospel mission.

When you understand the culture of people you are trying to serve, whether they live across town, or on the other side of the globe, you will be a better witness and ambassador for Jesus.

Think about it.

Want more info? Check out the resources from Dr. David Livermore on Cultural Intelligence, or CG.