Have you ever read The Giver by Lois Lowry? If yes, then you were probably a product of the American public school system at some point in the 1990s. If not, then go get a copy at your local library. The Book it! stickers and Pizza Hut personal pan pizzas may no longer exist as rewards and you probably can’t buy it through Scholastic book fairs but it is readable in one sitting. I’m a sucker for all forms of artistic utopia and even dystopia irrespective of trite story lines and analogous themes. Think of The Giver as a PG version of George Orwell’s 1984 – which happens to be one of my favorite novels. Jonas, the protagonist, is selected to be the new “Receiver” of a society where individuals have no knowledge or exercise of love or pain. Daily movements, jobs, interactions and information are all tightly controlled. The Elders of the society recognize the importance of understanding the outside world and past generations by placing the memories of humankind upon one individual: the Receiver. He provides wisdom and advice to those with no knowledge of war, love, freedom, or suffering as he draws upon memories the elders have no knowledge of. The current Receiver begins to train Jonas for the role by transmitting to him all of his memories by placing his hand on his back. Remember, it is a children’s novel! While the official title given by the society is The Receiver, Jonas begins to call him The Giver. The Receiver thus becomes The Giver of memories to Jonas. To spoil the story for you, the pain and suffering that is revealed to Jonas through the giving of humanity’s memories becomes overwhelming. His new awareness of the world around him causes him to inspect his own community. He decides that he would rather reside in a society with freedom and the potential of pain and suffering than be in isolation and safety. His awareness leads to action - going AWOL. His action leads to advocating – sharing his knowledge with other members of the community. However, when he was just a member of society and before his awareness, he was just ignorant. Before his action, he was just informed. And before his advocacy, he was just intrepid.

A good deal can be gleaned from Jonas’ experience. In the face of need, we all give. Some of us give money. Some of us give time. Some of us give sympathy. Some of us give apathy. And an ever small portion of us give of our entire selves. I believe that if ignorance is bliss then awareness is binding. Ignorance generates a good amount of attention while awareness for some reason generates little action. Enveloped by information, there is very little that happens in the world that we do not have the ability to learn about. Thus, many of us are quite informed of the nefarious actions and conditions of humanity. An American unaware of the existence of poverty or HIV/AIDS would be shocking. An American aware of these ills and not taking action? That would be status quo.

My coworker came in this week visibly shaken. It has been difficult to anticipate her state of emotions these past few months as she has been working her way through an unfortunate divorce. However, this morning the culprit was different. She explained that as she sat down on the Metro, she felt the man next to hear reach back. At first she thought he was simply reaching for his wallet. She quickly realized that the man was groping her. Embarrassed, she immediately stood up in shock and the perpetrator walked to another part of the train. A male passenger had witnessed the whole thing and said to her, “that was really awkward, I’m sorry”. She stared in even more disbelief that the passenger had not done or said anything. As she relayed the story to me, I was shocked that the passenger hadn’t done anything either! He was aware of what was happening but chose not to take action. My coworker expected and needed action against the problem, not awareness that it was happening.

I like the saying that they won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

I pray and aspire to not stop at awareness and be like Jonas.

Why do Christians participate in short-term mission trips? Is there need for such jaunts to urban environs and foreign lands? If so, is the need founded in God’s will? The missionary’s wanderlust? The mission destination’s material or spiritual weakness?

I initiated this blog with the intention of writing about subjects that are beyond me with an awareness and affinity for the intersection between the spiritual and social. I write to inspire and to challenge. If that falls short, I will accept interesting as an adjective. Hence the title of this personal repository: Extra Me. Latin for “beyond myself”, English for arrogant. I have and will continue to attempt the former rather than the latter by measuring entries against the second greatest commandment – to love your neighbor as yourself. Thus, earlier last month I questioned why individuals volunteer and now I will question why, as Christians, we volunteer on short-term mission trips. 

Barna Survey

Three years ago, the Barna Group published a study on the number of Americans and benefits to taking short-term mission trips. Significant findings:

§  9% of Americans have been on a short-term mission trip (11% of churchgoers)

§  77% of trips were international; 33% were domestic

§  75% of participants said a trip changed their life in some way

The fact that over ¾ of short-term mission trips are international is quite interesting. I’m not terribly surprised by the quantity of people taking these trips or the quality of their experiences though. However, it is telling to look at the quality of the personal experience closer with the following responses.

As a result of the trip I:

§  Became more aware of people’s struggles – 25%

§  Learned more about poverty, justice, or the world – 16%

§  Increased my compassion – 11%

§  Deepened my faith – 9%

§  Broadened my spiritual understanding – 9%

§  Boosted my financial generosity – 5%

These results stirred up some questions that I hope to answer through this series of entries. Instead of solely ruminating over my own experiences, I resolved to make the effort collaborative by gleaning experiences from friends and leaders around me who know the realities of mission trips. For the purpose of this blog, I define “short-term missions” as any ministry done while not living amongst those you are ministering to. What is the goal for mission trips? What is the preparation like? What activities are actually conducted?  I designed a ten question survey (thanks SurveyMonkey for the basic membership) that seeks to answer these questions.  As expected, the responses were varied and insightful albeit the scope was not scientific. Nonetheless, the experiences of over 200 mission trips provides a fairly authoritative glance into the success, shortcomings, and ideas of short-term missions.

Key Result #1:   Over 90% said the trip’s goal was clear and achievable. 80% said the experience was impactful for themselves and those being ministered to

Overarching observation of survey results: When we take mission trips, we are preparing for and focusing heavily on evangelism while experiencing success in reaching predetermined goals and seeing the lives of participants and the population impacted. In future posts, I will attempt to make sense of all of the results. For now, I will attempt to raise some questions regarding the first finding.  

If I could rewrite the questions (and not have to pay membership to the site), I would have broken  the question, “How would you describe the clarity and achievability of the mission’s goal?” into two questions. The fact that over 90% of the mission trips had a clear and achievable goal makes me suspicious. I do not say this to diminish anyone’s experience. Rather, I wonder two things. First, do mission trips that focus primarily on evangelism proffer goals that are truly clear? Second, what is the metric by which we measure success?

I look back on two international mission trips that I have led: one to San Jose, Costa Rica and one to Auckland, New Zealand. Without getting into historical, cultural and economic factors of the two countries, I will say that the ministry experience was worlds apart. I can’t say there was any particular difference in the types of students I lead on these trips and in general both teams had a healthy passion to share Jesus. Both teams were equally prepared and both executed the mission’s activities to the best of their abilities. At the conclusion of the Costa Rica trip, there was a genuine sense of accomplishment. The team saw dozens if not hundreds accept Jesus and/or repent from their current lifestyle. However, at the end of the New Zealand trip, the team was unsure as to what extent God had used them as they encountered educated and skeptical resistance to the message of Jesus.

Despite the two dissonant experiences, I still attribute the more meaningful experience to New Zealand. While the Costa Rica team ministered to the Ticos through interpreters and dramas, the New Zealand team leveraged their own personal testimonies in listening to and loving the Kiwis. In terms of future implications, the NZ team’s birth of confidence was greater than the CR team’s witness of success. As a result, goals were met and success was present on both of these trips. I suspect that there will forever be a redeeming quality to mission trips irrespective of perceived or actual success. Appropriately enough, those that have partaken in such trips may respond in the positive no matter the outcome (Simply because we are being obedient to the Great Commission). Thus, it is complicated to state in the affirmative that mission trips offer clear goals with the ability to measure them. Goals and measurements of success have a tendency to shift on the mission field. But, is this necessarily a negative attribute of the experience? Maybe the better question to ask is, should mission trips that focus primarily on evangelism proffer goals that are clear? And, should we attempt to measure success?  

Part II: Key Result #2: Minister to the body or soul? (Coming Soon)