Missions

“Thank you for the Y2K shot glasses?”

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You’d be amazed what gets donated to an orphanage. There’s an endless stream of shot glasses, water bed heaters, ice skates and an ongoing list of items that seem to beg the question: exactly what was the thought process that went into this? I keep a bowling ball resting on a shelf in my office, when asked about it I tell people it’s “a tribute to the bizarre donation.”

Sometimes it’s easy to categorize donations when they come in: “Dead people things,” an elderly person passes away and rather than sort through everything, all their belongings are boxed and shipped to us (Soooo much old Tupperware and rusty canned goods). “Garage sale leftovers,” bags of clothing and knickknacks that still have the .15 cent price tags attached but wouldn’t sell even at that price. “Schools cleaning out their lost and found closet” (this actually brings in some cool stuff). We love the “little kid donations” a young child presenting a box of “their” toys for the kids in need, you can tell they struggled over every item.

We honestly appreciate any donations coming in. In our home, we care for over a hundred children entirely through donations of goods and funds. Our many children are fed, clothed, and educated thanks to the generosity of many great people. We do have some really great stuff donated along with the not so great.

In running an organization that both receives and distributes donations, we spend a lot of time looking at this topic, and we realize it’s a big deal. Sometimes, receiving donations can be heart-wrenching. A while back we had a couple dropping off a few bags of clothing, nothing unusual. Watching the couple from a distance it just didn’t feel right. I walked over to talk to them and found out they were donating the belongings of their nine-year-old son who had recently passed away. We sat for a very long time over a cup of coffee as they told me about their son, this donation was part of the mourning of their child. They came back every few weeks for a long time. It was good for them.

Our attitude about “stuff” matters profoundly. Jesus spent a great deal of time talking about our reaction to money and belongings. How we handle what we have should be a part of our everyday thought process. Are we good stewards of the things we’ve earned or been entrusted with? Are we sharing with others as we should? This is a thorny topic that draws a strong response from almost everybody, just ask any pastor who has taught on tithing. Everyone from the rich young ruler in the gospel of Luke to this present day struggles with this issue. I know I haven’t figured it out.

Mathew 25:35-36 & 40  For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me,…..The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

If we knew we were feeding our Lord, what kind of meal would we serve? If we knew we were giving a drink of water to Jesus, would we send it in a dirty glass? We can’t help everyone, and I don’t believe most people are called to give EVERYTHING away, but when we do give and serve it should be our best. Few things get me more frustrated that the phrases “it’s good enough for an orphanage,” or worse “it’s good enough for orphans.” Sometimes I want to punch a wall. These children are precious in His sight and deserve the same quality of life that any child deserves, maybe better.

Please think long and hard about the quality of items you or your organization sends to the missions field. Are you sending clothing or items you would want your child to receive? Please take a hard look at any project you’re working on during a missions trip. Would you want to live in the building you’re putting up? Would you want your home painted the way you’ve painted someone else’s? The quality of our work, and how we treat others, is a greater testimony to the Gospel than any words, dramas, or programs we might bring to the missions field.

Obviously, I have a huge conflict of interest in writing this. But I’m also writing this on behalf of the many, many organizations around the world doing really great work on a shoestring that receive supplies and groups every day. I know more than a few missionaries who want to write this but are understandably afraid of offending donors. (My wife is more than a little nervous after proof-reading this blog)

There is no greater indication of our spiritual maturity than how we give to others. We know everyone is different. We know for some people giving that half bag of used clothing is a BIG deal, that’s OK if that’s all they’re ready to do. We hope people like that grow in the joy of helping others. Whoever you choose to give to and support, please give to them as you would want to be given to.

Short-term Missions Leadership

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Leadership matters. This seems obvious, but it’s an important part to consider in any successful missions trip. The quality and vision of the person leading will make or break the experience. The leader’s experience with international work, their vision for the trip, and their ability to share that vision are critical.

For over 20 years our organization has had the privilege of working with countless short-term missions teams. In 2016 alone, we hosted and helped facilitate over 280 visiting missions groups. Some for a weekend, some for up to two weeks. Most of the teams we’ve hosted have been great, some not so much. Beyond funding, beyond the size of the group, beyond anything else, leadership is the single most important part of an effective, impactful missions team.

Short term missions, when it’s healthy, can be life changing for the individuals going on the trip and can be a huge blessing to the receiving organizations and communities. When it’s unhealthy, it can be an expensive and damaging waste of time. So how does one lead a healthy short term missions team? Below are some key points to consider.

Be honest with yourself, why are you going? If you’re planning a short-term missions trip to mainly impact and educate your team, this isn’t wrong, but be honest about it. Don’t say it’s only about spreading the gospel and serving the needy if it’s really about something else. Leading your team into experiencing God and how to walk with Him isn’t a bad thing.

Many years ago my home church was planning a two weeks missions trip to Australia. I went to my pastor seeking his advice as I wanted to go but felt like a hypocrite. I honestly had no deep passion for the people of Australia; I just wanted to go and hang out with people serving God. I still remember my pastor’s profound words of wisdom: “There are worse ways to spend two weeks.” I went, I had some life-changing experiences, and I think I may have even accidentally helped some people. There’s nothing wrong going with mixed motivation. My serving full-time in Mexico today can be traced directly back to that trip to Australia. A short-term missions trip can be hugely impactful for the people going and as a leader, you should seek this and work to facilitate it.

Define who the leader is. This seems pretty basic, but depending on the team there might be more than a few people who are natural leaders, the team needs to know who is ultimately in charge. “Adult” teams can be the worst, everybody is used to doing things their way, following directions from someone else can be hard for some people.
Here at our ministry, we coordinate home building projects for needy families in our area. We’ll have teams come down to build a home for a local family over the course of a week. If the team has three or four contractors, I make sure they select who is making the ultimate decisions otherwise they spend hours debating every decision or working in different directions. Your team can come to consensus agreements, but ultimately someone has to say yes or no to any major decision. The leader sets the tone.

Know your team. The maturity, experience, and vision of every team member is a little different. It’s important to evaluate your team members to lead them effectively. If your team is under skilled maybe they shouldn’t work on a major construction project, if they’re new in their faith, maybe they shouldn’t be leading a Bible study or public prayer. If you have a skilled individual (construction, IT, mechanic, etc.) let your hosting organization know that these people are available if needed. Know when to push your team and when to hold them back. Jesus knew his apostles well, their skills, their weaknesses, and their maturity. He knew what they could handle and allowed them to take risks and grow. He also had them wait when needed. You need to be Jesus to your team.

Work on Cross Cultural Training. If the members of your team have been relatively sheltered and have never been exposed to true poverty or other cultures, coach them in how to respond, react, and process what they’re experiencing. Every culture has nuances and differences, but an attitude of mutual respect goes a long way anywhere. Respect for local dress codes, traditions, language and church culture are all important. Unintentionally offending a culture is a sure way to severely limit a team’s effectiveness, both in serving and in ministry.
Everyone has something to learn from others. Americans can carry a fair amount of national pride, and that’s OK as long as you realize other people can be proud of their countries also, even if it isn’t America. The “ugly American” stereotype exists for a reason. We need to realize that the culture we’re visiting isn’t worse than ours, it isn’t better than ours, it’s DIFFERENT than ours.

Communicate, communicate, communicate. Let your team know the goals, expectations, schedules, etc. Communicate with your team about the importance of flexibility, conflict resolution, and being part of the team. Give you team a written schedule as a guide knowing things might change. Communicate with your host organization about travel plans, your goals, your skills, and ask them what they would like to receive from your group. From the day you have your dates picked, start communicating with your host organization and ask them everything you can think of. Also let them know everything they might need to know about your team (size of team, ages, skills, any funding available, etc.) You are building a relationship between your team, and the team on the ground you will be serving. In any healthy relationship, clear and detailed communication can go along way in avoiding any problems or conflicts that might arise.

Teach and practice flexibility. When traveling with a team and working in other countries, it’s impossible to plan for, or expect, everything. Lost luggage, illness, power outages, can be expected but sometimes other things come up. I know of a group that was planning on spending a week working on a church building, the day they arrived a leader from the hosting church died. The project was unexpectedly put on hold, but it did give the team new, unexpected doors to serve and minister. The change was out of their hands, so they flowed with it correctly, maturely, and with grace.

Lead them into the experience. Missions trips can be overwhelming. Debrief every night, encourage intentional conversations about what everyone is experiencing. Maybe have everyone turn off the cell phones and focus on the day and the people experiencing the trip with them. It’s heartbreaking to see people on a missions trip with so much opportunity only to watch them stare at their phones the whole time. Lead your team into being intentional and living in the moment. A trip needs to be about more than the perfect Instagram photo.

As I was writing this, I realized that any one of these topics could be a book unto itself. What you have here is a VERY basic list of few things to consider.

As a leader, you have a huge responsibility, also a huge privilege. A privilege to lead people into life changing, mountain top serving experiences they will remember the rest of their lives. When led and hosted correctly, short term missions can have world changing impact. Go and have your world changed.

 

The Fear Factor

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pexels-photo-471470“Isn’t Mexico dangerous?” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to respond to this question over the last 20 years. I honestly believe this is more of a statement on the church in America today than any perceived danger in Mexico.

What keeps us up at night worrying almost never happens. In 2016 there were a total of 4 deaths by shark attack, 67 people died from taking selfies. If you ask a cross section of people, fear of sharks would probably rate higher than fear of smart phones. Way too many people live lives wrapped in fear of things that don’t happen or don’t matter. American culture feeds and encourages fear: fear of the “other” political party, of terrorism, of people from different countries or cultures. Fear has become the new American way.

A few years ago I got a phone call from a concerned father who was looking at sending his daughter with their church missions team to serve with our orphanage in Mexico. After talking to him for a while, he asked me straight out “Can you 100% guarantee the safety of my daughter?” I think I surprised him with my answer: “Absolutely not.” I asked him if he could 100% guarantee the safety of his daughter when she was driving to school, out shopping, or even in their home. There are almost no 100% guarantees in this life other than the fact that we will all eventually die. If we lived our lives looking for 100% guarantees, we would never do anything, that’s not why we’re on this earth.

At what point did the church collectively decide that we need complete security at all times? Why are we so afraid? Jesus never taught that we should only go and share the gospel if our safety could be guaranteed, that we should only help others if there is zero risk involved. I’m not saying we should take unnecessary chances, but what should we be willing to risk to share the Gospel?

“Fear not” comes up a lot in the bible, “You need to avoid risk” not so much. If we believe we have an all powerful, loving Father in heaven who only wants what’s best for us why are we so afraid? If we believe that God can use ALL things for our good and the good of His kingdom, why can’t we rest in that? The Apostle Paul did some of his best work sitting in prison. Paul was completely convinced this was just a temp job; he was on his way to heaven. Paul doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who was afraid of what might happen. The world needs more Pauls.

A good friend of mine has been a missionary in a Muslim country for a few years. (for his safety I can’t share his name or what country). This guy is fearless. Recently he sent me an e-mail asking an IT question, not a big deal. He went on to share about the struggles they were having going to print with a new bible recently translated into a dialect for that area. One print shop was burned down, one printer who wanted to help was sent to prison, my friend’s family was threatened, and he was arrested and held for several days. Yikes. I would have hit the road long before this. Rather than running, giving up, or even complaining, he was rejoicing. Through the entire E-mail, you could feel the joy he was experiencing; he had found the “joy in all things” that Paul wrote about while in prison.

In 2014 my wife and I were scheduled to travel with the team of about 20 to Ghana in west Africa. We had our tickets, we had our visas, and about 30 days before we were scheduled to leave the Ebola outbreak hit West Africa. You couldn’t pick up a paper, turn on the radio, or watch the news without being told how dangerous Ebola was and how we were all going to die. Not the best time to travel to West Africa. Over the course of a few weeks most of the team dropped out and, to be honest, we thought about it. We made a few calls to people on the ground to get accurate information and had some LONG talks. Any sane person would have canceled. (we’ve never been grouped in with sane people). We decided to go. The team was just five people, and EVERYONE said we were crazy. We went, had an incredible trip, and I believe we had a real impact at the orphanage where we were serving. West Africa is a BIG place, where we were serving we were over 1000 miles from the nearest Ebola case. At no time were we in any danger other than malaria and the other normal issue from that area.

In looking back at our trip to Ghana, I’m flooded with emotions. One of the emotions I have is regret for the many people who, out of an abundance of caution, chose not to go. They missed out on a life changing experience. They missed out on the chance to share with others and connect with believers on the other side of the world. The enemy once again used fear to stop ministry from taking place. How many people weren’t reached? How many lives weren’t changed by this incredible experience? The people who chose to stay back had the perception of safety, but they missed a life altering experience.

Take a chance. Risk something. Go drill a well in Kenya, go build a house in Baja, go serve (or start) a prison ministry. Step out and see how God might use you or might use the new challenges to change you. Of the people I hang out with in the missions field, I never hear them talk about the regret of taking a chance. What I see and hear are people who glow, glow with a joy that few people experience in this life. These are people who have taken, and continue to take chances for God. They are not afraid of risk, they embrace it, they have found joy. The only fear we should accept in our lives is the fear of NOT doing what God is calling us to. We should be deathly afraid of wasting our time here on this earth living a mundane, “safe” existence.

To answer the question about Mexico that I started out with: Yes, Mexico CAN be dangerous in certain areas, most of it is really safe, but watch out for those selfies.

Perspective in Short-Term Missions

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workers-construction-site-hardhats-38293Few things are black and white in this life. Many people pass judgment on short-term missions from a purely sending perspective or as a bad use of funds. “Why spend so much money sending our team to Africa, what difference can they make?” “I’ve read that mission teams do more harm than good.” It’s so important to look at difficult, complicated, multi-level situations from many perspectives. Frequently, if we honestly try to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes, we see things in an entirely different light.

A few years ago a member of my American staff here in Mexico was very vocal about how terrible all the new factories in Mexico were. Through her studies in college, she learned how the factories were abusing the workers and taking advantage of the low wages in Mexico. She had never actually been to one of these factories though or talked to the workers. After she had passionately shared for a while, a good friend of mine who was raised and educated in Mexico walked in. He was very familiar with the factory systems and had many friends and family members working in manufacturing. As neutral as I could, I asked him “what’s your feeling on the factory programs?” His immediate response was “send more,”. Living in Mexico with the factories, he saw them providing much-needed jobs at a higher pay scale than had been seen in generations. Yes, the workers are making less than their American counterparts but they we’re making more than any of their peers. The factories provided good health care, in many factories there was free childcare, and the workers actually had a lot of rights. Perspective is critical before we pass judgment.

What are the unseen blessings of sending groups? How do the receiving organizations and communities see short-term missions? Although there has been a great deal written in the last few years about the damage short term mission can do, you would be hard-pressed to find a single hosting organization who doesn’t want more teams to visit. Why is this? Don’t they see or understand the “damage” groups bring? Of course they see it, but the benefits to the missions organizations, the communities, and people in the field far out way the headaches of hosting most groups.

How many orphanages, churches, schools, or medical centers would not exist without the teams that built them or support them? How many long term missionaries would be in the field today if they had not first taken a short-term trip? In twenty-five years serving in Mexico, I’ve never met a long-term missionary that didn’t start out on a short-term trip.

When done right, short term missions can have a real and dramatic impact, beyond anything we might imagine. A few years ago we had a well-meaning group sign up with our organization to build a house in our town through a home building program that we run. When they signed up, they were sure they would have a large team and the funding. As the trip dates got closer a few people dropped out, and then a few more dropped out. They were left with six high school girls, one leader, and almost no funding. On paper, from a logical standpoint, not the ideal group to build a house or go on a missions trip for that matter. In most people’s eyes questions were raised: What are six high-school girls going to do? What difference can they make? Shouldn’t they just stay home and use the money more effectively? In spite of the reasonable questions that were raised, this group REALLY felt they were supposed to take this trip. They reached out to us and asked what to do. I told them to come, join our team for a week, and we’d find a way for them to serve.

Once the group arrived, I paired them up with a few local construction guys that I work with. The plan was to help pour a cement foundation for a house in town. The family receiving this blessing had been on our waiting list for a while, living in an old trailer. This single child family had a believing wife and a husband that was more-or-less the town drunk.

For a week the girls worked alongside my local team. The father could NOT figure this out. It confused him. A lot. He stood for hours with his arms crossed trying to figure out two things; Why are these odd, blond, American girls helping his family? And why were these local construction guys having such a good time? My guys are all strong believers. They were picking on each other as guys do, flipping wet cement at each other, laughing a lot, and having a blast. They weren’t cussing, they weren’t drinking, and the father couldn’t understand any of this. He had never seen or experienced healthy male relationships before, and he just didn’t get it. At no point was the gospel presented in words, there was no pressure on anyone. This project was just a collection of Christians from two cultures serving a needy family. The collective team was putting Christ’s love and example of service into action.

The week ended, the girls left, and it might have ended there. But the seeds of Christian service had been planted; the father witnessed Christ’s love in action. The following Sunday he was at our local church, the next week he came to the Lord. No one, including him, knew at the time but he was very sick and he died about 90 days later. Because this small, unskilled, under-funded team (that didn’t speak Spanish) pressed forward; this man is now dancing in heaven.

If we go into any area of our lives with an attitude of empathy, of trying to see things from the other person’s perspective, we will be more effective. As we approach short-term missions we need to move past our preconceived ideas of the people we’re serving, the needs we think we’re addressing, or even why we are going. Go with a plan, but be sensitive and open to just being present and experiencing God alongside others. Maybe God is just sending you to change you through the people you’ll encounter.