Does Short-Term Missions matter? Is it possible for a person, or group of people, to visit a place for a few days, a week, or even a month, and actually make a difference in the lives of people there?
A few years ago, while working for a missions organization in California, I started asking these questions and more. I knew that I was called to ministry, but was having an existential crisis over the concept of short-term missions. For the record, short-term missions is usually defined as a spending less than 2 years doing missions in one place, though many people consider short-term missions to be a few days to a few months. In any case, the question still stands.. are they worth the money, effort, and time that we as Christians put into them?
When I started asking these questions, it was a pretty dangerous question to be asking, since my entire job relied on churches choosing to take a short-term missions trip, and allowing my organization to plan it for them. So if short-term missions was NOT worth it, well then what on earth was I doing? Furthermore, this was about the same time that the Lord was calling me to the World Race – essentially 11 month-long, short-term, mission trips back to back to back. How could I agree to this if I didn’t agree with short-term missions? On the other hand, why would God so clearly call someone to a year of short-term missions if it was a worthless cause?
After a few months of serious soul searching and seeking the Lord, I finally came to the conclusion that short-term missions, when done correctly, has the potential to make a difference. There is never a guarantee that it is going to be 100% successful, partly because defining “success” on the mission field gets pretty sticky. In any case, I finished my term in California, and after months of praying, I decided to take on the World Race. And today I am so thankful for the conclusion I came to during that time.
This past Sunday, Team Woven excitedly gathered around the little 11” screen of my netbook as the fuzzy faces from the other end appeared on the Skype screen. Crowded around the computer, sharing pairs of earbuds all plugged into a headphone splitter I just happened to throw into my bag at the last second, we all chattered at once with the faces on the screen. It had only been a week and half since we had seen the teenage boys on the other end of the conversation, but both parties acted like it had been years. The boys playfully shoved each other out of the way to get a closer look at our faces, and we squeezed tightly (though a little more politely) closer together to peer at the figures on the screen. As noses, eyebrows, and hands appeared and then disappeared in the playful bustle on the other side, we squealed our hellos to each new face. We told them how cold it was here, and they told us that we should just go back because it was hot there. They took turns asking us each individually how we were, and how Mongolia was. Someone disappeared from the room and returned with a deck of cards, asking if we wanted to play a game.
The whole meeting only lasted 26 minutes, but it was the highlight of our week. It was a time filled with laughter, joy, and overflowing love from both sides of the screen. It was a humble reminder that, yes, the boys had made deep impacts our OUR hearts and lives, but somehow we had gotten past their tough, teenage-boy shells and had made an impact on them. They genuinely love us, and greatly miss us – and that is a crazy thing to grasp. We only spent a short month with them, but somehow (AKA the work of the Lord), we became family. And the love that we all share is something that never would have been possible if we had not made the decision and taken the risk to choose short-term missions. Would those boys still be amazing if we had never shown up? Absolutely! Would we have had a great month of April if we had not spent it in Antipolo, Philippines? Absolutely! But by the grace of God, he saw fit for us to visit them, and BOTH parties have been deeply impacted for the better.
To be honest, this is only one example. I have many stories of how I was impacted by people I have met and ministered to, and how others were impacted through the actions of our team. But even if this was the only month out of all 11 – If you asked me if short term missions matter, I would give you a resounding YES. I would pull up this picture and tell you the stories of the faces in it. I would tell you about the tears in their eyes (and floods in ours) as they told us at our going away party how we had impacted them individually. I would show you pictures depicting the hours of card games, basketball, worship, movies, Bible Studies, and community outreach that we did together as we shifted from strangers to siblings. I would show you the messages and comments on our blogs and facebook pages from staff and boys alike telling us how loved and missed we are. I would sit you down and allow you to experience a Skype session with them, and watch you watch them as their eyes light up at seeing our faces. To see the smiles creeping across their faces and they joke and tease us, even from miles away. –- I would tell you without a doubt that yes, Short-Term Missions matters!
Team Woven with the boys and staff of Children’s Garden of the Philippines. Not a day goes by that we are not reminded of these goofy faces, their contageous laughter, and their beautiful smiles. We miss them deeply, and we will never forget the days we spent with them.
