Write About Now

Yesterday I had lunch with Greg and Jana Perry. They are a delightful couple and although it began as a “working lunch” so I could interview them for Buzz, I left with two more Nashville friends (for those of you keeping score at home, this brings the grand total to eight and a half—one is only two years old).

Greg serves as Executive Director of World Wide Youth Camps, a churches of Christ-affiliated organization that runs Christian camps for orphans in Russia and Ukraine using camp facilities built by the USSR and previously used to promote communism.

Our conversation made me think about short-term missions. WWYC welcomes a few American teams each year, but they intentionally use these teams to not only participate in the summer camps but to facilitate connections between the kids and in-country, native adults who have been trained as mentors. These mentors then take over the discipling, relationship-building and shepherding of the kids. The approach takes advantage of the short-term volunteers while acknowledging that real life change takes time.

Most churches I know encourage short-term missions and many lead groups themselves or partner with parachurch organizations to schedule annual trips. This seems like a good thing: it exposes sheltered suburban Americans to urban poverty and second or third-world cultures and it theoretically supports missionaries in the field.

However, like many aspects of American spirituality it may be more selfish than sacrificial; these trips feel good to those who go, but I wonder how often they function as a distraction to the “real” mission work. After all, missionaries must think up activities for these groups to participate in, and even if they already planned to hold a VBS or teach an English class it would be easier to do it themselves than to use a group of Americans struggling to speak the language and digest the food.

And what about the people being evangelized? Even if the missionary manages to keep regular church, school or Bible study going while preparing for the team’s arrival, isn’t it confusing for the Africans or Costa Ricans to see waves of foreigners coming and going? Surely they must feel a bit like fish in an aquarium as Americans push their noses to the glass and observe.

I participated in a two-week trip to Venezuela when I was 16 and, yes, it did open my eyes to cultural differences and to the wealth and freedom we enjoy in this country. I did benefit from seeing God’s work outside my own little world, and although I did not become a missionary because of the experience I’m sure others do. But 15 years later I wonder if the thousands of dollars we raised to go on the trip wouldn’t have made more impact as a cash donation to the mission.

I’m all for our fast-food-eating, cell-phone-texting, self-absorbed teens (and adults) experiencing something of the bigger picture. I’m just not sure we should make this education our missionaries’ problem.