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Responsible Mission
Presbyterian Youth Ministry and the Global Mission Office are looking at encouraging youth groups to be more responsible about going on Short-Term Mission trips. Look out for more resources and discussion on this soon. Want to contribute your view to the discussion? Join the Youth-Connection, the national youth leader's email discussion group.
I’m a huge fan of short-term mission trips. Having been a participant in one and a leader of three, I have no doubt about the great personal benefits that result from such trips.
Short-term mission experiences have been growing in popularity. Countless teams from New Zealand have travelled to various overseas destinations, offering help to those in need – painting walls, building houses, running children’s programmes, doing creative dances and dramas – all in an attempt to communicate the gospel. And many wonderful things have happened as a result. Certainly the team members themselves have been encouraged in their faith, seeing God use them to bless others.
But lately I’ve been challenged to think about the cost to the host country of our spiritual experiences. Are our short-term mission trips simply a Christian version of the Western exploitation of developing nations? If that sounds harsh, let me explain.
I’m drawing my examples from Vanuatu.
When a mission team arrives in Vanuatu from New Zealand, it is customary for the local people to host the visitors. That means feeding them too. Most ni-Vanuatu (locals) don’t have paid employment. They survive by growing their own food. If they don’t grow it, they don’t eat it. I have to wonder what it must cost these generous Melanesians to feed 10 Kiwis for 10 days.
In Vanuatu, a popular destination for a number of New Zealand teams, unemployment is rife. There is no shortage of manual labour; what’s lacking is money to buy the paint to colour the walls or wood to construct the church hall. Our work parties offer their services to Vanuatu, thinking they are proposing an invaluable deal – “we’ll supply the labour, you supply the materials”. From what I’ve seen, it would be more useful if it was the other way round.
I remember a few years ago hearing for the first time about the work of Habitat for Humanity. Their brief trips to Fiji seemed surprisingly expensive, until I learned that about $1,000 of each person’s fees went towards building materials for the house that the team would construct during their stay. At the time I thought, “What a rip-off! It’s hard enough raising the money to go overseas; how can they also expect people to pay an extra $1,000 for the materials?” Over the past few months working in the Global Mission Office, I’ve experienced a radical change of mind.
If we’re willing to raise $1,500 so we can have a spiritual experience in another country, what’s stopping us raising another $1,000 in order to leave behind us a blessing that lasts? If we’re willing to spend 10 days working on an overseas project, what’s stopping us bringing money to pay for the materials required for the jobs we’re doing? And if we’re so keen to have a cultural experience in another nation, have we considered the possibility of inviting our hosts to have a cultural experience of their own as our guests in New Zealand? It is a big job hosting an overseas team. The money, time and effort involved can be considerable. Perhaps if you’re not willing to host overseas visitors, you’re not yet ready to be a visitor yourself.
I invite you to think through these issues before embarking on a short-term mission trip. I believe we can plan short-term mission trips that are mutually beneficial to the visitors and the hosts. With a bit more consideration we can ensure that we don’t have our spiritual experiences at the expense of our gracious neighbours in the Pacific.