by Robin Gericke, Executive Editor
The value of mission trips isn’t found solely in how well you serve others; it’s about the new understanding you gain from those trips. As someone who goes on mission trips, leads missions trips and works for a mission organization, perhaps this seems like a selfish opinion. Yet I believe that the impact of mission trips would be much greater if those serving had a changed perspective before they left the United States.
On my first mission trip to El Salvador in high school, I had the expected experience. Our team fed the homeless, played with kids and built a house for a family. I came back, emotionally moved and ready to return to that country. I never went back. While every area, situation and person have different needs, I would be selfish to approach every mission trip like I did El Salvador: thinking that I have an incredible amount of assistance or value to offer the people I am serving.
Does money have more value than American bodies sent to serve? Perhaps. I remember a youth leader once telling me that he struggled to financially support mission trips because that amount of money could make a substantial difference in the country the mission trip took place in. Instead of sending a team of 25 teenagers to Mexico, why not just send the money and build an orphanage? he asked me. His logic made sense, and I struggled to justify the value of mission trips until I traveled to Greece and Haiti.
My recent trip to Haiti as part of the COM397 class clarified my opinions of mission trips and justified their value in my mind – no, not my personal value or anything I have to offer, but the valuable experience of being in another country and being humbled by another culture. Our purpose in Haiti was not to build houses and hand out food, but to end the cyclical dependency that mission work often creates in Haiti. Our team played a small part in the mission organization’s goal of creating job opportunities and improving the economy through tourism.
During the trip, we stayed at a mission house resort that had views of mountains and ocean. We went to beaches and islands, hiked to waterfalls, visited an artisan city and experienced the best of Haitian culture. To contrast, we did see piles of trash burning in city streets. We did see poverty; we did see orphans. But we also saw families that were employed by the mission house. We saw the boat captains, bus drivers, chefs, janitorial staff and others who had jobs because people paid to visit Haiti not as a missionary, but as a tourist.
The most humbling part of this trip was not when I finally broke through my feeling of inadequacy and made a huge difference in someone’s life, but when I realized that in terms of service, I had nothing to offer the Haitian people. One of our team’s projects was to hike down the mountain where we were staying, fill 5-gallon drums with spring water and then haul them to the families in the surrounding village. The team director told us that the purpose of this was not to help the families, but to experience a task they do every day. Hiking back up, two other girls and I were carrying one container of water between us. We had to stop every 10 feet to rest, and after a few stops, the Haitian boy leading the group put our container on his shoulder and kept going up the mountain. I couldn’t even keep up with him without carrying 50 lbs. of water.
In this, I found the value of mission trips. The team director told us to come back to the States and “change the narrative of Haiti.” Tell our friends about the beauty of this country. Talk about the incredible people. Shape how people see this country.
I believe that the value of a mission trip is found in fulfilling what a country, area or organization truly needs, not the short-term fix we can post about on Instagram. Yes, I am sure there are places that need construction workers to build houses or doctors to serve in medical facilities or even college teams to go paint a wall. Yet the value I found through my experience in Haiti and other trips was different; I found that the new understanding you take back home can be worth more than the painted wall or service you left behind. I learned that Haiti doesn’t need another team of inexperienced students attempting construction work – it needs economic development. By laying down my own desire to fulfill some kind of ‘international service’ need, I was able to to shift my perspective on Haiti and its people.
I am now preparing to go on a mission trip to Greece to work with refugees. The volunteer service we’re doing – children’s activities, crafts, ect. – could be done by any number of volunteers, and I don’t fool myself into thinking something else. However, I believe there is value found not in foreign lives changed by missions, but in our own changed perspectives.
Photo by Robin Gericke
