A Better Way to do Short Term Missions Trips

Currently 2 million people per year go on short term missions trips. People want to make an impact. Unfortunately, there are a variety of ways that our short term missions trips can actually hurt those we’re trying to help.

Traditional missions trips usually have the volunteers doing a lot of work on the ground to satisfy their need for self actualization. The problem is that we can rob the dignity of the

locals by doing for them what they could have done for themselves. We also ignore their need to be seen and heard. We leave feeling like we did something good just because we did something, but in most cases we did more harm than good.

Through our experiences in foreign nations, we have learned that the greatest gift we can give is our friendship; to see the good work the local church is doing and to encourage them in it, to look them in the eye and say, “Way to go!,” and to stay in personal contact with them through social media, emails, and healthy financial partnership.

Our idea of a vision trip is an “eyes on, hands off” approach. We are not going to build

anything. We are not going to do anything that the locals aren’t doing, and if we do anything with them, we’ll insist that they take the lead. What we commit to do is to see them, hear them, pray with them, and love them. We will make a

n impact not by what we do, but by supporting what they do.

We believe that short term trips can be beneficial, and we are committed to further develop healthy models for these types of ministry trips. For more information on short term missions trips, check out our friends at faithtoaction.org. If you want information on going with us on our next Vision Trip, click "Let's Go" below.

Let's Go