Missions trips to many countries of the world have become almost a missions mania in today's church world. Not just in the Alliance but in many other denominations also. The youth sign up eagerly and then look to the adults to provide funding. Spaghetti suppers are planned, frozen chicken is sold, the church young people hire out to work for cash - all in order to go on a missions trip to some far off area of the world. Young people, old people, pastors, youth leaders, - everyone is going to some new and interesting country overseas, it's the "in thing" in missions today! I recently read about a group of young children who made a special trip to hold a VBS in some far off country!
Some of our training schools in the United States and Canada require every missions major to spend a semester overseas - or at least make a shorter trip to another country. TFC is one of those schools, and almost every year I get asked by students to help prepare them culturally and in some cases even linguistically for what they will face. Actually, I enjoy that part of missions trips!
When we first went to Africa, we had never heard of untrained, English speaking young people coming to help in our work. But during a Home Assignment in 1983-1984 we were missionaries in residence at Nyack College and a group of students wanted to visit us overseas and "taste" missions firsthand! So we succumbed!
We had already decided on a list of proper comportment for our team of 18 young people. (Yes, 18!!
We were aware of what had happened when a carload of American Christian tourists came to our city bringing large bags of hard candies. These people loved to drive through town (with the Mission Protestante sign painted on the van!) and wave to all the children lining the streets and toss handfuls of hard candy to them. For weeks after they left, we had children coming to the Mission asking for more candy - long after the work team had gone!!
We also experienced the visiting college student who had learned how to say "Jesus loves you" in French. He would go to the local market - a block from the Mission - and say Jesus loves you in French to a young person, and then take him by the hand and lead him to the Mission, find a local missionary deep in his work to whom he would say, I've told this boy "Jésus t'aime", now you can lead him to the Lord in his own language.
Given all of this, we prepared some cultural lectures for our College group arriving from Nyack College, and really they adapted quite well, given the big leap from Nyack-on-the-Hudson to Santidougou village!
But 18 extra people are still a lot to feed and sleep and to keep occupied. You girls worked hard along with me to feed and entertain this group - plus giving them a meaningful experience. All in all, that was a very positive experience, and a number of them later went on to be international workers in several countries.
Today missions trips seem to be an integral part of many Alliance churches. Some are "Taste and See" tours, others are work teams sent out to accomplish a specific job. But none of them would succeed without the involvement of an on site international worker to help care for them: driving them around, interpreting for them, caring for them when they become ill, and a dozen other jobs required of local workers - to help this multitude of work team people have a positive experience!
All of this also uses up a lot of money that might perhaps be better used by local international workers and local Christians. At the same time, work teams are a fact of life in international missions it seems, and in this day of seeing is believing, many churches in the U.S. have become more involved in the Alliance Missions program in the world. To my knowledge, no one has calculated how much is spent in Missions trips each year in the Alliance. Nor has anyone articulated clearly the positive side of all this rush to the nations by amateurs in our churches
A couple weeks ago I was asked to help interview a TFC student in our church, headed for the Far East for six weeks this summer. A nice guy but not a clue about most things culturally. I wish him well and will pray for him. He will certainly return to us wiser than he is now!!
