Being Frank About Short-Term Missions
5 honest tips for mission trips
Photo by Frank Fang
This article is part of the Claritas fall 2023 issue, Stages. Read the full print release here.
By: Frank Fang
When the sidewalk ended, a poorly paved street appeared below my feet. I noticed that the homeowner’s association had hired workers to use black asphalt to cover up the street’s cracks, but the workers, who did not seem to care much about the project, filled the cracks with asphalt in hurry, leaving sloppy, squiggly lines everywhere. One of those lines, however, stuck out. Roughly painted in a cursive scribble was the word “Jesus.” It seemed that the workers really didn’t care if they did a good job with my neighborhood’s street pavement.
CRU, the campus fellowship that I am so grateful to be a part of, has a huge emphasis on mission work. Jesus’s final command on Earth was the Great Commission, which is to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” [1] This has been presented to me as Jesus calling us to put aside our careers and material wealth to go out into the world and tell people about the great news of Jesus Christ. I was given the opportunity to carry out a small part.
Beginning in June, I embarked on a 7-week trip that was a mixture of internship and mission trip to the Philippines with nine other Cornell students and one student from North Carolina State University. As a mission team, we wanted to fulfill the calling to be a light to the local communities. On the internship side, we would work to design, test, and implement agricultural machinery. God helped us to gather over $95,000 in total funding from our universities and friends. It was a genuinely impressive effort made with an amazing idea to gain technical and interpersonal skills while spreading the Gospel.
There were many highlights. We helped to fund and build a water filtration system for an elementary school. We encouraged the local communities and missionaries, being the first foreign students to visit them. We sponsored three houses for homeless persons. We even tested our machinery in the field. Finally, the team built camaraderie and grew closer through sharing our testimonies, experiencing hardship, and managing our disagreements.
The highlights, however, were undercut by shortcomings. In a developing country like the Philippines, manufacturing supplies aren’t readily available. Communication between cultures was quite difficult. Transportation was confusing. Team tensions occurred. There were days where we were stuck in our living quarters since manufacturing was being handled by those more knowledgeable than us. We were also not given the privilege to see any of our tasks completed since we were limited to seven weeks.
As a team, we traveled back and forth between the polar opposites of poverty and wealth. We would spend a whole afternoon with malnourished students who had severely stunted growth, and then attend a terrific cocktail party with Filipino Cornell alumni, having more food than we could possibly finish! People would treat us really well because we were foreigners visiting them, and Asian hospitality is incredible. Despite our encounters with wealth, we experienced major setbacks, often finding ourselves twiddling our thumbs.
We were constantly reminded of our privilege, and we learned to appreciate the comforts that we have in the US such as air conditioning, hot showers, toilet seat covers, and plenty of food. However, being in the Philippines, it was frustrating to daily contrast a life of comfort with a life of food scarcity and malnourished children. And while I developed a gratitude for what we have, it pained me to be unable to tangibly help starving people. It was unrealistic for us to change an entire country’s economy, education standards, belief system, and agricultural system as college students in our short time with few technical skills, minimal money, and constantly delayed projects.
As for our aim to respond to the Great Commission, we were hindered by language and cultural barriers. We didn’t believe it would be necessary to learn the local language because many people in the Philippines are able to speak English due to US colonization. The issue with this line of reasoning became incredibly evident when we interacted with some missionaries who claimed to have brought many to faith. We witnessed one of the missionaries give a really powerful sermon and subsequently ask for people to raise their hands if they wanted to accept Jesus. She was met with silence until someone translated the question for her. Then, everyone stood up. They were trying to spread the gospel in a language that the locals did not understand and rewarded them with free food if they accepted Jesus. It concerned me; I don’t know if souls were actually saved. The impoverished people were brought in by the free food rather than the Gospel, and it seemed like we, Christians, were taking advantage of the locals’ empty bellies. Furthermore, both our group and the missionaries wouldn’t interact with that community again in our time there, which was troubling. What impact did we truly have other than a free meal? I hope seeds were planted on fertile soil there, but I don’t think I will ever know.
I returned home to America with conflicting feelings toward short-term missions. My team and I learned valuable lessons, had our eyes opened to true poverty, and came back changed for the better. We did not, however, do a good job spreading the Gospel since we never learned the language and were often stuck in our living quarters because of frequent project delays. We were treated really well because we were foreigners from a prestigious university. We ate good meals because of the US Dollar’s value. But it seemed the only thing we offered was our “foreignness” and wealth, not the good word of Jesus Christ. Does that not go against leaving your money behind to serve Him?
There were many things that we could have done differently. I would like to share a couple of the impactful lessons I learned which can apply to both a mission trip abroad and also student life on campus:
1. Be prayerful
One of the things that I failed at doing was maintaining my prayer and journaling life during the trip. I would make a lot of excuses to not write in my prayer journal or regular journal, which was pretty stupid because it left me spiritually stagnant. There’s really no good excuse to not be intentional about prayer, especially on a mission trip. Or in regular life.
2. Acknowledge your limitations
God can do all things, but you probably are not going to be able to change an entire country and convert everyone to Christianity when you go on a short-term mission. [2] Yes, we can dream big as ambitious Cornell Christians, but we are also only so capable. If you are dreaming about missions and evangelism anyways, why wait until you are in a different country? The person next to you in the math class that you’re failing probably needs Jesus as much, if not more, as someone on the other side of the globe.
3. Be a humble servant and learner
Learn the culture and learn the language to the best of your ability. You are a visitor in their country. If the country you are going to speaks some English, great! Use that! You are on this mission trip to tell people that you came to their country because you love them. In fact, you love them so much that you want to share the truth of the Gospel and the hope of salvation with them. However, how are you going to communicate that with them? By learning their language, experiencing their culture, and eating the food that they provide you. It is respectful. If someone in a developing country is serving you food, eat it because they probably sacrificed a lot for you to have a full stomach. Plus, relationships are often built over the dinner table.
Christians get a bit overexcited to share our faith that we forget to listen and learn about the person in front of us. What gives you the right to say you can fix someone’s entire being and spiritual life if you haven’t even spent the time to learn who they are or what their culture is about? We are incredibly wealthy as Cornell students, and that is exposed on mission trips to developing countries. During the times you have to take a cold shower, relieve yourself in an unsanitary bathroom, or eat unfamiliar food, remember that you are only doing this temporarily. When you are in America, praise God for the warm shower, clean bathrooms, and your meal plan. Also, eat some meals with your neighbors here and build some relationships!
4. Beware of harm disguised as help
If you are going to bring some tangible help like manual labor, or in our case, knowledge about machinery, make sure that you are filling some niche that doesn’t harm the community around you. If you are doing free labor, you may be taking the job of someone who requires that labor for their livelihood. Had our machinery been better equipped for rice paddies, we would have saved the local machine shop’s money and resources. The owner even told us that we were wasting their money (kindly of course). Furthermore, impoverished people in the Philippines seemed happier than many of us Americans. They also donate a significantly higher percentage of their money than we generally do. One of the churches we attended had really poor members, but the church seemed rich because people would donate so much of their own personal money at the expense of their own comfort. And God would always provide. What Americans think is helpful such as financial assistance or manual labor may not be what is most needed. It’s not always evident what actually is.
Plan, but be flexible. And take initiative. Stuff happens, and there may be days where your plans fall through the cracks. Our calendars and time are not our own. They are God’s, and we should trust in Him despite our plans. Furthermore, many cultures don’t hold tightly to the rigid clock that we base our lives off. [3] That being said, it is essential to take initiative and be a wise steward of the time you have in a country, which was bought for by people’s donations. There may be days where you are twiddling your thumbs because a plan fell through. We should have found some productive way to spend our time in those situations such as learning the ways to get around the city earlier to meet people and build relationships. That being said, perhaps one of the reasons we were stuck at this machine shop was because we were trying to serve God and money. We were in the Philippines to try and gain technical skills to highlight on a resume. This pursuit distracted me from the mission side of the trip and my spiritual health. Granted, we were broke college students with few technical skills. People more established who actually have finances and skills are more able to help people.
When I reminisce about the trip, in a lot of ways, we were the workers who smeared the mighty name of “Jesus” onto the pavement and botched the rest of the work for frustrated residents to drive over. We really could have done better. I could have done better.
I recently called a permanent missionary that we worked with in the Philippines, and he said the elementary school kids still remember us and ask about us. I still don’t have much resolution for these questions and the frustrating feeling of helplessness. However, it is necessary to be optimistic in spite of the challenges. Short-term mission trips are an incredibly useful learning experience. I can confidently say that I am forever changed and grateful to the people who donated money or hosted us. The team knows now what self-sacrificial charity looks like. We have familiarity with what may happen on a mission trip in the future and how to prepare for it. We have learned lessons that have been eye-opening in so many ways. Many of us returned with a newfound vigor and confidence for spreading the Gospel in America. Kids at that elementary school have clean drinking water! We have stayed relatively in touch with several of the long-term missionaries, and the Lord seems to be working. He is using our work, despite our shortcomings, for His purpose.
My neighborhood street is now fully paved and comfortable to drive on, even skateboard on. Other workers came and finished the job, and the “Jesus” tar was covered up. It did take some time, but it happened. It is ultimately a better witness to do a job well than to splatter the name “Jesus” on a bad job. Martin Luther, a seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation, allegedly said, “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.” [4] (Side note: He apparently did not actually say this, but I still like the idea.) [5]
There is further nuance in the Bible when Paul states that “the God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.” [6] Perhaps, we are even just doing mission work for our own feelings of nearness to God, but regardless, people had invested in us either financially, emotionally, or spiritually. Even if you are not going overseas on some mission, these ideas still hold true. People have invested in you regardless of where you are, and the mission field must go wherever you go. It is essential to plan and prepare well for the mission field and to steward others’ investments well.
This article appeared in Claritas’ fall 2023 Stages Issue
Sources
[1] Matthew 28:19 (NIV)
[2] Luke 1:37 (NIV)
[3] Proverbs 19:21 (NIV)
[4] “A Quote by Martin Luther.” 2023. Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/924405-the-christian-shoemaker-does-his-duty-not-by-putting-little.
[5] A Lutheran Layman. 2023. “‘Little Crosses on The Shoes’ (or What Luther Didn’t Say About Vocation).” A Lutheran Layman. http://www.lutheranlayman.com/2015/01/little-crosses-on-shoes-or-what-luther.html.