Short Term Missions

This past Sunday we had a report from someone who had recently gone overseas as part of a short term missions trip to Uganda.  Let me state up front that I am not a fan of short term missions trips, but it was refreshing to finally hear someone honestly assess the purpose of the trip.  The speaker simply said the trip was for us, implying that there was no long term strategy for Uganda that was worked out by the trip, but rather a sincere recognition that sometimes we need to get outside our comfort zone to fully realize what resources we have and the potential given to us.  This type of trip will never have long lasting impacts on the region of visit, but it can provide a return on the investment made within the person who attended.  An honest assessment,  but in my mind still misguided somewhat.  Here is where I am coming from on this.  If the trip was all about them, they should have paid for it.  Instead they solicited donations and scholarships from individuals and churches to underwrite a portion of the cost.  I don't care how people choose to spend their own money, but I do have this one problem with short term missions trips soliciting outreach money from my church....the money spent sending and accommodating the team is much better spent actually addressing the needs of the recipient population, and this can only be done by organizations working in country with local staff and resources.

Typical church missions trips that I have seen are usually a minimum team of 8 to 10 people.  If that is true, what the team spent to get to and from the location overseas, and for the expenses they incurred for the week or so they were in country, that amount could have paid for the nutritional program that the NGO I work with operates for a full year's period.  I cannot help but weigh in my mind the blessing and inspiration of 8 to 10 people over the intervention in the life of more than 1500 at risk children and mothers.  I think we need to be wiser stewards of how we invest the money of our congregations.