How exotic to give your life to loving and serving God by loving and serving a people halfway across the globe. How romantic to die of starvation because you chose to feed starving children instead of yourself. What love. What dedication. What true Christianity!
So when my opportunity came to go on a short-term trip at age 16 I didn't let it slip me by. It was the chance I had been waiting and praying for and now it was upon me. I spent months preparing myself along with the rest of our team to visit Ensenada, Mexico. We prepared VBS lessons and crafts and just as diligently we prepared ourselves spiritually. It was 2 months of focus for 10 days of action.
Those 10 days were exciting. We did minor construction on a new church building. We painted and painted for hours and hours. We held VBS classes for the local children. We passed out tracts in the Street. We bonded as a team and with the members of our host church. WE HAD MADE A DIFFERENCE.
After that I knew that God had called me to missions.
Decades later and living full time on the mission field I can tell you one thing: My life is NOT a short-term mission trip.
The excitement and adventure of those short-term trips has been trumped by the hum drum everydayness of my life now.
Sure, I live on the mission field and dedícate my life to helping children- even feeding them! But there is another side of my life that I never considered as a member of a short-term mission team and by comments that short-termers make to me I know that they haven't considered it either. It is a simple yet profound reality---I HAVE A REAL LIFE.
I wake up early every day in order to get my family ready for school and work. Afternoons are filled with homework, soccer, and swimming. Busy days mean evenings full of hungry boys!
Regardless of how many mission teams we host, how busy that team is, or how many missionaries are visiting us I still have lunches to pack every day and supper to cook every night.
My children get sick unexpectedly, we have pediatrician appointments, school activities, birthdays and other events. My husband sometimes Works late or goes out of town. Our children have real bedtimes because they have real school the next day.
Regardless of visiting teams or missionaries I still have bills to pay on time and grocery shopping to do. The ministry has bills that need to be paid and bookkeeping reports that must all be done in a timely manner despite how full a teams itinerary may be.
When I took my first mission trip my immaturity and lack of experience in life itself led me to believe that every day would be full of adventure, ministering to the lost and hurting, learning new skills, and going to new places. As life as played out I have come to realize that life is life whether on the mission field or at home in the good ol' U.S. of A.
So if you are preparing to go on a short term trip any time soon, please keep in mind that not only you and your team are taking personal time to come and share God's love on foreign soil, but your missionary hosts are also taking time out of their already packed schedules in order to host you as pleasantly as possible.
As a short-termer you may never fully know how much your host missionaries have had to juggle, shuffle, change, and sacrifice in order to accomodate your team, but you can rest assured that once your team is gone they will stay behind and fall back into the rythm and routine that the mission field really entails.
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| My life apart from mission teams |
P.S. I understand that not all missionaries lead the same lifestyle that my family and I do. Many missionaries live in very remote áreas. Oftentimes the missionary families opt for homeschooling. And some missionaries probably do lead a more adventurous life tan I do. However, I also have a list of missionary friends a mile long that live very similarly to myself.
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