short-term mission trips

and how they changed my life

I am who I am today because of short-term missions. Really. I went on my first short-term mission trip to Quito, Ecuador when I was 8 years old. Sporting a straw bucket hat, a buck tooth smile, and a journal to document my travels, I saw for the first time just how big the world really was. I played with kids my age who lived at the dump, held babies in an orphanage, and ran wild in the jungles without a care in the world. My life expanded then, never to shrink again.

Even though I grew up in an affluent suburb of Chicago, I always knew that wasn’t the norm. Throughout the years, I traveled back to Ecuador, to inner city Chicago, to Cambodia, to rural Kentucky, and to Greece to do missions work. Discovering new cultures, the ways others live, fascinates me. Meeting people, fumbling through conversations in new languages, coming together through shared laughter. These moments of unity make me more keenly aware of the Holy Spirit’s work. They make me feel like the family of God is more vast, more beautiful, then I could ever imagine.

So yeah, in college I got a ichthus tattoo on my inner ankle, believing it was how you’d identify my body when I got martyred for Christ in some far off country. I was ready to smuggle Bibles, to preach in basements while the threat of arrest loomed. I wanted to bring Christ to the nations. I still do. But it looks a little different (and far less intense).

Now, I’m the Missions Coordinator at Christ Community. I genuinely love meeting with missionaries every week, hearing their excitement over their calling, hearing about how they equip local leaders to spread the Gospel. Supporting long-term missionaries who work with and train those in the countries they serve excites me, seeing how missions has shifted to support training up those native to the places missionaries go. It’s inspiring, and nearly every meeting bolsters my faith, makes me want to jump on a plane.

And, despite some arguments to the contrary, I still believe in short-term mission trips. When I was in Leon, Nicaragua in June with 16 high school students, I saw a spark in them that I recognized from my own travels. They started asking questions about privilege, circumstances, and gratitude. Good, hard, necessary questions when you grow up in Franklin, TN, which many people refer to as a bubble. Each night when we debriefed, I could see their worldview expanding, their idea of Christianity morphing and shifting in the best ways. Experiencing a new culture before your brain is fully cooked can really shift your perspective, can really expand your view of God.

Could locals have painted the classrooms, poured the cement, lead the VBS? Of course. But, trips like these can be mutually beneficial. There’s now 16 students who see that their circumstances aren’t everyone’s circumstances, that a relationship with Jesus looks different in different contexts, situations, cultures. And I praise God for that. And maybe, their lives are now altered just like mine was. I hope, I pray that to be true.

Missions work, like any work, can mean a million things. From where I stand, short-term missions can change your heart, your mind, your life trajectory. I still remember being 12-years old, befriending another girl on the beach in Cambodia, emailing with her for years when we returned. I still remember at 15, eating pickled pigs feet in Kentucky after helping repair a floor that had fallen through in someone’s home. I still remember at 21, teaching English to refugees in a small, hot room in Athens. My God works through all these experiences, shaping who I am today. And now, He’s shaping these students that I traveled with to Nicaragua the same way, igniting a spark in their heart. Maybe it will be the beginning of their story of how a short-term mission changed their life too.