Do you know someone going on a short-term mission trip this year?
What are they doing to prepare for the project? I highly recommend that they watch episode 5 of this last seasons The Amazing Race as part of their preparation. I’ll admit I have a slight bias, not because I am a huge fan of the show (I prefer to fill my allotted reality TV time with Survivor) but because the teams were in Thailand. Reason enough for a recommendation via a Facebook Story (or status if you are old school), but the need for the blog post comes out of the episodes potential to help future participants do less damage in their attempts to advance the kingdom. An idea that takes more than 140 characters to unpack. All short-term mission participants go with the hope of having a positive impact, unfortunately that is a feat some fail to achieve. Much has been written about this issue of doing harm while attempting to help lately, mostly regarding dependency and its negative long-term effects. So how can watching The Amazing Race improve my missionary skills?
Track with me for a second. We are obsessed with safety. When youth groups are forming short-term project teams parents are blowing up the Youth Ministers phone with questions about their students safety. When we gather to pray before heading out we make sure to pray for a safe trip. When we do our preparation before going we focus on safety. We are obsessed. While all of this focus might help get our youth back home safely, it may position them to actually have a negative impact while they are gone. Have you ever visited a city that you knew had a high crime rate? How did you feel? How did you view the people you interacted with in that city? I’m suggesting that we may be unintentionally creating this same feeling within short-term mission trip participants. It is hard to minister to someone who you have a negative view of. Also, when ministering cross-culturally one often finds themselves in cultural situations they do not understand. If we are suspicious of the people we will assume they are trying to take advantage of us.
An example from two teams on The Amazing Race and their interactions with taxi drivers. The first team, a boyfriend and girlfriend, are trying to hurry up and buy bus tickets without wasting additional time exchanging money. Before doing this though they must pay their taxi driver. He asks for 4,500 Baht. They hand him 100 US dollars and walk away. The driver comes back while they are waiting to buy their tickets and shows them the 100 dollars and says 4,500 Baht. Confusion ensues. A Thai lady who speaks some English and has witness the commotion comes over. How are you feeling right now if you are in this situation? The answer to this question has huge missiological implications. Do you assume the taxi driver is trying to rip you off? What motivation do you attach to the Thai lady? The couple assumes they are being taken advantage of and proceeds to call the lady crazy and yell at the taxi driver. If you continue watching you come to find out 4,500 Baht equals 150 US dollars and that that is a fair fare.
The second team are sisters who are out of money, but still need to get around Bangkok. After attempting to walk to their desired destination they decide to ask a taxi driver to drive them for free. Not one, but two different taxi drivers end up driving the girls to the different places they need to be for absolutely nothing.
The first team has a lens of suspicion and the end result is disastrous. The second team views the taxi drivers as people with a lens of trust and their end result is simply beautiful.
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