Why Do Americans Go on Mission Trips?
I ask that question in all honesty. Why do we go on mission trips? Do we go to try to help people? Do we go to tell people the "Good News" of Jesus? Maybe we go to hear the Good News, mission trips feed us some way. Do we go to learn from others and open our minds? Often we go to teach. Even more often we go build, paint, work and do whatever we're told to do by some missionaries. All of these are good, maybe misguided, but good intentioned reasons, at least.
I know my father, who has worked professionally in the field of mission and supporting global mission work for well over a decade, was transformed the first time he held a baby in a Mexico City garbage dump. God did something in him that caused a 180 degree turn in his life and career. That experience changed him and my family in some profound ways. Some of my closest friends are from Mexico and one of his best friends he met on that first trip to Mexico City. He's closely connected with people from all over the world, friends with them, more closely than any of his friends closer to home in Pennsylvania. So, yeah, mission work has changed our lives and opened our minds to a broader world view. And it all started with a baby in a garbage dump.
The Hebrew Bible says: When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
But, today I'm asking why we all go on these mission trips with some real anger and frustration in my heart. So many Christians spend thousands of dollars to go "help" people and missionaries all over the planet. So many of us go and play with kids, create VBS programs, hold babies, and do all sorts of "good works." But today Christians are ignoring thousands of those same children suffering in detention centers along our boarders. How can we be so hypocritical? How can we be so harsh and uncaring that we would in essence put the same children we spend thousands of dollars to go and see into jails along our border? It's because we are really not interested in sharing our lives with them. We are fine with taking a vacation to a foreign land and spending a week with the poor, the suffering, the children of the 2/3rds world, but we will not welcome them into our own land. We will go to them, but we don't really want to share life with them. We won't really risk our Americanism, our hyper-consumerism, with these poor people. We will not open our doors, or even our country to them when they are at their lowest.
Check out what God says through the prophet Malachi, Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.
But so we Christians vote for Trump, cheer on Trump and create a closed border policy with politicians like Trump that dehumanizes immigrants with brown skin, that dehumanizes immigrants who are poor and that dehumanizes the same children Jesus has called us to love. Christians living anywhere near America's southern boarder should be flooding the border with food, water, clothing, and everything else we have to give to help those in such great need.
Next time you begin thinking about a mission trip to go and help someone, somewhere else in the world, but not go and protest the inhumane torture of children and young adults happening at our border, ask yourself why you want to go far away to help but not right here in America. Next time you wonder if Jesus wants you to go and build homes or paint houses or create VBS programs in Mexico, or Africa or South America, ask yourself in you might be more equipped to do and give these things for the those entering our country, or for those who are already here facing the fear of deportation. Life in some of those places was too unbearable for them, and now they're here, hoping your love for them on your last mission trip was not faked. They're surely hoping that our country is still a place for immigrants and refugees to find solace and a new start. Those entering our country are surely hoping we Christians who go on mission trips really do take seriously the word of God that we have so readily taught in these far off places, far from our own homes.
Why do we go on mission trips to see children, who we think are so precious, but turn our backs on them now at our border? We can do better. We must do better. I don't have all the answers, I'm not a politician. I'm a pastor. My job, and yours if you're a follower of Jesus, is to welcome, care for, love, welcome, those who are in need.
Jesus said: For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me
I know my father, who has worked professionally in the field of mission and supporting global mission work for well over a decade, was transformed the first time he held a baby in a Mexico City garbage dump. God did something in him that caused a 180 degree turn in his life and career. That experience changed him and my family in some profound ways. Some of my closest friends are from Mexico and one of his best friends he met on that first trip to Mexico City. He's closely connected with people from all over the world, friends with them, more closely than any of his friends closer to home in Pennsylvania. So, yeah, mission work has changed our lives and opened our minds to a broader world view. And it all started with a baby in a garbage dump.
The Hebrew Bible says: When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
But, today I'm asking why we all go on these mission trips with some real anger and frustration in my heart. So many Christians spend thousands of dollars to go "help" people and missionaries all over the planet. So many of us go and play with kids, create VBS programs, hold babies, and do all sorts of "good works." But today Christians are ignoring thousands of those same children suffering in detention centers along our boarders. How can we be so hypocritical? How can we be so harsh and uncaring that we would in essence put the same children we spend thousands of dollars to go and see into jails along our border? It's because we are really not interested in sharing our lives with them. We are fine with taking a vacation to a foreign land and spending a week with the poor, the suffering, the children of the 2/3rds world, but we will not welcome them into our own land. We will go to them, but we don't really want to share life with them. We won't really risk our Americanism, our hyper-consumerism, with these poor people. We will not open our doors, or even our country to them when they are at their lowest.
Check out what God says through the prophet Malachi, Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.
But so we Christians vote for Trump, cheer on Trump and create a closed border policy with politicians like Trump that dehumanizes immigrants with brown skin, that dehumanizes immigrants who are poor and that dehumanizes the same children Jesus has called us to love. Christians living anywhere near America's southern boarder should be flooding the border with food, water, clothing, and everything else we have to give to help those in such great need.
Why do we go on mission trips to see children, who we think are so precious, but turn our backs on them now at our border? We can do better. We must do better. I don't have all the answers, I'm not a politician. I'm a pastor. My job, and yours if you're a follower of Jesus, is to welcome, care for, love, welcome, those who are in need.
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