We see them all over Facebook, or for us tech-savvy individuals, Twitter: photos of an extremely tan friend, baring blindingly white teeth and cuddling a small child. Throw in some garbage, a donkey and a few palm trees in the background, and you have your standard short-term mission trip picture.
I have my own pictures like the one I have described, and because of where we are (“It’s Great to Be at Harding!”), chances are you do as well. The astronomical number of these photographs, which sit on their Internet shelves in neat albums, all look exactly the same. Of course, people can post whatever they want on their social network, and we as spectators all have a choice as to whether we scroll through the pictures or not. Any ill will that is elicited by us “scrollers” is typically aimed quite lazily at the trip as a whole.
Are short-term missions effective, or are they simply island vacations, a change of scenery for scholastically over-extended teenagers and nonparticipant teens? All I have to draw on are my own experiences, and I can say that before I experienced a trip for myself, I was a skeptic. What I had witnessed was people taking the usual pictures, making some “amazingly awesome” memories, returning to the country with a great sadness, but after a few months everything would go back to normal. God bless ‘Merica.
The Dominican Republic sounds like an island vacation and looks beautiful from the plane, but the cities my group visited are drastically different from their happy, pastel exteriors. There’s often a breakdown in these families that starts at the head. The stereotypical Dominican male is lazy. The stereotypical Dominican mother is overworked. Those are the stereotypes (OK, there’s baseball, too), and for many families, they seem to hold true.
I could easily say that I shone the light of Jesus and brought children to the throne of Christ. I could tell you how good it felt to be out of the country, away from my phone and doing the Lord’s work. But I can’t say that I really did any of that. There were projects, devotionals, singing and visiting with the sick, yes. But I didn’t feel special or especially godly. I don’t think you’re supposed to feel that way.
Quite simply, I fell in love.
I fell in love with the children who climbed in my lap, played with my hair and played games with me. I fell in love with the little girl who squeezed my hand every time Jesse in “Free Willy” told the whale “te amo” (which means “I love you”). I fell in love with the sound of chickens in the morning and the piles of poop in the road. I fell in love with the mountain that stood at a distance and the stars that painted the sky every night. I fell in love with the motorcycles that sped past with sometimes up to six people riding at a time.
I didn’t do anything special. I was just doing what I’m supposed to be doing all the time. I left with a feeling of great shame. Not only because of my cynicism directed toward all who had gone before me, but also because I went expecting God to slide in, give me a show and inspire me to be a more fashionably incredible Christian. In reality, I showed up and got my heart broken by the sadness of the world, the glory of our God and the vanity of my soul.
