Jamie the Very Worst Missionary on Short-term Missions

 Jamie, I think I love you.  But you scare me.  You are the Tyler Durden of the world of evangelical missions.  You say things (in your blog) that provoke and enrage otherwise well-meaning, nice, missions-minded evangelicals as no one else can.  You are the child on the street who, when the Emperor rides by in his lavish parade, screams, "He has no clothes! He's butt naked!!"  You are a brave, truth-telling soul.  Clearly you have issues but, unlike the rest of us missionaries, you don't try to cover them up with a veneer of spirituality.  If we evangelicals sainted people, girl, you'd be on my short list. 

One of the battles many missionaries face is the issue of hosting short-term missions trips.  I have to be honest and admit that we missionaries have a love-hate relationship with these.  The issue is not, per se, that we don't want people coming to visit and learn and help, as much as it is with the pride, presumption, and well, self-interest of these short term groups.  Though we've hosted many wonderful, awesome groups (you know who you are!), we also have a lot of horror stories of hosting the short-termers who did not share our vision of missions.  Over the years we've learned how to weed out beforehand those whom we detect are of a different "missions philosophy."  I could show you some emails I've had between myself and churches who've wanted to send groups down and how they've responded to some of my questions...

In our case the Mexican Drug Wars have effectively solved the short-term missions dilemma.  Simply put, 95% of the short-term missions groups stopped coming when the bullets started flying.  This says a lot in and of itself but, alas, that's a topic for a different time.

But this is obviously not the case in Costa Rica where my esteemed colleague Jamie lives and ministers.  Like I said above, she's a truth teller.  So brace yourselves!  If you are reading this and have been involved in short-term missions trips, you really need to READ THIS - it's actually a five-part series but it's worth it.  Jamie's purpose, in all seriousness, is not to discourage you but to give you a different perspective, well actually the real perspective, on what happens when you and twenty others show up in her country wearing matching t-shirts armed with boxes of tracts and eager to "impact" her nation in a ten day trip (well, nine days actually, because there's the beach & shopping day).  So let yourself be provoked but in the positive, redeeming sense of the word.  And don't forget to keep your sense of humor because one thing I've learned more than anything in missions work is that "if we don't laugh we will just go insane."  So ... without further ado ...

THE WHOLE CAN OF WORMS (OF SHORT-TERM MISSIONS) AT A GLANCE 

And, dear readers, as always, feel free to opine in the comment section below!        

Comments

[Nomadwayoflife]

To be fair I don't consider myself an Atheist or a Believer. I fall more along the lines of "Don't know, Don't care." However, I can honestly say that Jamie and her "Tyler Durden" approach are a strong part of the reason I have decided to waste my time with this book at all. I think if more missionaries kept it real and approached us like regular people with "issues" instead of leaping on us like we're sinners of the world with all the "holier than thou" business, a lot more people would be willing to do the same.