Not ready for an International Mission Trip? Here's how you can still get a global perspective locally.
While an international mission trip can be a wonderful experience for supporting the global church and developing God’s heart for people of every tribe, tongue, and nation, the reality is that not everyone is ready or able for this kind of endeavor. Crossing borders and even oceans comes with additional challenges. Fundraising, passports, immunizations, cultural training, safety, and maturity of the participants can all create heightened expectations during the planning process. This can mean delaying a trip abroad for a year or more while working out those details and giving your team other serving experiences that will prepare them for what is often a more intense mission experience. However, a delay in going to the “ends of the earth” does not need to limit your ability to provide a global perspective for your team. Serving domestically with an intentionality toward global missions can be a wonderful way to stoke that passion within your team and take preparatory steps for the eventual international destination.
If you find yourself waiting for the chance to get your passport stamped, here are a few considerations for how a domestic mission experience can give you international exposure and preparation.
Who you serve:
What is the target demographic of those who are served during a mission week? Organizations often have their flavor based on their location and type of work. If you have a heart for international work, you are more likely to serve immigrant and refugee families in a city compared to a small town or rural mission. The work is likely to look different as well. These international families are more likely to be renters and in entry-level jobs. This translates to work that could look more like a kid’s camp or food pantry and less like building a wheelchair ramp or repairing a roof. Pick an organization with a strong presence in areas of language learning, advocacy work, job creation, and after-school or summer kids programming. This kind of partnership will open up doors to serving those who frequently come from very different cultural backgrounds. Serving in a context where there are language barriers can be a challenge but is great preparation for international work in which many on your team will depend on a translator or the kinds of non-verbal and broken communications that can be both frustrating and rewarding at the same time.
This kind of work may also have a relational component that is its kind of challenge. Rather than task-based projects where the main goal is completing a set of goals, the work may have an interactive dynamic in which the task is complimentary or even secondary to the connection with the person being served. This becomes a great venue for developing international missions. Many international cultures prioritize relational connection which can be a struggle for Americans who are often focused on efficiency. In this way, relational-based serving forces participants to slow down and recognize that the receiver is the priority over the job. This kind of mission experience can feel like less was “accomplished” but is a venue for working through those expectations before doing so on the other side of the world at increased cost and potentially even more pressure to “get ‘r done”.
What you eat:
Food is a big deal in many parts of the world. American culture views food as a matter of taste and preference and not generally the central aspect of a social gathering. However, food has much more significance in other cultures where it is a huge part of hospitality and quite literally “setting the table” for relationships to be strengthened. This can create a point of tension for Americans who find themselves faced with food selections that are foreign or unappetizing in a context where not eating could be a barrier to ministry and friendship. These social moments can have implications for the long-term missionary efforts in these communities and not just for the short-term group.
A domestic mission trip with ethnic meals can be a great bridge to learning these lessons with lower stakes. Immigrant and refugee families bring their food culture with them to places like Nashville, TN, and establish restaurants to earn a wage, serve others who share their ethnic origins, and preserve their culture in a new landscape. Your team can support this kind of family-owned business while learning to eat diverse foods and engage in hospitality in a way that is different from a national fast-food chain. Your group can eat foods from more than one country within a week and have conversations around table manners, accommodating dietary restrictions, addressing picky eaters, and showing gratitude. Better to discover that food is a major barrier for a particular team member stateside than getting to a remote part of the world and having to work through the implications.
How you worship:
Like food preferences, we tend to be creatures who are comfortable with our own style of worship. Music style, seating, temperature, lighting, Bible translations, and the length of the preaching are aspects that may be unnoticed in our home church until faced with something quite different. Learning to find common ground in what is taught and engaging in worship when language or music is unfamiliar is an important part of maturing as someone who can recognize that the body of Christ is larger than our local expression of it. Domestic missions can be a venue to gather with believers from other locales and denominations and develop unity in worship. Learning to sing in a foreign language can be a wonderful practice for developing an awareness that God’s love is expressed beyond the English dictionary. The involvement of diverse ethnicities as part of the band, testimonies, speaker, and congregation can give further voice to the global community that we seek to serve regardless of location. Though these elements may be subtle to some, they can still raise a global consciousness that sets aside our ideal standard for the benefit of a gathering where everyone can participate.
Be encouraged that in your pursuit of future international mission opportunities, God can develop your team now even as you serve closer to home. Be intentional about who you serve, what you eat, and how you worship, and trust that these formative experiences will enable you to serve with that much greater impact when you finally take your passport and heart for Jesus beyond the borders of your own country.
Need some ideas of where to start? Students Living a Mission is committed to global and long-term community development in places as varied as El Salvador, Uganda, Kenya, India, and the Philippines. Our work in Nashville, TN is directly connected to those international efforts. Our unofficial motto is “We do here what we do there”. In other words, we are committed to the kinds of efforts locally that we want to see implemented around the world. Bring a team and come see for yourself how we minister with global intentionality in other ways as well. Find out more at www.slamweb.org
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