Yesterday Em and I took T out to lunch. It was supposed to be a trip to the bank, but things at work were crazy so we skipped the bank and had a very quick lunch. While at McDonald's (I did say VERY quick!), T looked at me and said, "Do you want to go to -------- this summer?" Now, --------- is a country where our church has a missionary family and we know this family pretty well. We've had many discussions about taking a team to this particular country, none of them all that positive. After I sat there, with my "Ummmmmm" face T looked at me and said, "I don't want to go their either, but they REALLY want us to come."
Now, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, so I'm not going to mention who this family is - we love them! It's just that there are so many things to consider, I think, when we are taking kids under the age of 18 outside of the country. This is the first summer we are actually considering taking our own children with us - sort of an experiment. It would be my first missions trip out of the US since I went to Acapulco during college (yes, it was really a missions trip - haha)! T and I have many discussions about different countries and why or why not we would take a group there.
Here are some of our thoughts - I won't tell you who came up with these:
1. Do we take a group of under 18's to a country that is closed to missions? I worry sometimes that we might put missionaries in compromising positions. Kids that age don't always practice constraint, especially in new and uncomfortable situations. We are especially concerned when taking very affluent, suburban kids into conditions that are adverse or full of poverty. I mean, if we want to expose them to that, we can take them to any city in the US! I think it's a bit drastic when we take them out of the country, to a place where they don't know the culture and language and ask them to "help" these people. They have no context for that, and a short term trip really isn't helpful to anyone.
2. Are the missionaries we are serving aware of what they are getting themselves into? We've had some missionaries specifically ask for high school age kids because they LOVE to work with them. I'm pretty comfortable with that. But there are others that I'm not so sure about. After talking with them, they are used to college age groups who are comfortable around college age and above people, or they've only had older adult groups. High school groups are different. Period. I'm not really sure how to explain that to a missionary.
3. Can a group we take really enhance what the missionaries in said country are trying to create? Many times, the answer to this is yes. Sometimes, though, it's just not a good match. It's hard to answer this one until you have a group and you know the needs. Typically, for us, this all comes together somewhere around May or June - we are a bit behind!!
4. Is the country safe? When an old group of 18+ year olds go away, parents see things differently (kind of) then when a minor is traveling. These days, it's not exactly a wonderful thing to be an American when traveling abroad. On my missions trip to Acapulco (really, it was!), the US invaded Iraq for the first time while I was away. It was uncomfortable. We went from being these cool Americans one day, to being some war-mongering enemy the next. It was weird, and that wasn't even in a Muslim nation. I have some serious reservations about taking high schoolers into Muslim nations - am I crazy? or just thinking like a mother??
5. Expense - I can't say I've actually brought this one up with T yet. It is getting incredibly expensive to travel, especially for a group for 10 days. Can we spend that money more usefully somewhere else? Each year it has become more difficult to raise the $$ we need. We've gone from cup overfloweth to counting pennies. Last summer we a tad bit behind, but covered expenses with the year before's overflow. I don't want to abandon missionaries around the world, because I truly believe it is well worth it to minister along side them, and it's really an extraordinary experience for these kids, or we wouldn't be doing it. I'm just wondering if we shouldn't really decide if a trip is affordable, safe enough or helpful enough before going.
Which brings me to my last point: prayer.
I firmly believe that none of these things really matter if God is calling you to go. T and I sit around coming up with as many reasons for "to go or not to go" that we sometimes miss the mark here. We need to pray more. And more. And more. Last year we wasted a bunch of time trying to decide whether or not to go to Brazil. I didn't actually go, but I was here for every discussion about it! We didn't know what to do until we finally committed it to prayer wholeheartedly. We finally decided to let God decide and we got this incredible email from the this family that really said what we were looking for, and we just knew we had to go.
God can handle the little details that we pine over, in fact He wants to handle them, His way. I'm really looking forward to what God has in store for next summer. If it's scary, then it's scary, but only because we look at it the wrong way. If our focus is glorifying Him, how can we go wrong? I'm not saying it will be a perfect trip, but I know we can count on a character building experience, whatever that may be. I'll keep you all posted about where we end up going, as soon as God let's us know!
Now, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, so I'm not going to mention who this family is - we love them! It's just that there are so many things to consider, I think, when we are taking kids under the age of 18 outside of the country. This is the first summer we are actually considering taking our own children with us - sort of an experiment. It would be my first missions trip out of the US since I went to Acapulco during college (yes, it was really a missions trip - haha)! T and I have many discussions about different countries and why or why not we would take a group there.
Here are some of our thoughts - I won't tell you who came up with these:
1. Do we take a group of under 18's to a country that is closed to missions? I worry sometimes that we might put missionaries in compromising positions. Kids that age don't always practice constraint, especially in new and uncomfortable situations. We are especially concerned when taking very affluent, suburban kids into conditions that are adverse or full of poverty. I mean, if we want to expose them to that, we can take them to any city in the US! I think it's a bit drastic when we take them out of the country, to a place where they don't know the culture and language and ask them to "help" these people. They have no context for that, and a short term trip really isn't helpful to anyone.
2. Are the missionaries we are serving aware of what they are getting themselves into? We've had some missionaries specifically ask for high school age kids because they LOVE to work with them. I'm pretty comfortable with that. But there are others that I'm not so sure about. After talking with them, they are used to college age groups who are comfortable around college age and above people, or they've only had older adult groups. High school groups are different. Period. I'm not really sure how to explain that to a missionary.
3. Can a group we take really enhance what the missionaries in said country are trying to create? Many times, the answer to this is yes. Sometimes, though, it's just not a good match. It's hard to answer this one until you have a group and you know the needs. Typically, for us, this all comes together somewhere around May or June - we are a bit behind!!
4. Is the country safe? When an old group of 18+ year olds go away, parents see things differently (kind of) then when a minor is traveling. These days, it's not exactly a wonderful thing to be an American when traveling abroad. On my missions trip to Acapulco (really, it was!), the US invaded Iraq for the first time while I was away. It was uncomfortable. We went from being these cool Americans one day, to being some war-mongering enemy the next. It was weird, and that wasn't even in a Muslim nation. I have some serious reservations about taking high schoolers into Muslim nations - am I crazy? or just thinking like a mother??
5. Expense - I can't say I've actually brought this one up with T yet. It is getting incredibly expensive to travel, especially for a group for 10 days. Can we spend that money more usefully somewhere else? Each year it has become more difficult to raise the $$ we need. We've gone from cup overfloweth to counting pennies. Last summer we a tad bit behind, but covered expenses with the year before's overflow. I don't want to abandon missionaries around the world, because I truly believe it is well worth it to minister along side them, and it's really an extraordinary experience for these kids, or we wouldn't be doing it. I'm just wondering if we shouldn't really decide if a trip is affordable, safe enough or helpful enough before going.
Which brings me to my last point: prayer.
I firmly believe that none of these things really matter if God is calling you to go. T and I sit around coming up with as many reasons for "to go or not to go" that we sometimes miss the mark here. We need to pray more. And more. And more. Last year we wasted a bunch of time trying to decide whether or not to go to Brazil. I didn't actually go, but I was here for every discussion about it! We didn't know what to do until we finally committed it to prayer wholeheartedly. We finally decided to let God decide and we got this incredible email from the this family that really said what we were looking for, and we just knew we had to go.
God can handle the little details that we pine over, in fact He wants to handle them, His way. I'm really looking forward to what God has in store for next summer. If it's scary, then it's scary, but only because we look at it the wrong way. If our focus is glorifying Him, how can we go wrong? I'm not saying it will be a perfect trip, but I know we can count on a character building experience, whatever that may be. I'll keep you all posted about where we end up going, as soon as God let's us know!
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