Why, after 5 trips to Jamaica, did I feel like I didn’t really spend my week being as productive as I could have been? Now for those of you reading this who supported me on the trip- I urge you to keep reading, this post isn’t as bleak as that first sentence may lead you to believe.
But in all seriousness, I walked through my latest week in Jamaica wondering why things felt so different. I’ve taken several trips now that follow the Helping without Hurting in Short-Term Missions video series curriculum on RightNow Media. This series is based on the book, When Helping Hurts, which puts a spotlight on poverty alleviation around the world. The video curriculum specifically focuses on training and developing teams in a model of doing short-term missions work that helps to empower local leaders and support long-term missionaries in the field.
Acknowledging the truth in this video series has been easy for me in the past and I believe that the series speaks a lot of truth into the students who take this trip each year. However, my attitude toward the trip this year felt different from the very beginning. I found myself asking the question, ‘Why does a mission trip quit feeling missional?’ The question felt so weird and dirty to say out loud given that I’ve gone on this trip 5 separate times now over the past 7 years.
More specifically, I was walking into this year’s trip feeling less and less like I was going on a mission trip and more like I was just going back to Jamaica to visit friends in country.
I felt weird about that all week. I felt guilty that maybe I shouldn’t have been a leader on the trip.
It wasn’t until the very last day of our trip that I finally got some clarity and felt resolve toward this question and it came in the form of a conversation with a long time friend. Andrea and I have known each other for 6 years now. We were both heavily involved at UNI and ran in the same social circle through college. She’s someone who’s thoughts and opinions I value hearing because I know that she will be honest with me in conversation and tell me how it is- not mincing her words to make someone feel better about themselves.
Standing in the lobby of our hotel, I shared with Andrea that I had been feeling like I was just visiting friends on the trip and that the missional side of it was missing this year. In previous years going to Jamaica, I was asked to build relationships with our team, the students, the teachers at CCCD and with those engaged in full time ministry in Jamaica- and I did. I know their names and parts of their story. I’ve built friendships with them and am excited to see them when they’re able to make trips to the states to visit and when I get to visit them in March. These relationships took years to form, but in making them, the trip evolved from a mission trip to a foreign country to a trip to visit some friends. Friends who are just living their own lives in a different part of the world. They work there, they go to school there, and they have their own community there.
They’re not less than me. They’re not better than me. They’re equal to me.
Processing this reality with Andrea helped me to better understand why I was feeling they way I felt about the trip. She then hit me with some more truth- my role as a leader on this trip was about being missional with the students we bring.
Like I said before, I’ve gone on the trip several times and have become friends with some of those living in Jamaica. But as a leader on a college-aged mission trip, my purpose on the trip shifts a bit from focusing on building relationships with those living in Jamaica to leading the college students we bring as THEY build those new relationships.
On a trip where I thought I had already grasped the concept of HE > me (John 3:30), I learned even more how much bigger God is. This trip evolves. The people change. But our God remains bigger than any of that. Back in 2016, this trip helped me better understand how God was at work in my own life and now, it’s really neat getting to watch God use this trip to work in other people’s lives too. I was still able to continue building my friendships and relationships with the student, teachers, and missionaries, but at the end of the day, my long term mission work is the college students we take down to Jamaica. In Jamaica this year, I walked alongside some college students who finally had space in their life to process how God was at work in them. They were able to experience a new culture for the first time and begin seeing how others in a different part of the world worship.
To get back to the point that I made at the very beginning of this post, it’s completely okay that I didn’t feel as productive in Jamaica this year as I have before because this year, I began recognizing my new purpose serving as a leader on the trip. I spent so much more time this year than ever before in conversations with our college students and now that I’ve been back in America for a month, I have been able to continue those conversations as the students readjust back to their life here.
Serving on a missions trip looks different for everyone and I am very thankful for the friendships I have made down in Jamaica and the fact that I get to continue those year round. I’m also thankful, though, that I get to continue serving our college students now that we are back in America by being in community with them and encouraging them to continue exploring their own faith journey.