By Wayne Stapleton
VP of Cross-Cultural Engagement and Emerging Leader Engagement
As we prepare to enter into a foreign country on a short-term mission trip, we train with excitement to enter into a different cultural context. We go with humility because we are going to be guests in a different culture. We prepare to be “on mission” for God in a different environment.
As part of NAB Gateway training with short-term mission trips, Randy Schmor describes three ways we might cope as we re-enter our home culture after these sorts of trips: Isolate (be alienated), Rebel (be angry), or Imitate (be re-socialized). But he also highlights a fourth option: be proactive. Certainly during a period of de-stabilization due to the tremendous differences we have experienced in a foreign culture, when we return home we need time to adjust, time to get back into our typical rhythms. But when we do, in what ways can the things we experienced really help us grow? We grow when we proactively see others the way Jesus sees them.
We are no less on mission when we land back home. Even though we re-enter our host culture when we come home, the way we see others should not really change from how we saw others on the trip. We have many opportunities to interact cross-culturally at home: in our neighborhoods, on our jobs, at our local stores and restaurants. Cross-cultural mission trips are great opportunities to experience other cultures, and they are most impactful not only when they change us as guests in other cultures, but also in our disposition toward guests in our home culture.
Work that happens on foreign soil is not meant to stay there. It is meant to continue at home. The mission work that happened on foreign soil happened in us. How can we continue the work? God can use our experiences abroad on his mission to prepare us for missional assignments in our own communities. While we all believe this, we also must admit that unless we are open to his movement, we can miss opportunities.
I have a friend who went on a short-term evangelism mission trip in Colombia. She had a great experience. It was so impactful, she was made more aware of evangelism opportunities when she came back home. She began to ask God who he was leading her to share with. She wanted to continue the work.
On a trip to a public library for homework, she asked God to make her sensitive to who he wanted her to share with. When she entered the library, she saw a young man by himself and wondered if he might be someone God wanted her to speak to. He saw her coffee, and he asked about it. She felt, “This must be the guy!” She struck up a conversation with him, and they ended up having a two-hour conversation about Jesus. None of her theology homework was done, but she did get some Kingdom work accomplished.
Mission trips can change us. They should change us. How much do we let them change us?
God expected the Israelites to treat foreigners differently because of their own experiences as foreigners:
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt (Deuteronomy 10:17–19 NIV).
God commanded love for the foreigner, love that comes from the God who loves the foreigner. He prefaces his command with statements about his character. It is significant that he is described as showing no partiality just before he commands his people to do the same. God expects his people to reflect his character to those they encounter. What is God’s character to those in our neighborhoods who are culturally different?
On short-term mission trips, we go to other cultures as guests; we learn what it is like to be a guest in another culture. Might our openness to other cultures when we are hosts change due to our experiences as guests in other cultures?
If you attend a mission trip in Japan, should your experience impact how you see Asians back at home? If you attend a mission trip in Cameroon, should your experience impact how you see Africans back at home?
What if the kinds of changes God wants in you on the short-term mission trip are not just about your attitude toward the people you were visiting overseas? What if God wants the work begun in you overseas to continue in you at home?
Here are six actions that can help us continue the work at home:
- Train Your Eyes – See different cultures as inherently valuable and meaningful because God loves the people who make up those cultures. We often only see what we are looking for. Invite God to help you see the cultural “other” with his eyes. Pray to empathize with their cultural experiences in light of your experiences as the cultural “other.”
- Prepare Your Heart – Be open to getting to know people who are culturally different. Be honest with yourself and God. Pray about any fear or prejudice you might harbor toward the cultural “other” in your community. Invite God to make you someone who has a growing tolerance, leading to love, for the culturally different in your community. Remember how you would have wanted to be received when you were in a different culture. Remember that all people bear the image of God.
- Guard Your Mouth – Speak less so you can experience them and their stories as valued. When you communicate with someone culturally different, give them a chance to share and be open to listening well. Be patient if English is challenging for them. Grow in your willingness to give an audience to people who are different without feeling the need to correct or oppose what you hear. Pray about when to speak and what to say. See yourself as God’s representative specifically in that sphere. Say what is valuable and helpful, when it is time.
- Tend to Your Time – Provide space for real relationship. Prayerfully ask God to show you how you can develop margin in your life so you can be open to making relational space for others. Be open to new friends who are different and who see things differently than you do. Even be open to changing your perspective on some things in light of your new friendships.
- Quiet Your Spirit – Learn to discern how the Holy Spirit is guiding your next steps. Actively work on growing in your ability to sense when the Holy Spirit is moving and what he is asking you to do in response. Seek quiet time where you can pray for wisdom. Even in social contexts, quietly pray for God’s guidance.
- Order Your Steps – Do what you sense the Spirit tells you to do. When you get clarity from the Spirit about a course of action, do not hesitate to be obedient. Let yourself learn by doing and give yourself grace if you make a mistake. “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God” (Romans 8:14 NIV).