Short Term Missions - Part 1

 I have been fortunate to know and call friends, several career overseas missionaries. These are individuals and couples who felt the call of God to ministry in cross-cultural contexts in countries where they did not spend their childhood. It is a unique and special calling that God equips people for to continue the mission of reaching all people with the love and truth of Jesus Christ. 

Toward the end of high-school I began to be fascinated by the world outside my hometown. I watched many episodes of Lonely Planet Pilot Guides, a travel television show where the host goes to a foreign country and engages in a variety of experiences to display the beauty of said country. Ian Wright was my favourite host. I recorded dozens of episodes on VHS tapes and watched them over and over until they wore out. 

In my last year of high-school I took the opportunity to participate in my first short-term mission trip, a 2-week trip to Haiti. There were several teens that came with, and we were led by an elderly German bricklayer named Hans Steinke. We went to a Church of God orphanage in St. Ard that was led by a Jamaican lady named Phyllis Newby. She loved the Lord deeply and cared well for those children. 

This was the first time I’d been out of Canada (other than to the USA) and boy was it an eye-opener. I had never been a minority before! My white skin and tall height made me VERY conspicuous when walking down the street or through a village. The language was French / Creole so I had some awareness with my minimal French from school, but it took a lot of effort to understand many of the local people. The poverty was at a level I’d never witnessed. There was so much to take in and it took some time to process the environments and circumstances in which the people lived.

We had come with the intent to build, but the tools were in short supply so only two people at a time were able help build the new washrooms. The rest of us found ways to help and we played with the children in the orphanage. We taught English classes at a local school. We took a trek into the mountains and helped run a medical clinic for people from remote areas. It broadened my ideas of short-term mission’s trips, which up until then I thought were meant to go build stuff for people. 

Something happened as we engaged in that environment with those people…

Our hearts grew bigger.