I recently came back from six weeks overseas in East Asia. A lot happens inside of you when everything around you is completely different. There was a group of about twenty of us experiencing a new location, new people, new culture, new food, new schedule, new everything. The perfect setting for learning. Here are three of the major things I took away:
1. Vision is caught, not taught.
“You should care about international students!” “You should care! You should care!” - I feel like these are things that get repeated over and over and over again in ministries, often with no actual change because most people don’t care. Or do they?
In East Asia, we are the foreigners. We are the international students. That means: unable to communicate clearly with spoken language, awkward cultural taboo moments, food that we don’t like. In other words, the same things international students feel when they come to the United States.
After we experienced this for ourselves, it’s a lot easier to put ourselves in the shoes of international students who often come across as awkward, rude, or disconnected here in the states.
We get it now. No one taught us that. We caught it.
2. God isn’t hiding in America.
The temptation is to think that one is “bringing God” to a place like He’s not there already. I used to think that (I wouldn’t have said this out loud) America was the center of all the amazing things happening in the kingdom of God. Like all the missionaries sent around the world originated from here.
Well, uh, that isn’t true. We met Asian people with a vision to take the Gospel to the Middle East where loads of Westerners aren’t welcome. We talked to students whose parents and grandparents loved the Lord. We heard stories of boldness about the faithful who don’t speak a word of English.
The proper mindset is to enter a short-term trip thinking “I’m going to join in with what God is already doing.” The “bringing God” mindset makes us professionals. The “joining with God” mindset makes us servants.
God is global, and He’s not hiding in America.
3. Short-term trips matter in the long run.
I used to make fun of missions trips that only lasted for a few weeks because I thought it just meant people didn’t have the courage to pack up their bags and actually stay somewhere for the long term. I was wrong.
Our partner ministry told us that our short-term week sped up their work by about six months. Four weeks = six months.
Amazing.
Now, the fun part is to apply these things here in America.
