The measure of a good mission trip

When the Tohoku tsunami hit Japan in March 2011, Canadians Damon and Kafi Ealey were in Tokyo. After the tsunami, Damon led short service projects around the country to rebuild damaged buildings. Damon was a principal at an international school for the children of pastors and missionaries, and Kafi was a research scientist. Alongside their work, they were involved in church planting and helping disciple, mentor and support pastors. Before living in Japan, they were involved in short-term mission trips to the Czech Republic, Uganda and Kenya.

Working in other jobs while doing missions was important to the Ealeys and played a big part in their decision to move to Japan, where they lived from 2009 to 2019. Japanese culture is very work-oriented, and the Ealeys believed that if they were not working, it would limit their ability to meet people. Only one percent of Japan is Christian, and most people work long hours.

“If you go [to serve] in the traditional way, you’re never reaching that person who is working 40, 50 hours a week,” said Kafi.

Relational work

Christian Courier asked the Ealeys if they think there’s an important difference between short and long-term missions. Based on their experience, do short-term missions do more harm than good?

Damon thinks short-term missions shouldn’t be “used for anything more than vision and partnership.” By that, he means serving alongside people living in that nation, supporting local churches and building long-term partnerships. He says that if a mission trip is solely about saving and witnessing, then it can become a “waste of time” and “very ethnocentric.”

Damon shared a story as an example. He and Kafi were in Kenya with another couple, and he was working with one of the locals to build a trench. Each time they started, they were missing parts. So each time, they needed to walk to town. It was a long walk, and on the walk, they talked.

Damon began to get to know the man. They didn’t really accomplish anything as far as building the trench. One of the people on the missions team was very upset because they weren’t being efficient. But Damon believed their mission wasn’t about them getting things done, rather it was about “building relationships, and supporting people who are present.”

Damon continued, “A lot of short-term missions are about accomplishing a task or a goal, so that we can take pictures to show what we did: I think that’s what’s messed up.”

When he gets to know the people in a country, Damon says he walks away “with a deeper passion” and “prayer” for that place.

“I question the purpose of short-term mission trips sometimes,” Kafi added, “I question what they’re accomplishing. I question the money raised . . . I question if that is the best use of all of that money.”

Kafi went on to say, “I think we have to be so careful of not being ethnocentric . . . this idea of us going to countries bringing – not only the gospel, because with the gospel comes your traditions and your culture and your thoughts, and imposing that on another culture, I think that there’s a danger there.”

Reasons to go short-term

Lionel Allsdaedt from Germany has done mission work with Youth with a Mission (YWAM). YWAM is a missionary organization that equips people to share the gospel with the world. For three years, Allsdaedt worked in Bible and discipleship schools and attended short-term mission trips to Ukraine (about six weeks), South Africa (nine weeks), Costa Rica (nine weeks) and England (ten days).

When asked about short-term and long-term missions, Allsdaedt stated, “I think of course, you can do short mission trips wrong and in a harmful way; you can also do this with long-term mission trips. If you go on a short-term mission trip, you work with local churches and ministries so that what you are starting can be continued, and if this is not guaranteed, then I don’t think you should go.”

However, Allsdaedt believes there are advantages to participating in short-term mission trips. Coming into a ministry with an outside perspective may allow you to support ministries in a way that full-time missionaries or pastors may not.

“On a lot of my short-term mission trips, I did counselling, and many people told me, ‘I never told somebody about that.’ Because I was only there for a few days, [it] opened different doors,” said Allsdaedt.

Before going on these trips, she took part in preparation that involved prayer and intercession for the nation, and a culture study to understand the community they were going into.

“The word mission is not actually used in the Bible so much,” said Allsdaedt, “I take it out of Matthew 28:19-20, where Jesus is commissioning his disciples to go into all the world to make disciples and baptize and teach them.” Allsdaedt believes that this isn’t always a call to do full-time traditional missions or ministry, but to do these things wherever you are.

Living missions

Now, Allsdaedt studies and lives in Peru with her husband, but is still a part of weekly church ministries and evangelism opportunities around the city. She still considers herself a missionary.

To Kafi, “missions” is simply living with the light of Christ and bringing that light to a people. Putting her kids in the Japanese school system, “meeting people in the community, going to their houses, having barbecues, the same way I would do in Canada, [missions] is just me doing that intentionally in another country.”

Damon shared, “God’s given [each of] us a skill. Kafi’s a scientist. Being a Christian doesn’t mean you give up science. In a missional setting, oftentimes people say, ‘you need to give up everything and serve Jesus,’” but God has given us each our giftings and skills.

When I went on a short-term mission trip to Thailand in 2024, we travelled around the country to be a part of various ministries. We found that Thai people were often grateful to have foreigners visit them. A lot of our work consisted of teaching English to children. A teacher at one school mentioned that he was thankful that we were there. Sometimes his students don’t see the benefit of learning English, but he was glad that by meeting us, they could see that learning the language is valuable and can open doors for them.

Prior to going, we prayed to find out what God wanted for us when we were there. We kept hearing from God that we are going to plant seeds. To add to what had already been established.
Whether short or long, it’s important that mission trips are done well and alongside local ministries. You may not always see the fruits of what you start, but that does not mean that you aren’t planting seeds that are taking root.