Often times, volunteers have been known to just “appear” at the doorsteps of many global servants without our Short-Term Mission office knowing they had planned to travel. The desire to serve can be so overwhelming that some basic important and necessary steps and preparation are overlooked. Those doorstep surprises can have negative impact on the ministry as well as our global servants and their families. A spontaneous thousand mile journey can land volunteers in cross cultural quick sand, screaming “OUCH” for weeks. These surprised visits can also have damaging impact on the hosts for months.

Can you imagine for a minute, that one day you have a group of ten or twenty strangers knock at your front door with a van load of luggage, unexpectedly? I am sure a multitude of questions, phrases, comments would go through your mind as well as basic logistical needs to attend to…

Can you imagine a group of ten strangers arriving at your doorstep, whom you had communicated with prior to their arrival, but surprising you with more luggage than you had room for, filled with items you specifically had asked not to travel with?

Can you imagine a small team of four or six individuals stopping by your place of employment when you and your colleagues are in the midst of processing a traumatic community event that took place two days before?

Ouch…Oops,..Not good.

The impact of ill prepared volunteers arriving on the mission field with wrong tools in their hands can be devastating.

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Before you live un necessary “Oops” we want to encourage you to knock at the doors of the Short-Term Mission team long before you decide to purchase an airline ticket. We are here to help you “Go with God” and embrace the charge of the Great Commission on short-term missions, not as tourists but as God’s ambassadors and humble servants. We are here to help you navigate cross-cultural nuances. Members of the Short-Term Mission team have collectively over 100 years of experience on the mission field and are multi-lingual. We can assist in the planning, organizing and help needed to  make the right connections with the global servants who are asking for help with their ministry.

Let us walk alongside you and assess needs, desires, skill sets, spiritual, emotional and physical preparations. Let us help avoid many “Oops & Ouch” before they become deep sink holes and muddy quick sand trenches.

These are hard to get out of when you are thousands of miles away from home, dealing with different laws, ways of life. Please take the time to sit with the STM team, check your assumptions,  take part in Zoom video chats, read articles, ask questions about the cross-cultural experiences you will have on the mission field and complete the proper forms to be eligible for medical evacuation and repatriation insurance before you leave the US. Let us be part of the sending team that will pray with and for you. Showing up ill prepared is not a healthy option Jesus would want you to make.

Let the transformative cross-cultural experience of serving God away from home be a positive one with adequate tools in your heart, hands and luggage.

The Short-Term Mission team can be contacted by phone at 610-768-2168 or by email at volunteers@internationalministries.org