One week can make a difference, both in your life and in the life of others...

Short-Term Mission...Lifetime Impact

by Ken Akers

How many times have you heard a missionary speak and thought, “I wish I could go.” But for various reasons, you don’t feel God calling you to move to Africa, Japan, or some other location across the globe.

Not long after my wife Sandra and I were married, we heard about the need for an optician to go to Africa as a medical missionary. As a Christian optician who wanted to share the gospel, it seemed like a logical choice. But when I checked into the position, nothing came from it. Looking back over my life, I realized it wasn’t what God wanted.

While I have always been willing to go to the mission field, I never felt God leading me into a missions career. Besides, I didn’t have the education or speak another language (as an eastern Kentucky native, I am still working on English). Eventually, I concluded God didn’t want me anywhere but where I was.

Short Termer

Then in 1995, I had an opportunity to go on a short-term mission trip to Russia. It was both life changing and eye opening. The next year, I went to Mexico twice on mission trips. Through these experiences, I began to see that I didn’t have to move to a foreign country to be involved in missions. By going and spending a few days or weeks, I could make a difference.

Not only did I share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I was an encouragement to the full-time missionaries and people in the local churches. And I found out I could even bless the folks back home by allowing them to become part of the ministry by supporting the trips financially.

Since those early experiences, I have been blessed to take a number of trips to many different fields. Then in 1999, I was introduced to missionaries in Haiti. God had spoken to me through every field I visited, but He gave me a special love for Haiti and the Haitian people. On one of the first trips to Haiti, I asked our missionary host how he thought a vacation Bible school would go over.

Ten years later the week-long event averaged 566 Haitian children each day! While I don’t pretend that going for a week or two is the same as moving to the field, short-term missionaries can make a difference.

The Danger Zone

Short-term missions work is not without challenges. On my first trip to Russia, the military and the local police harassed us on several occasions. Once, armed soldiers stood in front of our bus so we couldn’t leave for our next destination.

On my most recent trip to Russia, our passports were taken and kept overnight—not good! That same year, on a trip to Cuba, government officials met us at the gate and refused to allow us to leave the airport. Our passports were confiscated, and we were put on a plane out the country the next morning. We never even left the secured area.

I’ve spent numerous nights on the ground or the hard floor of an airport. I’ve been hexed by a Haitian voodoo witchdoctor and walked to the top of “terrible mountain,” only to rest my weary bones on the bare floor of a mud hut.

Lifetime Impact

But I have also been blessed to see people on the streets of Russia respond to the preaching of God’s word. I have seen demons cast out of young men in Haiti and later rejoiced to see them accept Christ as Savior. I have witnessed discouraged pastors rejuvenated and excited by our visit, and I smiled back at members of international congregations who were encouraged to learn that people half a world away are praying for them and supporting them.

Don’t get the wrong idea! You don’t have to sleep in a mud hut or climb a mountain on every mission trip. In France, we stayed with missionaries and church families in their beautiful homes and were treated like royalty. On our last day in France, as we made preparations to leave following the morning church service, a lady approached with the missionary. She and her family had hosted us in her home, and I knew she spoke English. At first, I couldn’t understand why she wanted someone to interpret. The missionary explained that she wanted to tell me how she felt in her own language so she could use the right words.

With great emotion, she thanked me for coming. She said she didn’t understand why anyone would leave family behind, spend money to travel, and work as hard as we had for someone they didn’t know. She called our team a miracle from God. I can’t tell you how I was humbled by her words.

I will be the first to tell you that a short-term missions trip is not the easiest way to spend “vacation” time. It is hard work, often uncomfortable, and sometimes difficult. Yet God has a way of sending blessings when and where you least expect them. Every time I go on a short-term mission trip, I go with the intentions of blessing others. But I have never returned without receiving a blessing myself.

You can get involved in short-term missions in a variety of ways. Free Will Baptist International Missions sends teams periodically. Teens and college students can get involved in E-TEAM (Teens Equipped and Active in Missions) or CMP (College Missions Program), also sponsored by the International Missions department. Master’s Men sponsors short-term mission trips, and other Free Will Baptist organizations like Impulse International (OH) and Bridge Builders (OK) regularly take trips.

Ask God what He wants you to do. Maybe he wants you to become a career missionary, but perhaps he just wants you to go for a little while.

About the Writer: Ken Akers is the director of Free Will Baptist Master’s Men. Read more about his organization and their mission at www.fwbmastersmen.org.