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So you’ve got that burning itch to go into the world and make a big whopping difference? You’re ready, you’re willing, you’re narrowing down the options, maybe you’ve even bought a plane ticket. Here’s some advice (part 1, stay tuned later this week for part 2!) for the journey from Christine Jeske, veteran missionary and author of Into the Mud: Inspiration for Everyday Activists: True Stories of Africa.
BEFORE YOU GO:
1. What’s your trip for? There are different goals for short term mission trips, and it’s important to know where yours fits on the spectrum so you won’t be disappointed. Two main types of short-term trips are (1) Using called-for skills to accomplish a task, or (2) To see, learn, pray, and carry lessons home. Each are valid reasons to go, and you will likely have some blend of the two. But if you want to accomplish a task, check that the task is needed. Why not hire a local builder instead of coming to build if you have never built a house out of concrete blocks before? If you have expertise, though, ask around to match your skills with a need, whether you’re a water engineer, biology teacher, car mechanic, accountant, drug rehab counselor, web designer, or crochet instructor.
2. Explore options. Don’t leap into the first chance you find to go overseas just because you’re afraid the chance may never come again. Needs will always exist anywhere on the globe. Ask whether God has specifically called you to visit this need, as opposed to supporting others better equipped and already in proximity to the need. Be willing to wait or not go at all.
3. Are you ready to embrace some zeal? On the other hand, if you have a tendency to procrastinate and a history of wishing if only you had just done x, y, or z, maybe now is the time to seize the day.
4. Get help. Don’t try to do all this discerning yourself. Talk about it with friends, family, and your small group. Ask people to pray for you. Meet with elders you respect and ask their advice.
5. Learn. “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge,” says Proverb 19:2. Add knowledge to your zeal. Read all you can. Read about intercultural communication in general (try books by Duane Elmer, Paul Hiebert, or Charles Kraft). Find books on the culture you’ll visit and the issues you’ll encounter there. Pack carefully. Bring at least one formal outfit, not a suitcase full of ratty old clothes that you think will “blend in” with the poor, to convey a message that you respect people. Also ask yourself, have you learned to see God where you are? If not, don’t think you’ll magically be able to see him somewhere else.
WHILE YOU’RE THERE: 
1. Keep spiritual disciplines as habits. Your free time will be limited and others will lead you, so be more intentional than ever with snatches of free time. Set goals: perhaps a passage or book of the Bible that you want to read or memorize, or to journal every day. You will likely feel overwhelmed some or all of the time, and it’s okay to explain to your hosts that you really just need to be alone sometimes, even if that seems strange to them.
2. Listen, watch. Find long term missionaries and local leaders and ask what they are doing, how they feel, what they see God doing. Find heroes among the local people.
3. Be prepared to be cast aside. If you find you are not as involved as you hoped to be, count it a blessing. Better to be on the sidelines than do damage to the local culture or long-term work. Remember that you are not a hero, just an ordinary person who happened to be told and enabled by God to go. You may also be asked for more than you can give, like a school and a well. Whatever they ask, prayer is always something you can give.
4. Withhold judgment and your clever plans they’ve never thought of. If your main purpose was to serve with your specific skills, use those skills, but keep in mind that whatever expertise you have to offer does not make you an expert in living their lives. Remember that each culture has skills enabling people there to survive. When it comes to final decisions on how projects will run, always give them the final say. Letting others lead is a gift to them, validating instead of squashing their sense of worth which poverty makes fragile.
5. Keep life simple. Whenever possible, avoid bringing stuff for yourself that people there won’t have. Understand that some people in deep poverty will envy everything from your toothpaste to your shoes, but giving these away is not necessarily strategic. Always ask a missionary or local leader first before giving a gift. Misdirected gifts have the potential to create divisions as they stir up jealousy or plant seeds of dependency or desires for things that should not be priority. Also keep your time simple: Don’t overload yourself with reading and avoid the trap of spending so much time blogging or writing letters to family that you skimp on time to journal for your own sake.
Christine Jeske has worked in microfinance, refugee resettlement, community development, and teaching while living in Nicaragua, China, and South Africa. She and her husband Adam and their two children live in Madison, WI, where she tries to figure out how to live well now as a plain old North American. She also teaches and writes for publications including Relevant Magazine. Her first book, Into the Mud, shares stories of lives in South Africa being changed into something new, something holy, right in the midst of the muck of life.