Mission vrs. "Immersion" trips...

Not sure where this came from, but Doug Kirsch passed it on to me... Good thoughts.

"ok, so you take a group of kids every summer to some camp or something and they do stuff for poor people. then they leave and never see those people again. your kids sure feel good and i know the people who get help from mission trips feel better... for a while. mission trips are really like a band-aid. they have their place covering up minor scrapes and cuts, but poverty is a wound. poverty is more like losing a limb and that fresh coat of paint just can't give someone their limb back.
in summer 2005 i'm planning on taking my youth group on an immersion experience. we'll get to do some service projects, but this trip is about more than thinking we are the answer to other people's problems. this is about experiencing the reality of poverty. this is about trying to wrap our minds around the problem. this is about changing the way we live to be part of the solution.
We will be going to El Paso, where the 1st and the 3rd world meets. Youth will have to wrestle with questions of justice, economics, immigration, policy and try and find where and how faith fits into and directs all of it.
"[Mission trips] can fool groups into thinking they have more to offer and more to give than the people they are "helping". Immersion trips respect and honor the people a group meets, because each relationship begins with balance and respect for the other person." (from www.tamethemonster.org) Immersion trips also challenge us to see the bigger picture of living out God's justice in a complex and confusing world. It challenges us to realize that it's not about us and making ourselves feel better, but about working to bring God's Kingdom here on earth the way it is in heaven."