Voluntourism Is Not the Same as a Mission Trip

When I shared this article http://almost.thedoctorschannel.com/14323-2/ on Facebook, it seemed to resonate with a lot of my Facebook friends, and I had credibility because they know all the mission work I have done over the years.  However, I felt the need to write about this topic from a Christian viewpoint. While I agree with most (not all) of what this author has to say about voluntourism, she is coming from a secular and humanitarian standpoint.  In my case, all of my mission trips, both domestic and international, both relief and development, including my three year commitment to serve in Nicaragua with Food for the Hungry, were because of my faith.  When you undertake a service trip because of your faith, it would seem that a few things are done differently. 

It would appear that the secular reason for doing such excursions is similar to too many Christians.  Many Christians say, “We’re going to do good because we’re Christians and we’re supposed to do good things.”  The humanitarian reason seems to be that we do good because we should help our fellow human, and so, again, we’re “supposed” to do good things.  I can’t address the secular reason; however, my congregations have repeatedly heard me address the first one.   There are lots of good things we can do because of our faith in Jesus.  Nonetheless, just because it’s a good thing doesn’t mean that God is calling us to do it.  I firmly believe that the good things we do as Christians should be the good things that God specifically calls us to do.  God doesn’t call all of us to serve regularly in a soup kitchen or to work for non-profits or to travel, domestically or internationally, on a mission trip. There are plenty of Christian organizations (I researched thirty of them before choosing Food for the Hungry) that do their good work without ever stopping to think about which good things God is calling them to do. God doesn’t call us all to the same work. 

As Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 12, God gave each of us different gifts, and we are to use those gifts to serve God.  I became a teacher because teaching is one of my gifts, and so I shared it as a school teacher, and now as a pastor. To figure out just where and how to serve, you have to find where your gifts and passions intersect with the world’s needs, to paraphrase Frederick Buechner (“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet”).  The idea is to match your skill set with a need, and go from there.  My first international mission trip was as an interpreter (because I was studying Spanish) for a medical team, which my mom was part of because she is a nurse.  When I signed up with Food for the Hungry, we looked at Spanish-speaking fields that needed a teacher, and that’s how I ended up in Nicaragua. I taught in Nicaragua because I was a teacher in the U.S.; I hold two degrees in education.  It always greatly bothered me to meet untrained American English teachers, those who think that just because they speak English, therefore, they can teach it.  I had to submit my U.S. teaching license to get my Nicaraguan visa to show that I was a skilled worker in their country.

Perhaps when development work is approached this way, you can then avoid the grieving, bitter undercurrent in this author’s writing.  She seems to wish someone had told her that what she was spending her time and energy and money on was pointless and unhelpful to the supposed recipients.  It was almost ironic to see that her time in Uganda was included in her author profile at the end of the post. Thankfully, some Christian organizations do make it a point to make sure that what you spend your time, energy, and money on is beneficial to the host country.  As she points out, do your research and find out if the mission agency is “well-respected on the ground and is truly invested in the people or community it is there to help.”  If it’s a Christian one, I’d add to make sure that they are theologically sound, as well.  

The only way any organization can do this is by being in relationship with the host country (because otherwise how would you know what the needs are?).  When you do a mission trip because of your faith, because you believe and trust God is calling you to do this, then one of the things you know (or learn) is about the importance of relationships.  On all of my trips it’s always been stressed that one of the goals is the building of relationships, both with your teammates and with the locals.  I’ve worked alongside a homeowner helping to repair his house after Hurricane Floyd.  My college spring break mission trip to Mexico, which  was perhaps the most voluntouristic because all we did was paint a new parsonage for the local pastor, brought our team, made up of two college bible studies, together in a way that studying the Bible had not.  My sending church, who sent me to Nicaragua and later into ordained ministry, has been sending teams to Costa Rica for at least fifteen years to work with a missionary there whom we support. We’ve gotten to know him, his family, and his local church quite well over the years, and he always stops at our church when he’s State-side.

Mission trips, for me, have never been so much about being a tourist and sight-seeing as being a student and observing.  I’ve been known to ask all kinds of questions about what I see or what I’m about to eat and I often sit up front with the bus driver to get a better view of the land (and avoid motion sickness, to be perfectly honest).  I’ve always felt more like a guest than a tourist, which I suppose is related to how I approach such trips.  I am a privileged guest, not someone who knows how to do things better, because the truth is I don’t always know the best way to do things in my host context.  The three year plan for Nicaragua was to teach for two years in Nicaraguan schools, and then do teacher training the third year, since most local teachers had received limited, if any instruction in methodology.  Yet I wasn’t going to tell them how to teach until I had first taught in their classrooms. 

Finally, I really appreciate how the author distinguishes between the immediate need in relief work, in which case whoever volunteers for the job is great, and development.  Teaching people how to fish is important.  And yet the mission agency I served with went a step farther: our goal was to teach people to think about fishing, and so transform their world.  Development doesn’t go far enough, for Christians.  We don’t just want clean water for everyone, we want transformation.  We look for God’s kingdom come here, on earth, and that’s why we join in God’s work, where and how God calls us.