Know your story. One of the most amazing and powerful things that you’ll be taking with you on this trip is your story. God has done things in your life. He has saved you from sin and destruction. He has invited you into His family. He has shown Himself to you in different ways. As you seek to connect and serve and truly help the people of the nation where you are going, think about your life. It may be that God has tucked away a treasure within your story that will be a blessing to others. It may help them to understand something more of who God is, or reveal something about Him that they couldn’t see before. It may even be instrumental in someone coming to faith, and being welcomed into God’s family. So here is a suggestion: take time to write out your story — at least as an outline. And then actually practice telling it out loud. See if you can come up with a 3-5 minute version of your story that you could naturally tell at a moment’s notice. You never know when this might be just the thing.

Know God’s Story. Have you thought much lately about the gospel? If someone asked you to share the gospel with them, would you be able to do so fluently? Again, let me suggest that you work on this. Take some time to actually write out the message of the gospel. Seriously. Then share this with a friend. If you can do it in a small group, that would be fantastic. Going further, consider these questions:

• How is the gospel good news?
• How are you feeling about the gospel these days (be really honest)?
  • Is the goodness of it obvious, and are you living out of the wonder of God’s love daily?  Or does it seem kind of blah?  Stale?  Ho-hum?
  • Are you wrestling with some doubts?  Do you wonder if it’s really true?
  • Do you question how it applies in a specific situation in which you find yourself?

If any of these thoughts stir up something that you’d like to process, talk to a friend who can help you sift through these important issues.

When it comes down to it, this is why you are going. You may spend your time checking people into a medical clinic or building a school or playing tag with kids or feeding hungry people. But let’s be honest — the money you raised could have been sent and provided for others to do these important jobs. You are going ultimately because you carry the good news of God’s love within you. This is what makes it worth it. Your story as part of God’s Story is unique to you, and it contains something precious that The Lord can use in the lives of others. So, if you are asking me how to get ready, I’d say become very fluent in the language of the gospel, and in how that is intertwined with the experiences of your life.

Learn. Another way you can prepare for your upcoming mission is to get in learner mode. Learn all you can about the place where you are going. Search the internet. Read the news. Find biographies about the great men and women who have influenced the area. Read about national church leaders and missionaries, both past and present. If possible, find people in your city from the place you are going, and spend time with them. There may even be a church or other gathering that predominately consists of people from there. Being a learner here will just increase your appetite to do the same once you are there, and that will make your mission more enjoyable and more fruitful. It is not mostly about the knowledge you will gain, but about the heart you will develop. You will be in the practice of learning from others, so that you can in turn share with them the treasures of your story and of His.

We would love to hear your stories. Feel free to comment below and check back in on this short term missions blog for more mission moments.

The post Getting Ready – Short Term Missions Blog appeared first on Believers World Outreach.

Getting Ready…

You’re going on a missions trip!  This is fantastic!  It truly is.  It is exciting, and maybe a little scary.  It is a good thing.  I want to encourage and challenge you from the beginning with a simple idea:  This is bigger than you.  This is more than an adventure and more than a way for you to make a difference and find your purpose.  This is not ultimately about you.  It is about Jesus.  And it is about those you are being sent to serve.  You are part of God’s great story of redemption, which has been moving forward since things went south in the Garden.  God is at work, rescuing people and bringing His Kingdom.  And He is inviting you to participate with Him.  And you are saying “Yes!”  A good start.  But, if this really is part of something infinitely bigger than you… If it is part of the cosmic struggle for the heart of man, how in the world do you prepare for such a thing?  How do you get ready to serve well?

I hope to give you a couple of simple suggestions to get started.  Again, I want to exhort you that this is important.  Time limitations are a reality.  You are busy, and there are a thousand things going on.  Yet, if you have decided that it is worth it to raise all the money, to give up your time, to travel to another part of the world to enter the fray with Jesus, you must acknowledge that it is worth it to prepare.  Because, to be honest, just going isn’t enough.  You want to be fruitful.  You want to honor Jesus in your service, and represent Him rightly.  You want to help people.  The truth is, sometimes we hurt people when we jump into missions service.  Sometimes we do harm.  We undermine the work of the Kingdom.  That is not our intent, but when we go unprepared it can be the result.  But that is not what is in store for you.  A couple initial thoughts…

Prepare your heart.  Like pretty much everything in the Kingdom, the real stuff happens on the inside first.  The best way to be ready to serve God in mission is to make sure your heart is in the right place.  Simply put, make room for God.  Today.  Don’t wait until you get there.  Do the things that help you to engage with Him each day — and throughout the day.  Read the Bible.  Pray.  Gather with other believers to talk about the Word, encourage one another, worship, pray for one another.  Fast.  Make time to be alone.  Surrender yourself to Jesus again.  And again.

Making room for God is a challenge for me.  Some days — even some weeks — I do well.  I spend time praying and reading the Bible, and I truly hear Him speaking to me.  I repent of my wrong thinking and my sin, and become aware of a new grace for others.  I begin to pay more attention to Him throughout the day — praying while I’m driving, thanking Him for small blessings, inviting Him into difficult situations.  I live in a confidence that I am His, and He loves me and is present with me.  And then there are the other days — and weeks.  Busyness takes over.  Deadlines loom.  Responsibilities pull me.  I get less sleep.  I feel more stressed.  I just don’t have time.  And when I don’t have time to get alone, I find that I become less aware of Jesus all day long.  I do less inviting and less acknowledging.  My time in the car is filled with the radio or figuring out what I have to do next.  Difficult situations become discouraging, and I get overwhelmed.  I complain more and thank less.

So, make room for God.  Allow Him to un-clutter your heart.  Give Him 20 minutes.  Or 45.  Or 60.  Make this a priority.  But please… please… do not do this as a religious duty.  Do not do it to gain His favor or His love or His acceptance or His grace.  You can’t gain grace by doing stuff for it.  That’s kind of contrary to the whole point.  Grace means you don’t deserve it and cannot earn it.  Instead, cultivate a hunger for God.  Guilt is a terrible motivator.  When I feel guilty about not having a quiet time, it does not actually help me to do better next time.  But when I accept His grace, it becomes easier, and I hunger for Him more.

In spending time with Him, take time to let Him communicate how He sees you, and what He thinks of you.  Please listen in to Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians:

For this reason I kneel before the Father,  from whom every family  in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,  and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19 NIV)

God wants to reveal to you how much He loves you.  He loves you deeply.  This is the foundation of your relationship with Him.  It is the foundation of your time spent with Him, and the foundation of your mission for Him.  It all rests on the revelation of His profound love for you.  For you.  This revelation is the first and best preparation for the mission trip.  Know that you are loved with a powerful love.

So what about getting ready?  Work on this:

1.  Know that God loves you today.
2.  Because of this, make room for Him today.

That’s a great start.  I’ll share a little more next time.

Thanks for reading.  God bless you!

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Is it possible for short-term missions to have any sort of lasting impact? Here at BWO, we believe the answer is a firm “of course!” Our short-term trips have often been a stepping stone for long-term missionaries, a way for people to test the waters of missions work.

Of course, there are many different reasons to go on a short-term missions trip. Some go to help out those less fortunate than them, some go to experience a different culture from the inside out, some go to draw closer to God, some go just to do something other than their usual routine (and wind up drawing closer to God along the way!), some go in order to gain appreciation for all that God has blessed them with.

And some go to see if a life of full-time missions is a life for them: whether they’re expecting it or not. It’s a little simplistic to say it’s like trying on a pair of jeans before buying them, but it’s along those lines. Two weeks in the mission field is nothing like a full-time commitment, but it definitely is like dipping your toe in the water of the big swimming pool of missions.

We’ve actually had several full-time missionaries come out of our short-term missions experiences. People like Danielle and Elizabeth, who are currently in South Africa training to plant churches; Holly, who spent time as an adoption advocate in Uganda and now is working with a prayer initiative in Ireland; Siouxanne, who turned her nursing degree into full-time work keeping kids healthy at a Ugandan orphanage; or Robyn and her husband Jim, who started a foundation in Uganda to love and nurture orphaned children; and Rita, who is working with Robyn and Jim.

We’ve also had families commit to full-time missions after participating in a BWO short-term trip. The Barretts, for example, who now live in Costa Rica assisting a church in Jaco Beach, or the Palmers, who moved to Uganda after spending two weeks with a BWO team in Costa Rica. In their words: Going to Costa Rica with BWO let us know our kids could do this. We were worried about how they would travel and adapt to a different culture, but we didn’t need to worry at all. They did great! And that was one of the many ways we knew we could follow God’s call to the full-time missions field.

The fact of the matter is, most people who go on short-term missions trips never become full-time missionaries, and if you sign up for a BWO trip, you aren’t signing your life away to the mission field. All you’re doing is signing up for a chance to let God change your heart and speak to you in a way you may not have heard otherwise. He has a plan for your life; you never know what He can do through a short-term trip.

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But possibly the scariest part of your missions trip is paying for the thing. It’s very easy to take a look at the total cost of your trip and start to shake in your boots, especially with our economy in the mess it’s in. Or, even worse, to give up completely, saying, “Forget it” there’s no way I can raise that much money.

The truth of the matter is, it’s a lot of money to raise: but it isn’t really up to you to pay your way on your trip. Yes, it’s up to you to do some work, sending out letters and emails, babysitting, mowing lawns, washing cars, and the many, many other money-making opportunities you have.

But the ultimate provider for your trip isn’t your family. It isn’t your friends, or the people you go to church with. It isn’t the driver of some random Toyota who shows up at the corner convenience store to let you go to work with your sponge and hose.

Your provider is God. Short-term missions sign-ups are down across the nation. The world is telling us this is a terrible time to try to raise money: but we’ve seen the opposite. You (hopefully) prayed about your decision to go on this trip, and in that instance, you opened up your support to His limitless supply. If God wants you to be there, He’ll provide a way.
We see this time and again here at BWO, and this year is no different. This is supposed to be a “down” year, but those who have signed up with us and who are doing the work they need to do are getting record responses in support. Over and over, every year, we see missionaries who weren’t sure they’d have the funds they need wind up with every penny, right on time. We even see it in our own budget!

The Bible tells us that we can plant seeds and water them, but that God is the one who makes the plant grow and produce fruit (1 Corinthians 3:6-9). So as you gather your support for your upcoming trip, just remember: you’re planting and watering. You do your part and let God do His.

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Children are hungry; orphans are caring for themselves in the midst of the pain of losing their parents; families are in dire need of clean water; treatable diseases are ravaging entire countries… the list goes on.

That is why we at Believers World Outreach feel so humbled and honored to be able to facilitate short-term missions trips this summer to the countries of Costa Rica and Uganda, in order to help provide practical solutions to these types of needs, as well as meeting the important need of sharing the gospel message to thousands of hurting people.

How can you help? While BWO has covered the administrative costs of each of these trips, we are still in desperate need of supplies to carry out our mission. Here are the areas where you can assist us:

• Medical Outreach. With four total trips this summer, each with a focus on meeting medical needs among people who have little or no access to medical care, we have a great need to purchase medicine and the talents of in-country physicians to diagnose and administer them.
• Vacation Bible School. At BWO, we take care to revisit the same places year after year, and we’ve seen long-term impact on children’s lives through our VBS outreach. Thousands of children participate in our programs, and we need to purchase supplies for snacks, take-home crafts, and other items.
• Construction. Our construction teams bring the strength, the knowledge, and the sweat but they cannot bring the supplies. This year, we plan on improving an orphanage and a church in Uganda and Costa Rica. The work we do can have eternal consequences.
• Gulu. The rebel war in Northern Uganda may be over, but its impact will still be felt for years. BWO plans on visiting this area to provide much-needed love and attention to a population teeming with former child soldiers. Our medical and VBS teams would appreciate any help you can give.
• Ongoing Missions. This year we are partnering with Calvary Chapel in Jaco Beach, Costa Rica to reach out to a community filled with partygoers and addicts, and to help our reach extend beyond our stay, we want to provide people with a small gift card they can redeem at CC Jaco.

These are just a few of the many ways you can help Believers World Outreach make a significant impact in a hurting world. Would you consider making a donation to help us reach these goals and minister to these people? Visit www.BelieversWorld.com and click the “give” button to learn more, or see the attached pledge form and return it at your convenience. Every penny you give will go to helping those in need. Can you help?

May God bless you richly,
Believers World Outreach

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God has made you unique… Why not use those gifts this summer on a short term missions trip? There are many places to serve on a Believers World Outreach trip. You can probably think of a million reasons why it’s a good thing to reach out beyond your own world into someone else’s. No one questions why sharing Jesus, delivering hope, or meeting a need is vital. But in our over-scheduled,trying-to-keep-all-the-plates- spinning while keeping all-the-balls-in-the-air life, why may not be the appropriate question. But instead, why not?

Why not respond to God’s call, why not live with no regrets, why not give a piece of yourself to some of the most deserving people on the planet: Perfect strangers! It’s what Jesus did. Compelled by love he sent to a place where no one knew him and started meeting all kinds of needs in all kinds of ways; wedding catering, marriage counseling, storm chaser, childcare activities director, you name it, if there was a need, Jesus filled it. He understands the roles, responsibilities and situations of life. And often, those hings are merely a way for us to respond to the call to e Jesus’ hands and feet meeting the needs of one another. Needs that exist next door or a world away. Believers World Outreach aspires to follow in Jesus seed-filling footsteps.

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