Where to go for a Youth Mission trip?

Full Question:

Where to go for a Youth Mission trip? Ok, recently I was sitting at home. God planted an idea in my head to help start a youth mission trip for our youth group. I immediately started researching and found a lot of sites that could help and contacted a youth leader that could help me. Ok, our youth group has people twelve and up, but more than likely our mission trip will be thirteen and up to avoid damaging them. The sites I found want us to go to places like Haiti and Uganda. We can go anywhere in the world. So, here's my question. Where should we go, Who needs us, how can we help, and why? we want to make a difference but a few main places I am looking into are Haiti, Uganda, Greece, and China. Can you help me?

Answer:

I like this question and I don't know how much my answer will help you. Anyway I will try my best to give a good answer for you.

The most important thing which I would like to share you is about, the purpose with such a mission trip. According to me, the purpose of every good mission trip should be to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to this world by mingling with them and by helping them. It should be a sharing of gospel with deeds. It should also be a trip which will help help to develop many good evangelists.

I will start answering your question one by one. First of all, when you choose a place of mission trip, never choose a rich place. If you choose such a place for mission trip, it will never help the missionaries and the people who you share the gospel. So avoid developed countries and metropolitan cities. Also never choose a place where there is possibility for you to get persecuted. I mentioned this because, if you share gospel and get persecuted in such places, there is a great possibility for the youth missionaries to lose their faith and hope. Make them go to such a place only after they became mature and were on fire for sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

As you told that you can take them anywhere and by considering their age and importance for a mission trip, I better prefer you a place in your own country where there may be some tribes or poor village side people. It was also best to start from our own nation according to the Bible. And in case if some of the youth get affected by some wounds, illness or so, you can easily send him home with the help of someone. There are also still possibilities for homesickness for youth in that age and it will create troubles if the trip is to some other countries. So I better prefer to start it from your nation.

I don't prefer Haiti and such places for the problems and sufferings in there is even much more than what you can do with some youths of 12 and 13. There is violence and other problems too in many places in Haiti due to poverty and financial crisis as consequences of the earth quake. I also don't prefer to take them to metropolitan cities where their are many people who don't need Jesus Christ. Their response may affect the youth to lose their future hope in sharing gospel to the world.

Who needs you is a great question. But if I give you the answer very simply from the word of God, the people who are sick, amputees, hard-working, illiterate, sinners, people with problems and sufferings etc. are the people who needs Jesus Christ. You can find such a type of people in a mission trip, only if you go to share the gospel in some tribes, poor villages and so, where there are people who are rejected from the developing countries of the world.

The main help you can do to them is to show them the way of life in Jesus Christ and to provide them a place in heaven. You can also supply them precious things like Love, Joy, Happiness, Peace, Hope and so on. On the other side you can also provide them essential medicines, Bibles(Mostly related to their language, if is not available in their language. Otherwise you can appoint an educated in their own tribe to translate to their language) and so on. I don't prefer food and money for the main reason that some tribes will not eat foods that are from outside their area and if you supply money, most probably they will depend other missionaries for money and will use it for evil things after you leave them. Try your best to provide them with spiritual things so that it will remain in them as long as they live.

I already mentioned you, how this will help the people and the another thing is that it will also help your youth to grow more in Jesus. If you give them a chance to preach the gospel to the poor and to help the poor and sick with necessary things, you can develop an attitude to preach gospel also in the poor people. It also make their heart more kind and to understand the problems and suffering of such people. Otherwise they will be only focused to share the gospel to the rich and they can never see the real situations of this world. This may also lead them to lose their faith when small troubles and financial crisis.

A mission trip to the tribes will also help them to understand the problems, situations and sufferings in their life. It will also help them to be more thankful to God for what they are and so on. But let me tell you, If at least a two of your youth dedicate themselves to help these tribes more after their education and all by these mission trip, there is no great success than that to get with such a trip.

And if such a missionary trip is not possible, better you take them to some historical places related to the bible, which is to Israel. This may help the youth of that age to confirm once again with the birth and life of Jesus Christ. It will also help them understand Bible more clearly when they read through that places mentioned in the Bible. It will also be a great trip. But I also have to mention that, Israel is never good and responding to the gospel of Jesus Christ to plan a mission trip to there as you know.

May God bless all of you to choose the right choice and have a wonderful mission trip.