The Teen Mission Trip

First of all, it's Christmas Eve, so... FELIZ NAVIDAD from JP and Jessi in Mexico!!!

Ok, so lots of us in my generation, the 35 and under crowd, have had the opportunity to go on a youth group mission trip.  They were school mission trips in my case, as I went to a Christian high school. 
Beginning in January, certainly many youth groups will start planning thie trips to: the Mexican bodrer (for youth groups on a limited income), the jungles of South America, China, or the ever awaited Africa trip.  So, to prepare the youth leaders for these trips, I've come up with a list of certain things to look out for that happen on virtually every teen mission trip.  (This list is made with a hint of sarcasm, just so you know!  However, I've experiences lots of these on the trips I took as a young person!)

1.  Knowing for sure that God has called you to live forever in the country you visited.  You fight with the team leader while getting on the plane/bus, determined that you won't be going home because God called you to stay.  Right now.  Despite the fact that you are 16 years old and your parents are counting on your poor leader to bring you home in one piece.

On a mission trip you get to see cool things in foreign countries that you'd only ever seen in history class before!  Like what's underneath downtown Mexico City:

And famous indigenous pyramids!

2.  Meeing "That Hot Latino Guy."  The cutest guy in your mission trip location gives you a hug on your last night in the country as you're crying because you don't want to go home.  He automatically becomes a very special person in your life.  When you get home, you refer to him as "My (Mexican/Guatemalan/Argentine, or wherever you went) Boyfriend."  Did I mention that you probably can't even pronounce his name correctly?  The "my latino boyfriend" thing lasts until 6 months later when you receive pictures of his wedding to his pastor's daughter in your email.

3.  Falling in love with someone from your mission team.  Everyone is out of their comfort zone and feeling like they need some sort of constant in their lives... so why not hook up with one of the other team members?  You can dream about getting married and immediately coming back to the country you're visiting to live forever in the orphanage, considering all of the 150 kids to be yours. 

4.  Bathroom stories.  At least one person gets violently ill on the trip.  Could be throwing up, explosive diarreah, etc.  Everyone whispers about now knowing what actually happens if you drink the water.  And once the person gets better, everyone starts fessing up to their own diarreah experiences, making for an evening team meeting full of exciting poop-stories!

5. Either being shocked that there's actually Facebook in: Brazil, El Salvador, Kenya, China, etc. OR wondering how someone can actually LIVE without an iPhone.  Mission trip teens generally fall into one of those two categories.  They either figure that no one in their new country has any idea what a computer or cell phone is, OR they don't understand how the people can NOT be connected to Facebook and Twitter all day via their hi-tech mobile device.
On a mission trip you get to do things that you'd never done before!  Like hold a snake around your neck:

Or paddle in a hand-made canoe in the Amazon rainforest!

6.  You're automatically an expert in the local language upon returning to the States.  You learned a few greetings in: Swahili, Thai, Portuguese, or whatever language is spoken where you went on your 10-day mission trip.  Immediately you put said language on your Facebook page under the "languages I speak" section.  Even though if you heard that language being spoken, you probably wouldn't even recognize it...

7.  You refuse to live like a gringo when you go back to the States.  You shower with cold water.  Quit using the dishwasher.  Hang your clothes outside to dry.  Hand-wash your clothes.  Eat beans and rice for every meal (canned refried beans, and Minute Rice, because you have no idea how to make either from scratch).  Complain about how you can't find a good mango or pineapple in the States.  This all lasts about 2 weeks, until the weather starts getting cold; you get sick from freezing-cold showeres; it takes 3 days for your clothes to dry, etc.

Ahh, teen mission trips.  They can change a person's life forever.  Or for the two weeks that it takes them to realize that they're still in high school, in the United States, and things are probably going to go better for them if they live like a normal US high school student. 

Mission team to Honduras in 2003:

Did I ever fall into any of these catagories during/after a mission trip as a young person?  Haha, YES!  Especially #7!  My mom can vouch for me eating weird things, refusing to use the dishwasher, hanging clothes out to dry, etc.  (Never did the cold shower thing though - the tap water in Oregon is ALWAYS FREEZING!) 

It's interesting to see these things happen to teens coming to Mexico for a mission trip!  By the way, "Mexico Mission Trips" are now kind of lame...  Who wants to go to Mexico when you could go to the Amazon rain forest or Thailand or Rwanda (which you have no idea where it even IS on a map!)  As a missionary, I sometimes have mixed feelings about teen mission trips - do they really do any good for either the gringos or the people of the country being visited?  But, I think they're ok.  I probably wouldn't be a missionary today if I hadn't gone to El Salvador a few times as a college student.  (And Mexico a couple times in high school, where I swore I would NEVER live in Mexico!  See, God has a funny sense of humor!  Now I don't want to NOT live in Mexico!)

I wouldn't know these awesome people, and consider them my family, had I not gone on a mission trip! 

So I suppose that in most cases there's more benefit from teen mission trips than there is harm done!  The people in the country visited generally get some help with: having a house/church/camp built, or exposing kids to the Bible; and the gringos generally get a small glimpse of a culture that is different than their own, they see how other people live, and experience the joy of giving.  :)