Thousand Acre Church

I was happily reading our church’s online newsletter when I was stopped by a blip about a short term mission trip to India this year. The cost of the 8 day trip: $2800. The annual income per capita in India: $600. The opportunity to write a letter to our missions committee to ask WTH are we doing over there: PRICELESS!

Here is the brief letter:

Dear [Staff Member],

Could you forward this information along to the GO TEAM (or which ever staff member represents the GO Team) for me please?

Article found in Reuters titled “Nearly 80 pct of India lives on half dollar a day”
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSDEL218894

Can somebody help me understand why we’re encouraging KCC cong
regants to spend $2,800 to go on a mission trip to India for a week when over 75% of Indians live on less than $183 a YEAR?

There has got to be a more effective and efficient way to be missionally active in India. Is this typical for overseas mission trips? Something about those numbers doesn’t jive with me.

Sincerely confused,

Chad Hovermale

Our missions infrastructure is in limbo… the pastor in charge left recently. This one is going to fall through the cracks. But I still took the opportunity to reflect on short term mission trips in general. My hope is that our church, and many other churches reboot the system on missions overseas and consider the effectiveness of our mission activity in far away places.

I found this article from the Washington post recently… it gives me some hope. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/04/AR2008070402233.html?hpid=topnews

“Thank you!!!” to all of my friends and extended spiritual family for finding ways to get the missional job done on dollar store budgets. Keep rockin it!

photo credit: babasteve