The Two-Week Fix

Written by Hailey Pitcher | Designed by Sophie Jurion | Graphics by Tess Adams

The Ethics of Mission Trips

I walked into my high school’s library. The eyes of saints and popes watched as I took off my backpack and sat down at one of the creaking tables. My Catholic school’s head of religious activities handed me a pamphlet and I flicked through the glistening pages, observing beautiful pictures of Lourdes, France. The projector started up as my classmates and I flicked our eyes up to the pictures, now sprawled against the wall: smiling students with the sick and elderly, talking with them and bathing them in the Lourdes Grotto.

The yearly Lourdes trip was a highlight for students, presented as both a pilgrimage and a mission trip, and most of all, a privilege. I never ended up going on the pilgrimage, which is perhaps the more accurate term for the trip, for many reasons. Yet, I found that many of my classmates had gone on mission trips of their own. They were teaching in Tanzania, preaching in Taiwan, and cooking in Guatemala. Pictures of them smiling with the locals were plastered on their feeds with messages thanking God for the opportunity to spread His word and help the world. The question plagued my mind: are mission trips truly helping the profound issues in these countries as much as we are led to believe?

Mission trips are initiated for a variety of different reasons. They aren’t always associated with religious groups, sometimes they’re associated with bipartisan relief groups; however, they’re more commonly associated with Christian practices. Christian groups, whether it’s a church organizing their own mission or a company such as Mission for Hope, will typically travel to developing countries where they host educational sessions intended for the local people, build lodgings, and spread the Gospel. This sounds harmless on the surface level, but mission trips are commonly criticized for their lack of realistic portrayal of a country’s problems, whether economic, political, or social.

Firstly, an average mission trip costs anywhere from $800 to $3,000 per person depending on what is included, i.e. air fare, housing, merchandise; however, Mission of Hope’s payment for their missions include a beach day. To put this into perspective, the length of the trips marketed by Mission of Hope are usually one week. Why is there one whole day carved out of a service trip for a vacation day? There is an argument that mission trips can deal with heavy and emotional scenarios and that missionaries should be allowed a day to unwind; however, missionaries through Mission of Hope are only on their destinations for a week and they know what situations they will face once they arrive. The money spent on missionary trips can easily be redirected to legitimate humanitarian resources that do genuine work for these developing countries, such as the Red Cross and the United Nations.

A lot of missionaries are typically young, falling in the age range of teenagers to young adults, taking a mission trip with good intentions, whether to grow closer to their faith or lend a helping hand in a bigger picture. According to the International Mission Board, missionaries only need one skill in order to serve on a mission—basic discipleship. In order to properly make an impact in a humanitarian sense, some sort of training should be required, whether in a historical knowledge context highlighting the countries’ economic and humanitarian situations, or how to properly service and teach the country’s citizens.

It’s essential to recognize that missionary trips are often a neocolonialist initiative that falls short of unbiased humanitarian assistance. Mission trips are usually led by cisgendered, white men who believe they can solve complex humanitarian issues by spreading the word of God. The same kind of missions were conducted in the 15th and 16th centuries, when European missionaries traveled to South America and the West Indies for the purpose of colonizing and displacing millions of indigenous people. In modern day, the specter of social media adds an exploitative layer to the mission trip conversation. A picture of a missionary smiling with children doesn’t represent an end to an education crisis, and a picture of a missionary giving someone a water bottle doesn’t represent the end of a drought. Mission trip posts put up the facade that missionaries aren’t just helping, but that a country is depending on them. These photos also suggest that their assistance is effective, which sadly, is not always the case.

ARE MISSION TRIPS TRULY HELPING THE PROFOUND ISSUES IN THESE COUNTRIES AS MUCH AS WE ARE LED TO BELIEVE?

While the criticisms of mission trips are valid, there are ways to make a difference and help people in need. Some more effective ways are to raise or donate funds to charities that fund internationally vetted humanitarian aid agencies, where the assistance is carried out by trained professionals and volunteers. It is always important to educate yourself and others on world crises, and the ways we can ethically help.