A Benefit of Short-Term Missions

my short-term missions experience was very formative for me personally um i grew up in southern california in the in the opc in southern california we had a region we not a region it was a regional missionary uh dave crum serving in mexico he was not called by the foreign missions committee of the of the opc but he was called by the presbytery to to to work just over the border in tijuana mexico with the presbyterian church there and because of that close proximity to to our presbytery to los angeles area where i grew up we were down in mexico serving alongside dave crum short term on a continual basis probably multiple times a year we'd go down in varying capacities and so it gave us the the presbytery of southern california developed a culture of short-term missions really very much through that opportunity and and many of our churches would go down he established something called weak and witness and you'd go down on a friday you do some sort of project on a saturday you worship with the saints down there on a sunday cross-cultural cross language and and then return home and so so i was one of many who had a lot of exposure to short-term missions in the opc uh through that um and that was that was formative and very helpful for me uh growing up and then in when i graduated from high from college i had the opportunity to go to to eritrea and that was when the foreign missions committee was just trying to reopen the hospital in ginda this is in 1995 and i had the opportunity to be there when that was and apply some of my you know construct construction hands-on skills to uh to to open that place up now i've always thought engineering is like such the greatest skill to have in the foreign missions field especially for a deacon like if you have small motors experience and you can build things with your hands a little bit of macgyver within you i think that just goes a long way in the field i think it's good for everyone but especially the deacon yes it really it really does it does um yeah that was um that that trip planted the seed actually for us my wife and i were engaged at the time too to make our plans for the future and our commitment uh towards uh long-term longer-term service after a time and so for me it was very impactful but it's but but i think that you know short term missions whether it's diagonal nature or it's coming alongside of our missionaries and um in more the word side of the the mission work that they're doing um it connects our missionaries and our fields and our our churches uh in a way that just just receiving newsletters or just um you know receiving and reading reports doesn't do and so when you when you go to a mission field and you spend time there and you eat meals with the missionaries and you um you get to smell and taste and feel the the humidity or the dryness uh the heat um you get to experience the um uh the interactions with the indigenous people they're not just a name or a a picture maybe but but you have a sense of of a small sense but a sense of who they are um the i like to say when you go to a place you you even though a first exposure is very much kind of a honeymoon experience and and uh and and and very preliminary our minds extrapolate on pictures and stuff like that and and so you when you go it's not what you think it would be and um you just gross you know in so many ways um infinite ways really um of of your exposure to to the field to the people to the culture to the to the country and um and particularly as americans um we are we tend to be pretty isolated from a lot of the world uh where you know they say that uh if you're you know if you're bilingual you speak two languages if you're monolingual you're american um right i mean you've heard the old joke so and it's true we don't really have a lot of those exposures and so short-term missions gives us a sense and appreciation for the rest of the world in ways that we as american christians unique unique to american christian church were uh limited in that way but they but but to just get to as you said the the reformed ecclesiology um our ministry is a ministry of word and deed yes and uh our savior cared about not just soul but body and soul and he does even as he cares about our body and soul now um the social gospel and the errors of the social gospel was to replace the ministry of or the care of the body as the gospel and and to end the care of people as the gospel but we see it as the ministry of mercy gives a tangible expression a tangible taste of the gospel as our savior ultimate in ultimate ways uh saves our soul um from a spiritual standpoint um oftentimes it's we appreciate that even as he loves and cares for us in our physical physical realm as well and we'll be resurrected

Channel: Reformed Forum

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Id: n0YAhMiqoFQ

Length: 6min 47sec (407 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021