Why You Shouldn’t Go on Short Term Missions- SBECC CM Worship

As you know, our church has started sending a short term Missions team to Taiwan for the past two years.
I am certain that there may be some of you who hesitate to support short term trips overseas.
I’m sure there are many good reasons in your mind.
And so this morning, I want to affirm you in your reasons for why you oppose short term missions.
I’ve called this message “Why You should Not Go on Short Term Missions”.

“It is a burden to the Long Term Missionaries.”
Before we started going to Taiwan, we were told that short term teams overseas can be a heavy burden to the Full time missionaries:
They have to break from the work they are doing in order to take us around,
They have to have to baby sit us and make sure we’re taken care of,
They have to make sure there’s enough for everyone to do.
These things happen all the time.
Instead of advancing the work of God, STM’s hinder the work of God.
When we first decided to go to Taiwan with OMF, it was on the condition that we would help carry the burden of the missionaries.
(picture of all of JOME)
Our missionary host, David Ullstrom, cannot teach English to 50 different kids, ranging from 4 years old to 20 years old!
The church staff does not have enough English speakers to hold an English camp by themselves.
We, as Chinese Americans, can provide that resource.
We have the youthfulness. We have the energy. We have the motivation. We have the sense of call. And we speak English.
By the end of our first trip in Taiwan two years ago, and after a successful English camp, the OMF Missionary and the Pastor were requesting that we come again the following summer.
They insisted that I schedule the dates with them before we returned back to the US.
Can short term mission trips be a burden to the Missionaries? YES.
Do our short term trips to Taiwan burden the missionaries?
Apparently Not if THEY are asking us to come back year after year to help them.

“You can’t have too much impact in just one month!”
We are told that one month in another country is too short of a time to make any long-term impact.
You’re in an then you’re out. I agree!
But when David and Cindy asked us to schedule a time to come back the next year, it’s exactly what we had in mind!
We went on the first short-term trip with a long-term strategy in mind.
Our strategy and intention was to build a long-term relationship with a church in Taiwan, so that we can continually pray for them and support them, even when we returned to the US.
WE didn’t want to just go for one month and that’s it.
Since we can’t stay in Taiwan forever, we wanted to work with a church in Taiwan that is!
Through this relationship we can continually go back to help them and support what God is doing through that Taiwanese Church in particular.
By holding annual English camps in the Church, we have been able to bring in many non-Christian families into the church.
By coming into the church, they have been able to hear and learn what the Gospel is about.
They have been able to learn of the Church’s presence in the city.
We have seen so much fruit from this English camp that Parents are booking their children for next years camp.
We also wanted to build relationships with individuals that would be long-term.
PICTURE: During the first trip in 2007, these were three non-Christian friends that we met: Alice, Charlene, and Mona.
They came from a local university in Taiwan to help us teach English.
We spent nearly every day with them.
They helped us translate our lessons. They helped us translated Bible stories. Several times they helped us translate the very gospel.
They would spend many nights at our apartment, as if they were part of our team.
When we came back after the first year, we brought them with us.
Not physically, but in friendship, and also in prayer.
Part of our mission is to build long-term relationships. Not just with the church, but with people.
We came and asked the church to pray for them, and for the next year, we remembered them in our prayers.
We asked the Lord to save these Taiwanese friends of ours.
Today, almost 3 years later, members from our team still keep in touch and build the relationship with them.
So how much can you really do in 1 month? You’re right, not much.
But you can do a lot, with the help of God, over the course of many years. That takes a long-term strategy.

“It really only benefits the Short term Missionaries who go.”
People say that STM’s only benefit the Short term missionaries who go, and so they argue that it’s not worth supporting.
Does it really benefit the short term missionaries?
Absolutely!
PICTURE:
Looking over the past two years, 12 of the 12 team members who have gone have grown significantly in missions mindedness.
Julian: He's convicted that he wants to use his life more than working a secular Job, and particularly wants to become a missionary, Taiwan a big place on his heart. However, his dad blew up on him recently when Julian mentioned this and threatened to cut off his support for Julian's schooling. Right now, Julian wants to honor his dad and show him that he wants to love and care for him, with the hope of missions still as his future goal.
Mike: Wants to become a missionary in China. God really put that in his heart this summer. However, he's struggling to finish is studies.
Cindy: She is not only considering full time missions, but expects to be on the field in the future. She's pretty certain of it.
Christine Lam: VERY open to longterm missions after this past trip. She'll be going to Taiwan this year with us, though her dad insists she raise her own money. She says the trip has broadened her perspective on missions in general. Since she's at USC, she really has a heart to invest in inner cities missions now.
Jamie: Jamie says she's definitely open to full time missions if GOd calls her to. She has a huge heart for Taiwan, and will be going with us for the 3rd time this summer.
Debra: She REALLLY REALLY wants to go with us this summer, but she's having surgery on her knee, and her parents don't want her to do anything but rest. She is joining a "Harvard Taiwan Leadership Conference", a ministry reaching out and teaching students who are in the US from Taiwan. She has a huge heart.
Emily: SHe's really convicted to go on missions, and will be going to Nicaragua with her Church, Living Water, in Berkely over the spring break.

I know that as a parent, that may cause many of you to hesitate in ever letting your child go on a short term trip, in case they get this crazy idea to become a missionary!
But this is the truth about the impact of short term missionary trips!
It really can change our lives!
So do STM’s really radically impact and benefit the Short term missionaries who go.
YES! But are they really the only ones who benefit?

The greatest benefit that we see and that we pray for is the salvation of dying souls who don’t know Jesus Christ.
God is working to save the nations in order to Glorify Himself in all the earth.
Our work as Christians is to be willing and obedient to be used in God’s purposes.
We trust that God can use anyone or anything to use as a link in a chain to save a sinner.
Each link is like an event that’s part of a greater process that God uses to sovereignly draw people to Him.
In Acts 9, God is on a mission to save a sinner, the wicked Pharisee named Saul.
In this story we see that God uses different events and people to bring a person into a saving faith in Jesus Christ.
God encountered him.
In v. 3, God encounters Saul directly as he’s traveling on a road to Damascus.
God reveals himself to Saul through a powerful flash of light and a voice from heaven.
This encounter blinded Saul and prepared Him to later receive the Holy Spirit by faith later on in Damascus.
I believe God is also encountering people in Taiwan in order to prepare them for the Gospel.
It may not be a blinding light from heaven, but Jn. 14 says the HS will convict the world of their sins.
PICTURE 2: In this picture, I am talking with a guy named Foster. He is not a Christian, but came into the church on the last Sunday before we left for the US.
Here, he was telling me that he was getting ready to move to Australia.
He said he was sick of the kind of person he was, and he wanted to get out of his environment so that he could “change his personality.”
I said, “what do you mean?”
He said, “I’m not a very good person. I am a bad person.”
I was shocked! I believe that before we ever met, the Lord himself was convicting Foster of his own sinfulness!
In Taiwan, we saw God encounter people to prepare them for salvation.
His Friends walked with him.
In Acts 9:7-9, Paul was blinded by his encounter with the Lord, so it says that his companions “led him by the hand into Damascus.”
If it were not for his companions, Paul could not have made it to Damascus where he would later receive his sight, as well as the Holy Spirit.
God can use companions to lead you where God wants to meet you.
PICTURE 3: This is Mona, one of the non-Christian helpers that you saw earlier.
Not long before we met her, Mona’s found her mom at home. She had committed suicide and she was extremely depressed.
Her friend/companion Roting brought her to church to help with the English Camp because she felt like it might be good for Mona to be near Christians, even though she wasn’t a Christian herself.
Roting did not attend, but was the friend who “led her by the hand” to the church.
Our STM team was able to befriend her and build a very meaningful friendship with Mona.
When we came back, we asked the church to pray for her. And so we prayed for her throughout the year and continue building our friendship til this day.
Sometimes God will use companions as instruments to take an unbeliever to a place where they can meet God and receive His Holy Spirit.
For Mona, God used Roting to take Mona to the church.
As her new friends, our team also led her by the hand and walked with her.
physically, in bringing her daily to the Church to be with us.
But also Spiritually, in comforting her and introducing her to Jesus Christ.
Stranger spoke to him.
In Acts 9:10-19, God used a stranger named Ananias to speak to him and Pray for him.
They had never met face to face or talked with one another.
But Ananias knew of who he was, and was afraid of Saul.
But in faithfulness and obedience to God’s call, Ananias trusted God and he went and spoke to Saul.
When this stranger prayed for Saul, his eyes were finally opened, both physically, and spiritually.
He was once blind, but now he could see. In more ways than one.
Acts 9:17 says that because of ANnanias, Saul was filled with the Holy Spirit, and was baptized.
Sometimes God will use strangers who are faithful and willing to be used.
PICTURE 2: The day we met Foster, we were supposed to leave for Kenting in the South of Taiwan.
But God provided a typhoon, so we were stook at the apt.
We were happy because it meant more time with our Taiwanese friends before we left for the U.S.
Mona joined us, as well as Foster, even though we only met him that day.
That night, we continued our conversation with Foster about the Gospel. He kept asking us to tell him stories of how God worked in our lives.
By God’s sovereignty, part of our training before leaving for Taiwan was to prepare testimonies
We each prepared our stories of how God has worked in our lives, “just in case” the opportunity comes up.
Foster kept insisting that he needed evidence of God in his life, of a God who cared about his situation and who’s existence was real.
We went around the circle, and a few of us sitting and talking with him got to share out stories. The rest of the team quietly gathered in the hallway to pray as we shared the gospel.
We prayed, and Foster began to cry.
He said that this was a “wonderful day”. He kept saying in Chinese that he was so touched.

Soon after, another conversation started in the hallway of our apartment.
Throughout our trip, many of our team members talked and prayed with Mona about her pain.
That night, Emily Yang and another friend began to talk with Mona about the difficulty she was experiencing in her life.
After a long conversation, and much prayer, Mona finally gave her life to Christ as her personal Lord and Savior!
Foster was so touched to see the joy in that apartment over one soul saved!
VIDEO: Foster.
Foster stayed the night with us. And the next morning, there was a powerful typhoon, but something even more powerful than that was going on.
VIDEO: Foster
PICTURE 2: In this picture, I was virtually a stranger to Foster. This was our first real conversation I ever had with him. Me and the team were strangers.
What we didn’t know until later was that three years ago he had a girlfriend who was a Christian in Taipei.
that week she had been praying everyday at church for people in her life to be saved, including Foster.
Somehow God worked it out that 9 missionaries would come to Taiwan and be there at the right place at the right time.
That night we read her blog, and she wrote “I never would have imagined that something like this could ever happen.”
Who would have known that 9 strangers from America would be the final link that God would use to reveal Himself to Foster?
As a stranger spoke to Saul, God used strangers to speak to Foster.
God encountered him, friends walked with him, and a stranger spoke to him.
God is the sovereign one who brings different links together and forms the chain.

God can use a STM to save souls if we are faithful and willing to be used as links in his purposes.
I don’t think that an STM will be able to turn an entire nation around.
But I do think native Taiwanese who live in Taiwan can.
I also think that missionaries who are committed to the Taiwanese can.
And I do Believe that God can use a STM team willing to commit a month of our lives, to be an important links in the long-term process.

The story of Foster and Mona are just two stories out of many that God is doing through our trips.
When we left Taiwan, we challenged the missionary, Foster and Mona to start a small group since they didn’t really have a group for young people.
Here is one of the many updates we received from the Church:

PICTURE 4:
“Our 1st meeting: August 7th Our 1st meeting: August 7th
Attendance: Foster, Mona, me
Our 5th meeting: September 6th
Attendance: Foster, Mona, Alice, Carmen, Pastor Cindy, Bruce, David, Jenny, Flora, Wendy, me”
Closing
So back to the question at hand. Should we go and support STM’s?
If you are going to be a burden to the Full Time Missionaries there, then don’t go.
But if we can help be a useful resource and carry the burden for the Missionaries, then let’s go!
If your work is really limited to just the one month we are there, then don’t go.
But if we can be part of a longterm strategy and build longterm relationships, then let’s go!
And if your trip is only going to benefit yourself, then save your money and don’t go.
But if we experience growth, and the church in Taiwan experiences growth, and sinners are saved, then let’s go!
And let’s do all that we can as a church to prayerfully and financially support those who are able to go.
Amen.