So I've been instructed by our team leaders to blog, so blog I will...

I just want to put out-front that I struggle tremendously with the resources and energy that go into short-term missions. For the amount of money and effort and prayer that goes into putting someone into the field for 3 weeks, I feel like the Western church could be mobilizing someone for 2 months of a 4-year term. (Not that I'm 100% down on the Western church. I think, by and large, it does more things right than it does wrong. I realize this makes me a classist, imperialist modernist, and I'm insufficiently down with the emergent global church. Tough cookies-- get your own blog entry.) It seems really wasteful to do short-term trips, particularly for someone like me, who doesn't even generate joy from travel, meeting new people, or having exotic experiences. All I get out of short-term missions is the sinking, desperate realization that God's world is incredibly vast, and I am incomprehensibly selfish and short-sighted.

I just want to send and enable people to do this work...!

But the most important take-home lesson from previous overseas trips is that we don't generate long-term missionaries without a bridge... particularly in the North American church, which is so very distant from the clash of cultures happening at the margins of the churched and unchurched world. And short-term missions is one of the most ideal bridges in the era of Internet, global English, and jet airplanes. It equips and inspires future missionaries, encourages current missionaries, and keeps churches and missionaries connected with one another.

It was about 2 hours into the flight for my first missions trip that I decided I wasn't going overseas long-term. Or maybe it was an hour into my first training session. In either case, after 3 trips in 4 summers, I was ready to take some serious time away from the missions field and focus on building a missional heart on the homefront. Time to let others go.

So why go now?

Well, in part, my role has changed at church and in ministry. I have a bit more general responsibility, a bit less Sunday School teaching, and a lot more segmentation in fellowships. I'm helping out in an expanded capacity at Bible Study Fellowship, which I could not recommend highly enough. I'm not as myopic as I was last time. We need advocacy and urgency at every level-- from what I teach junior high monkeys to the passion and priority we put on supporting the Great Commission Fund as the church board level. Do we paint a unified picture of cross-cultural missions? Is it secret, gnostic information-- an insider's club of "those who have gone" vs. "those who have not"? Or are we, as a church, literally ALL going on missions by being part of what missions is doing?

Jesus has not called me into a compartmentalized life characterized by 401k freak-outs on Friday afternoon, and pious promises to pray on Sundays. He has called me to a holistic pursuit of holiness, compassion, and life-giving, eternal water. I struggle to keep it from being any other way.

So much to say! I will have to save some for next time.

I am thrilled by the ongoing relationship my church has with the Cambodian mission field. I am overjoyed that I am accompanying seasoned short-termers with a deep heart for the Khmer people. I am humbled by the commitment and attitudes of the long-termers already in the field. I am, as yet, undaunted by the challenges.