Every time I go on a short-term missions trip, I'm amazed at how long-term it affects me! When I lead a trip, or simply participate in one, I'm always thinking about how God's going to use me to impact other peoples' lives, but when I get there and actually start serving, it's usually MY LIFE that gets impacted the most!
It might surprise you to learn that although I've been leading short-term mission trips to different countries like Ecuador, Turkey, Singapore, Italy and Nicaragua for almost 15 years now, most of the time I dread going right up until I set foot on the airplane. I'm convinced it must be a spiritual battel going on deep inside of me. It must be the enemy trying to convince me to stay home. I get all these thoughts of how it won't be worth it, how it's too dangerous or how there must be a better way to go about doing this. But I've learned not to pay too much attention to those feelings and GO ANYWAY! Becasue although it's uncomfortable at times, and although I get pushed out of my comfort zone pretty often, I have never failed to see god show up and do something inside of me that would've never happened if I would've just stayed here in my comfortable littel suburban world.
When we walk by faith and trust in Jesus, He will do amazing things in and through us! The Bible teaches that He wants to bless us so we can bless the world He created.
I'm certainly not trying to say that you have to take a short-term mission trip if you want to be a good Christian, but I know that these kinds of trips certainly have helped me become a better Christ-follower! These short-term trips continue to have along-term effect on my life and my family...and for that, I'm very grateful.
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