Instead of Guilt

Don Simmons, a friend I met during my official equipping ministry days, gives great advice about what to bring home from a mission trip instead of guilt. Here are his suggestions:

1. RESOLVE. The deep gut strength/feeling to DO something about poverty in the world and where you live.

2. ARTICULATION. We can often miscommunicate our message because we “feel” it more than we can express it.

3. REALISTIC STRATEGY. You will need to be thinking of a realistic strategy to educate, engage and equip others on what you have learned.

4. HOPE. You know it now: God loves and cares for Africa just as much (and possibly more because they are poor) as he loves and cares for people in the U.S. If you focus on the hopelessness and not the HOPE, you’ll miss the point. If you focus on poverty and not the richness of God’s promises, you won’t be able to do much about poverty.

5. DESIRE. Pack some desire to go to other lands, other cultures, other neighborhoods. Let Africa be your “appetizer” for the buffet of God’s world and His people. Pack that desire to take others with you and open their eyes as well.

Don goes on to say, "The amazing thing about travel that I love is that it is the one activity that allows us to get a good look at how BIG God is, and how BIG our family is. Pack away all those new friendships, tuck away those treasures and pull them out often and pray for them, think of them, and remember what you learned from them. Isn’t it amazing that you went to be the giver yet you return very much the student?"


(Don’s website is http://www.creativepotentialconsulting.org/background.htm.)