The .Plan

Uncharacteristic coverage from USA Today…

Judd Birdsall, former managing editor of The Review of Faith & International Affairs, a Christian journal, grew up in Japan in an evangelical missionary home. Too often these days, he says, untrained short-term missioners — or “vacationaries” — offend indigenous populations and undermine hard-earned relationships cultivated by long-term missionaries over many years.

“At this point, it really is an out-of-control phenomenon,” Birdsall says. “Americans come in with good intentions, but they couple zeal with ignorance, and that can be a deadly combination for the folks who are on the ground slogging it out year after year.”

…Volunteers also run the risk of duplicating efforts in today’s decentralized mission environment, says Mark Oestreicher of Youth Specialties, an El Cajon, Calif.-based training firm for church youth leaders… “Each of these groups will come in, do a vacation Bible school and lead the same kids to Christ over and over again,” Oestreicher says.
–G. Jeffrey MacDonald, “On a mission — a short-term mission”, USA Today, June 18, 2006