We Need Each Other

We Need Each Other

I was talking with a leader of mission teams one night in July. He said that he started bringing teams to Nicaragua to help out, but then became really good friends with some of the Nicaraguan leaders. He loves coming here to work on the projects and he believes in their mission — but more than anything, he now cherishes and looks forward to simply spending time together. He said his Nicaraguan friends have been there for him through some hard times.

When you are true friend, you may help someone open a business, stain their deck, watch their kids, coach the t-ball team together and sponsor them on a Color Run. You may accomplish a lot together, and for good causes. But you also value and prioritize having fun together, taking trips, sitting on the deck sharing stories and throwing parties together. You will let them cry if they need to, let them see your house when it’s dirty and be honest about your ugly habits. You might pray for them, send them a funny meme, or drop off their favorite ice cream just because they’ve had a hard week. There is depth. You treat them as a whole person with physical and spiritual needs. There’s usually not an agenda, because friends aren’t projects.

Can this be the basis of short-term mission trips? To make and develop friendships because people are individual souls, who are worth our time and have something to offer us as well? And together, we can accomplish so much, but we also need each other so much. In a world that is fraught with arrogance, anger and division, shouldn’t we do everything we can to build more bridges and learn to love more people in real, tangible ways? And doesn’t all of this start with the shaking of hands, eating a meal at the same table and cracking the first jokes that spark a friendship?

People always ask, aren’t short-term teams a waste of money? Aren’t they colonizing?

Not if the basis of why and how we do them is to develop friendships, love and respect. We don’t regret spending money to help out our friends. Or spending money to take a flight to see them.We don’t try to “maximize” our time when we are sitting with them by the campfire. We don’t push them out of the way when they are hobbling on crutches. We slow our pace to walk together. We discuss and tackle problems together. We raise our cold cokes in glass bottles when we get through another 100-degree day together.

If you want to do short-term teams well, don’t do it to accomplish big things, build more, see more, get more stamps on the passport, take more photos for Instagram. Do it because people are worth getting to know. And we all desperately need each other.