Ken and I have each been on a missions trip. He went to Siberia, and I went to Panama. We came home with a new sense of purpose in reaching the lost. We also came home with a changed mind about what poverty really IS. In both Siberia and Panama, people lived in rough shacks with little protection from the weather, no indoor bathrooms, and not enough food. Yet the believers we each met were so incredibly rich - and it showed!! Contrast that with many rich folks here, sad and burning out and when they realize their lives have “no” meaning, they commit suicide.
Ken and I are going on a missions trip to Jamaica on April 1st-8th. We’re going to be in and around Montego Bay, and it’s possible that we’ll do a day trip over to Haiti.
A friend recently asked us, “Why go to Jamaica, when there are so many unsaved people here in Level Cross?”
1. We go because Jesus commanded it. In fact, He said the purpose of being baptized in the Holy Ghost was to be witnesses “…in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
If we’re supposed to be witnesses “to the end of the earth” why are we content with our own back yard? We can’t say, “Well, someone else will go…” Even if that were true that someone else will go, it’s still sin not to go because Jesus commanded us to go and “make disciples of all the nations”. “All the nations” is so much more than Level Cross!!
2. We go because we must! (Could you sleep at night, knowing you COULD have done something and you didn’t… and as a result there’s even one person in hell?)
3. We go on short term trips for several reasons. We’re not called to be full-time overseas missionaries - so we do not go and stay. The people who do have that calling need help, and so when there is an an established missionary in place, we will assist them. In other locations, there are no long term missionaries established, and people must go.
4. We do not go in place of local evangelism. We go in addition to it.
5. God can do great things with a person who is completely out of their comfort zone (trust me, that happens on these trips!) Once you’re out of it, you never want to get back into it. 
6. Shouldn’t we want to tell everyone, everywhere we go, everywhere we have a chance to go, about Jesus?
[tags]evangelism, world missions, local missions, missional, short-term missions, witness, great commission[/tags]