Why Are Mission Trips Important?

If you’ve never been on a mission trip then the concept might be confusing to you. The trips usually cost a fair amount of money. Generally, a lot of time is spent traveling just to get to the destination to only turn right back around and return home a few days later. The accommodations aren’t lavish and even can be uncomfortable because you are out of your comfort zone. The people you meet are often different in many ways and it is often a challenge to communicate with them.

The people that you meet will likely impact you more than you will impact them

Really though, these exact points are also why mission trips are important. Spending money to travel to a new part of the world and experience the culture for what it is actually like, including the hard and ugly, is a genuine experience, not one you can put a price tag on. When traveling for days to finally get somewhere totally foreign, you realize how expansive the world truly is and this gets you out of your bubble, and therefore your eyes can be opened to needs you have never thought about before. Unfamiliar or uncomfortable accommodations let the experience really sink in and not just be something that you get through, but something that changes your life and your view of the world. In reality, the people that you meet will likely impact you more than you will impact them. This allows for more of us to have open-minded, culturally accepting views which decreases the levels of racism in one’s community as well as charitable intentions toward one another, loving and forgiving attitudes, and patience and acceptance for the things in which we cannot control. Not to mention deep-seated gratefulness for the blessings God has given to us.

We are all God’s children despite vastly different upbringings

One amazing thing about mission trips is no two trips are ever going to be the same. You could even travel to the exact same remote location year after year and your experience will be totally different each time. You will meet new people, hear new stories, have your heart touched by new experiences, each and every time. God did not intend for us to only see as far as our own cultures and our own comforts. We are all His children despite vastly different upbringings. There are over 7.5 billion people in the world. 25 million of them are deaf children who live in poverty whom Deaf Child Hope seeks to serve. Some might say reaching even one million Deaf children in poverty with hope is an outlandish goal, but we would respond that Jesus one-upped the outlandish all the time while he lived on Earth and has continued to do so ever since. We also know that God can do amazing things through His people and through a team that is willing to put their trust in Him. Ephesians 3:20 “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”

In the summer and fall of 2022 DCH has plans to travel to Uganda, Kenya, Jamaica, and Mexico on mission trips.  If you would like to experience the amazing possibilities of a mission trip with Deaf Child Hope or just find out more information, please reach out to our mission trip coordinator, Michelle Sharick – [email protected]

God Bless!