Consider Summer Missions

Being a summer missionary can be a rewarding experience, if you know what to expect.

What do you do with your summer vacations? Do you work in a factory and come back to school pale but rich? Do you work as a lifeguard at a pool and come back tanned but not rich? Do you return to school wishing you had done something significant? There is a way to invest your summer directly for the Lord—like Rick, who helped to build a hospital in Africa; like Ruth, who taught Viennese children “Jesus Loves Me”; like Bob, who visited house-to-house among Mormons in Utah; like Jackie, who got “dish pan hands” in a German camp; and like Tom, who painted a Christian bookstore in Italy. They joined hundreds of other students in a new and growing program: summer missionary apprenticeships.

Differing from short-term programs which place skilled people on the field for one or two years, summer apprenticeship programs place college young people in home and foreign mission work for two weeks to three months during their summer vacations. Enthusiastically received by missionaries and participating students, summer missions programs offer practical application of classroom theory to any student interested in missions, not just to those with a sure call to lifetime missionary service. Students interested in other professions or those not yet sure of God’s will for their lives can become more intelligent supporters of mission work. If you know how to type, lead a song, hand out a tract, or hammer a nail, you could be used on a summer mission project. Even if you can’t speak a foreign language, you can go to another country as a support missionary (one who doesn’t work directly with the people). There are also possibilities of working through an interpreter or helping in an English-speaking ministry on the home field.

As a missionary apprentice, you can take part in such on-the-field projects as construction, neighborhood canvassing, special clinics, and clerical work. You can free the full-time missionary for activities which require his special abilities by doing routine household and maintenance tasks. Often you are not only a boost to the work, but can encourage the worker who may serve alone for much of the year. For someone abroad, your news of home is fresh and provides pleasant conversation. And the stimulation of your eagerness lingers after your stay. Interested? Start praying as you investigate the following opportunities.

Finding a Place to Serve

You will need to know where you can serve and whether to go alone, with a church or school team, or with a mission board under its special summer ministries.

For most people, service with a mission board is the best choice. A board offers the advantages of placement where your skills and interests lie, some orientation before you go, and the security of an organization backing your efforts. Some mission programs also encompass team ministries as well as individual opportunities for service. And with larger mission boards, there is a wide range of countries where you could be placed.

You can secure details about summer programs by writing to the headquarters of the mission boards you are considering. Check any doctrinally sound board you are interested in, even if you have not heard that they have a summer program. Many mission boards, though they have no formal apprenticeship programs, can place individuals seeking summer service with missionaries from their board.

If a mission board’s program does not suit your situation, there is still the possibility of going with a program sponsored by a local church or school. In such programs, contacts with the missionaries are made through the church or school, as are travel arrangements. However, you will usually go as a member of a group whose goal is some specific project such as clearing a jungle base or house-to-house visitation.

A final option is personally arranging for service and going alone. This method is best reserved for one who has traveled abroad previously and already has friends or contacts on the field. It is unfair to the missionary to invite yourself as a stranger to work with him. If you plan to go alone, you must remember that preparations and arrangements for travel are fully your responsibility. Without help and advice such arrangements can be frustrating, although not impossible.

Preparing to Go

The smoothness of your summer service depends largely on early, careful preparation. Start with travel plans. If your work takes you to a foreign country, you will need a valid United States passport. You must make application in person at the appropriate federal office and allow six to eight weeks for your application to be processed. Check with your county health department to find out what inoculations may be required. You may also want to get an international driving permit. These are issued through the Automobile Association of America (AAA) for a minimal fee. If you plan to drive abroad, ask your insurance agent if any of your coverage applies outside the United States. Another document you may find helpful, especially in travel and sightseeing, is an international student identification card, which in many countries allows reduced travel and entrance fees.

If you are going under a mission board’s program, the board may advise you about travel plans. If you are making your own arrangements, it is best to contact a reputable travel agent, who usually is able to arrange not only flights to another country but also land travel within that country. As you make your travel plans, consider your own finances and what would be convenient for the missionary who will meet you on arrival. Investigate every possible means of transportation. Consider second-class travel, round trip tickets, sharing a ride to an embarkation point, special rates for specified lengths of time between departure and return, charter flights, and group rates. The missionary with whom you will be working may have suggestions, as well as someone who has recently traveled in that part of the world.

Make sure you budget your money to include room and board to be paid to the missionary (check with the mission board for the appropriate amount), as well as travel and souvenir money. Careful daily accounting will help you keep within your budget throughout the summer.

Your missionary is the best source of information about clothes and equipment you may need. Of course, neat clothing is always appropriate, and it will stay neat longer if you bring easy care fabrics. These are especially vital in areas without modern laundry facilities. With careful planning, you can take a minimum of clothing. This will lighten your load of luggage—something you will appreciate while traveling and your host will appreciate during your stay. Be sure to pack comfortable, sturdy shoes; your days will probably include a lot of walking, possibly over rougher roads than you are accustomed to in this country.

Remember as you plan that outside this continent electrical appliances such as razors, hair dryers, and rollers cannot be used without a transformer.

You will also need to study the area and people where you will be serving. Government tourism bureaus or information services in the country where you plan to work can usually supply background information. You can obtain their addresses from your local library. You should also learn as much as possible about any special techniques or methods used in the missionary work there.

Spiritual preparation is foremost. Make a prayer list relating to your summer activities—finances, travel arrangements, and especially the missionaries and nationals you will be with. Praying for the work and the people allows you to start your ministry while still at home. Pray fervently for a proper frame of mind and attitude, an energetic, willing, humble spirit.

Problems to Overcome

As you anticipate the opportunities to serve, the excitement, the travel, the new places, you should also try to anticipate problems.

One major problem is “culture shock.” Culture shock is a negative response to a new mode of living. Food, sanitation, and privacy practices which may be different are not automatically wrong. You must realize that you are not going to “America abroad” and that the culture will be different. Remember that when you are in a foreign country on a short-term basis, acceptance of differences and not acculturation (adopting a new culture) is all that is necessary. Continual comparison of American ways with those of the host country may offend the nationals and hurt your ministry.

Another pang of dissatisfaction may come with the work you find yourself doing. Missionary work is like any other occupation, filled with routine tasks rather than constant excitement. Remembering Christ’s words that even a cup of cold water in his name does not go unnoticed (Mark 9:41) can make washing dishes, laying bricks, or typing piles of letters joyful service.

Closely akin to dissatisfaction with the work is dissatisfaction with other workers, sometimes called personality conflicts. Because missionaries are as human as you, you may not always get along together. This problem has a solution: applying on a continual basis Christ’s command to love one another as he loved us (John 15:12). He loves us even when we have all the negative qualities we see in our fellow workers. Did you stop to realize that getting along with you might be just as hard for the other person? Remember that you are the junior partner, and God has not called you to reorganize the mission field and retrain the missionaries in one summer.

Establishing your priorities concerning work, play, and education before you go may help you solve another potential problem. Without firmly set priorities you will not accomplish what you have set out to do. Work will be too easily replaced by pleasure. You may begin to act like a special guest rather than like a part of the work. Never forget that your call is to serve, not to be served.

The last major hurdle is homesickness. Here again, you can help yourself ahead of time by being realistic. You are not going to be gone more than two or three months, and you can receive mail. Encourage your family to correspond without telling you how much they miss you and without sending elaborate “care packages” or recordings of the family weeping. As you awaken each morning, thank the Lord for the special opportunities you have rather than give in to feelings of resignation or desperation.

What’s in It for You?

Summer mission programs primarily offer opportunities for service, but the service is not without benefits. A mission apprenticeship gives you first-hand experience on the mission field. Your summer work will broaden and deepen your vision and understanding as the mission field becomes a reality. You will get to know missionaries as people and thus be better equipped to pray intelligently for them, and perhaps to be one yourself.

In another country, you will have an opportunity to work with nationals, to try out your foreign language, and to become familiar with a new culture. Your summer work can give you what years in the classroom have not: practical experience in everyday improvisation and practical application of your book knowledge. The live-in situation will offer you the chance to grow as a Christian and as a responsible adult, able and willing to put the needs of others before personal desires. Finally, there is the immeasurable blessing that comes from serving in the place to which the Lord has directed you.