Tips for Fine-tuning Your Mission Trip Re-Entry:
Because Coming Home is Sometimes No Homecoming
The transition from the mission trip experience to everyday life back home
is often a bumpy ride for your students. You can help ease this transition
by being intentional in your planning and preparation and in developing the
ultimate focus of your trip.
When you plan a mission trip, begin at the end. Start by thinking through
what you want your students to come back home with. How you will allocate the
proper time for them to effectively process their re-entry? Are you prepared
to address the wide range of emotions that your students will exhibit?
The length of the mission experience drastically affects the impact of the
re-entry process. Since most youth trips are very short-term-one to three weeks-we
won't deal with some of the longer re-entry issues such as changes in the culture
while you've been gone, guilt for returning home, reverse culture shock, or
identity loss.
Following are some helpful tips for youth workers who want their students'
short-term mission experience to be well-adjusted and long-remembered.
Allow
sufficient time to debrief.
Intentionally schedule a day or two at the end of your trip to play, slow down,
and have group sessions where students can begin to pinpoint the highs and
lows of the trip for them. Allow them to share any disappointments and talk
about why they may be viewing these experiences as a let-down.
Discuss their feelings toward the culture they've been a part of, and encourage
them to share any new insights about their own home culture. Have each one
come up with at least one positive symbolic moment that provides a summary
of the trip for that student. All of these things can be accomplished in a
short time before returning home.
Help
students process their feelings.
By the end of a mission trip, students can feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and
sometimes depressed about the thought of going back home to face "real
life." Pay close attention to those teens who may need some individual
time with a sponsor to talk through some feelings. Not every mission trip
will be a positive experience for every teen. Identify those who struggled
and help them discover the value of the experience.
Teens sometimes feel pressured to "perform" during these trips.
They know people back home will want to know how the trip went. If things didn't
happen the way we expected them (as can frequently be the case on a mission
trip!), our youth can feel disappointed and frustrated about what they should
tell people. They may need help expressing exactly what they did get out of
the trip. Encourage them to complete the statement, "Maybe things didn't
go the way I expected, but I did learn that . . . ."
Students who have a good experience will be on fire and ready to change the
world! You can keep them on track by pointing out practical, reachable steps
that will provide an outlet for their emotions and energy.
Bring
them to closure.
Never leave things open-ended. Give them a sense that a chapter in their lives
is ending and now they are going home to begin a new chapter! Mission trips
have the potential to change our whole story-including many of our ideals
and life goals. This can be a lot for a teen to swallow! Help them to at
least visualize a temporary close to this part of the story so that they
don't feel like their entire life has been set adrift.
You might use a symbolic ceremony to finish your trip, or perhaps observe
communion. Talk through their personal testimony with them, helping them put
words to their experiences. Have them write down memories in a journal to look
back at later. All of these things help to bring closure to the experience. "
If your students have been changed by the trip, they will face a "clash" when
they get back. Sometimes this clash is between their old life and their new
way of seeing things. Sometimes it's with their parents or their friends' ideals.
Your youth may return as changed persons, complete with the notion that they
should sell all their possessions or give them to the poor . . . and that may
not sit well with their parents!
Prepare
your students for "re-entry".
They may come back from playing soccer with a tin can in an impoverished neighborhood
and suddenly view Nintendo as a waste of money. Talk through this conflict
before they face it. Prepare them to feel different, and remind them that they
may sometimes feel isolated by their new way of seeing life.
Challenge
them to return as servants.
A mission trip is pointless if re-entry does not include the application of
the lessons learned on the mission field. Let service be your re-entry focus.
Use the opportunity to teach teens what it means to get our eyes off of ourselves
and focused on serving others. Have them apply serving in another place to
serving in their own home . . . in their youth group . . . in their school
. . . in their community. A one-time trip is not worth anything by itself.
Let it become a springboard to a lifestyle, and lifetime, of service for
your group.
Emphasize
spiritual support.
We can crash spiritually upon re-entry if we don't keep up the patterns of
prayer, worship, encouragement, and Bible reading that we practiced together
on a trip or at summer camp. Establish an accountability chain, or give your
youth a devotional guide to use when they return. Spiritual support will
reinforce the life lessons they learned through this ministry experience.
by Bo Cassell
NYI Missions Missions Coordinator
