Mark's Blog

It’s Memorial Day—and I’m working—as is most of the LST staff. We would all rather be taking the holiday off like our friends, BUT Mondays are big travel days for Let’s Start Talking teams. Four teams are leaving today for Brazil, Germany (2x), and Uganda respectively, and five teams are returning to the States from Europe, Argentina, and Panama.

Travel days are high risk days. Just this month, we have had lost passports, floods, canceled flights, and airline strikes to deal with on flight days—so part of our risk management plan at LST is to always have enough staff available on travel days—regardless of holidays—to make sure that we can take care of our workers if an emergency should arise.

Does your church and/or your short-term mission organization have a plan to reduce the risks associated with groups of people—traveling—to foreign countries? This starts with a good screening process for those who want to go in your group.

1. Are the people who want to go healthy enough? You probably think first about physical risks, but those are the easiest to prepare for—a few special vaccinations or pills will eliminate those problems. Do you also screen for people with emotional or spiritual concerns? The associated risks are much greater with these!
2. Does the potential worker have a submissive spirit? Lots of people who want to do missions are not willing to submit. They are not team players. There is a place for these people in the kingdom, but you probably don’t want them on your team because they ignore instructions or boundaries and create huge risks for the entire group.
3. Are they willing to be trained? Self-made missionaries are the worst!! No matter what kind of mission experiences someone may have had, they should be eager for preparatory training for your mission project. Somebody throw the flag, if they are not.
4. Do other people want them to go? Fundraising for a mission project is one of the best screening devices.  In 99 out of 100 instances, people who have difficulty raising funds for their mission trip also have other issues that make them difficult.  Why don’t their family, friends, and church family step up to support this person—this is a legitimate question to ask. Of course, there is always the exceptional case—but, in my experience, exceptional cases are the exception!
5. Do they have the gifts that match the planned goals of this particular mission? For LST trips, people need to be comfortable making conversation with people one-on-one.  They need to be native English speakers—yes, and even Texans can qualify!  What are the specific gifts needed for the mission you are planning?

Screening potential workers is a very important step in reducing risk potential.  Tomorrow, I will write about reducing political/cultural risks for your short-term mission.