* Some assorted thoughts on Youth Mission Trips (YMTs)

Last Friday I returned from what must now be about 10 summer missions trips with our church’s youth. This most recent one was a week with YouthWorks in Duluth (second time there). I’ve also been to Wyoming (Wind River), Chicago (twice) and Queens, NY with this organization. In addition I’ve been on a trip to eastern Kentucky with Habitat, far south Chicago with a local nonprofit, western South Dakota with the Atlantic Mountain Lutheran Bible Camp and twice down to Juarez, Mexico, the first time with a Lutheran Bible Camp from Colorado that shall remain nameless (as I’ll share later, their staff did a very poor, even dangerous job leading this trip), the second time on our own, though both times working for a small missions effort there that built houses. All but the two trips to Duluth has been with our high school kids, though there were high school kids there from several other churches that we worked with last week. All but the trips to Juarez have been done here in the US and, while Juarez is another world, we were never more than about 10 miles from El Paso during our visits there.

While I’ve never been overseas for a YMT, I grew up as a missionary kid in Madagascar for 10 years where my wife and I then also later worked for another 10 years. So that experience informs a lot of how I approach these trips and is one of the reasons why I enjoy going with our church’s youth, as it brings back memories, most of them good, though some not so much.

What I’m going to do in a series of blogs under this category is share some of my reflections on these experiences. If you can add to my wisdom, please do so. If you can benefit from it, that is fine as well.