Why you should send your kid on a missions trip

Our daughter began taking missions trips at the age of 14.  Out of country.  I hear this statement a lot:  " I would NEVER let my kid do that!  How did you do it??"

When Elyse came home telling us God had told her to take a missions trip out of country - my response was this:  "Well - must be nice - but God didn't tell me that."  Then my wise husband said "don't you think we ought to at least PRAY about it honey?"  Hmm.  Really honey?  PRAY about a MISSIONS trip? What a foreign concept ;)

Most of you have heard the story of how it came to be - but since that time, Elyse has been to 8 countries.  She has been on trips for as short as a week and as long as 2 months.  She can handle airport security and border crossings better than I can.  She is now at North Central University studying to become a full time missionary.

The biggest potential mistake I could have made as a parent boils down to that one decision.  I kid you not.  Telling her no could have changed the course of her life.  My fear could have prevented my daughter, at least for a time, from becoming all God called her to be.

When we were contemplating sending our 14 year old daughter half way around the world, a wise friend said this to me:

I will never stand in the way of what God wants to do in the lives of my children.

I have never forgotten those words.  It was those words that held me together when I dropped my daughter off at the airport, sent her to Dallas, TX for training, helped me as the people who were supposed to pick her up at the airport didn't show and I was 1500 miles away, watched the plane tracker track her flight across oceans, time zones, continents.  It was those words that kept me strong when she came to me time and time again and said "now God is telling me to go here or there".  It was those words that bounced off the back of my brain when she informed me God was calling her to full time missions in a place you can't legally be a missionary.  It will be those words that I cling to the day her dreams come true and she lands on the foreign soil she's been preparing for since the age of 14.

Now it's time for number 2 to begin his missionary journey.  Next summer, he'll head to Guatemala with us and Lord willing, if the youth group goes, to Haiti.  I don't know where God will take him from there - but I know sending our children on missions trips has been the best decision we could have made in our lives.

There are many reasons to send your kid on a missions trip - let me just give you a few.

First, and most importantly, in Mark 16:15, Jesus tells his disciples (msg) "Go into the world.  Go everywhere and announce the message of God's good news to one and all."  Don't you like to hear good news?  Isn't good news the best?  Jesus tells us - not just people over 20 or over 30 or whatever - but he tells ALL of us - young and old - to GO.  Go and tell.  Go into ALL the world - EVERYWHERE.  We let them go - because Jesus commanded it.  Plain and simple. 

Second - it breaks their heart.  Maybe this sounds like a BAD reason and not a good one - yet - sometimes when our hearts are broken, we are the most pliable in God's hands.  There is something almost magical (not magical - don't jump all over me!) about missions trips.  Something about going and doing what God has commanded - stepping out in faith - that opens us up to God even more.  Something about going and being used by Him that draws us closer to His feet.  Isn't that what you want for your child?  To sit longer, gaze harder, into the eyes of Jesus?

Third - it gives them a broader perspective.  It opens their eyes to all of God's creation.  It teaches them how to eat foods they would have otherwise turned their nose up to.  It helps them to learn to trust in God for finances to go.  It shows them how to love all people regardless of race, color or creed.  It gets them out of the box of their local environment.  Again - everyone needs to hear the gospel - maybe YOUR child is the one God has called to give it to someone.  Have you thought about that?  That God has prepared your child to be the one to give the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ?  That maybe your child is the perfect one, with the perfect words, to open someones eyes to all Jesus has done for them?  Your child is called!  Let them go and preach the good news!

Fourth - it makes them thankful.  Thankful for their beds, thankful for the food on their table, thankful for their parents, thankful for their countries.  Thankful.  Lord knows we can all use a more thankful kid!! 

Finally - you never know what God is doing in their lives, in their hearts - for their futures.  You never know what sending your child on a missions trip will do.  Maybe, like Elyse, they will want to pursue a life as a full time missionary.  Maybe they see the need for shelter for people in a foreign country and go on to become carpenters that go and build homes.  Maybe they see how education could help keep people from poverty so they become a teacher.  Maybe they fall in love with an orphan and go open an orphanage or adopt a child here in America.  Maybe they see a need and will grow up with the financial means to give.  You don't know - but God does.  Don't block that for them - allow them to go.

I know this has been a long one and thank you for listening.  If your child ever comes and asks you to go - send them.  Yes, of course, check and check well into the organization they are going with.  And yes - it was very hard - very, very hard.  It's not easy raising the money, it's not easy putting them on the plane, it's not fun to worry.  You'll cry - a lot.  Yet - it's not about you - it's about what God wants to do in and through your child.  Don't let your fear stand in the way of what God has for them.