Six Steps for Thriving After Your Short Term Mission Trip

Katie Back Salmon • Aug 14, 2015

All short-term trips are supposed to end. But having a return ticket in your backpack doesn’t make the journey home a breeze. Below are six simple steps you can take to weather one of the toughest parts of going overseas: coming home.

1. RESUME YOUR OLD ROUTINE

Your body doesn’t know if it’s 3 a.m. or 3 p.m., your pantry is empty and your clothes are tangled at the bottom of a suitcase. After a season of adventure, it might sound like the last thing you want to do, but getting back into a normal rhythm of life is crucial.

Sleep when other people sleep, go to the grocery store and unpack your suitcase. A well-rested mind and well-fed body will create the sound environment you need to productively process the memories and emotions of your experience.

2. EXPECT REVERSE CULTURE SHOCK

You likely felt it at the beginning of your trip when you didn’t recognize the foods on your dinner plate, and you’ll experience it again when you return. Culture shock is an emotional reaction to a different way of life. Your worldview has changed because of your time overseas, so things that were once commonplace to you might elicit anger, confusion or sadness.

Intense reverse culture shock can surface suddenly, and familiar situations like returning to worship in English at your home church may feel difficult or foreign to you. More often than not, the disconnect will present itself subtly and may remind you of a similar feeling you had when coming home from college for the first time — finding that nothing had changed, but everything felt different, especially you!

In both cases, it is important to embrace reverse culture shock as part of the reentry process and examine your response. Make efforts to share these reactions with those closest to you, even if they cannot fully understand. Moving forward, consider how God can use you as you notice things in your home culture that others don’t see.

3. EMBRACE GRIEF

No matter how brief, a short-term trip can cultivate deep relationships with people and places. Leaving these behind comes with a genuine sadness that surfaces at unexpected moments. The grief can feel especially isolating if no one else in your home environment is experiencing it.

In this season, resist the pressure to hurry through this process and “move on.” Seek personal ways to celebrate these memories. Display photos and mementos in your home, or recreate your favorite meal enjoyed abroad.

4. PROCESS IN PRAYER

Good, bad or somewhere in between, you are returning home with a swirling collection of conversations, images and spiritual insights. Depending on your processing style, it could take you a week or a year to sift through each experience. Carving out time to prayerfully process your mission trip creates the space for God to continue to shape you through your experience long after it’s over.

You might find it useful to record these prayers and insights on paper to revisit when the memories aren’t as fresh. Consider and record answers to questions like, “How has my worldview changed?” TEAM has created a debriefing journal with intentional questions to help guide your processing. You can download it for free.

5. FIND AN OPEN EAR

There’s nothing like a simple “How was your trip?” to make you launch into a 30-minute monologue illustrated with 189 of your favorite photos. About six minutes in, you see this well-intentioned friend’s eyes glaze over, but you just can’t stop. The words keep coming. It only takes a few of these experiences before you edit your response to “It was great! I saw God move in unique ways. I hope to return someday.”

In the coming weeks, set up an hour-long meeting with someone to solely talk about your overseas experience. This person doesn’t have to be your best friend, but rather should be someone who has served cross-culturally and walked through the re-entry process. Email your missions pastor, your neighbor who served overseas or reach out to a missions coach at TEAM. You can use your responses from the debriefing journal (scroll down to download for free) as a launch point. This conversation will help you sift through the details and continue on with clarity and intention.

6. LOOK FORWARD

Luke 10:17-20 records a debriefing conversation between Jesus and 72 short-term missionaries. We can imagine the 72 were wild-eyed, describing their mountain-top moments saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” But Jesus cautions them to not rejoice in what transpired on their journey. Rather, Jesus encourages them, and us, to “rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Maybe your overseas experience was rich with fruitfulness and you witnessed a supernatural miracle or the salvation of a new believer. In light of that, resuming your normal obligations outside of ministry might feel insignificant. Or maybe you are looking at your trip in hindsight and lamenting that “nothing happened.” Both perceptions are painful.

Jesus reminds us though, that the only work that matters is his on the cross, securing our identity forever. In this freedom, prayerfully ask, “What is the invitation from God moving forward?”

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Bridging Dissonance: Finding Connection in Music and the Gospel

By Emily Sheddan • 18 Jul, 2024

TEAM worker Luke Standridge and his fellow musicians use music to build connections to faith in Japan. In music terms, dissonance creates movement or even suspense in a song. It invites tension. That tension is what helps grab our ear’s attention and the interchanging of these notes with pleasant melodious parts is what makes music such a delight. In a similar way, God is using music to grab people’s attention and catalyze Gospel impact in the largely unreached nation of Japan. TEAM Global Worker, Luke Standridge moved to Japan in 2019 with no clear direction on how he was going to use his passion for composing music while doing ministry. However, after Luke got involved with a local church and began developing deep friendships, the Lord opened unimaginable doors for Luke that in time, coordinating his creative skills with sharing the Word. “People Need to Come to Japan!” Growing up as one of ten kids in a family that was heavily involved in ministry and missions, Luke never considered that it would one day be a part of his own journey. In 2016, via a Japanese language learning class in Indiana, Luke and his brother had the opportunity to travel to Japan. Hearing, learning, and using the language in the context of Japanese culture was the goal. While it was Luke’s first international trip – even his first trip on a plane - it was also his first time hearing about the spiritual condition of the Japanese people. “And just through that, God did a huge 180 change on my heart,” says Luke. “More people should come here as global workers. People need to come to Japan!” The call God was laying on Luke’s heart is echoed when looking at the spiritual landscape of Japan. The nation is home to the second largest unreached people group in the world. It is one of the most difficult places for the Gospel to take hold and grow. Japan is also home to a deep and rich culture that prizes creative arts from pottery to ink to music to anime – a fact that would help Luke find his niche in life and ministry. God’s Guiding Hand In the short three-month timespan of that first trip, Luke found that opportunities came naturally to share about life, and people’s curiosity for Christianity grew. “I left Japan knowing I just had to come back,” Luke shares. “Even if I didn’t get back to the same area, I knew Japan was where God wanted me to be.” The Lord is good all the time and all the time the Lord is good. His plans do not fail. Luke returned to Japan in 2019, and less than a week after arriving, he was put in touch with a renowned composer in Japan. The composer saw some of Luke’s music and invited him to help write the music for a beloved in-country animated show. But God wasn’t finished yet! Fast forward a year, and more connections and opportunities allowed Luke to help with music for Pokémon - a franchise that has brand recognition around the world and was being developed into a TV series in Japan. Luke recalls how the Lord began using these connections in the production world to open doors for Gospel conversations. One night while having dinner in downtown Tokyo with famous artists and composers from all around the country, Luke was asked about his ministry-focused visa. This was a rare opportunity in a setting with people otherwise uninterested in Christianity. Luke shares, “The whole time I could see God’s hand in guiding the entire thing.”

Connecting in a New Kind of “Neighborhood”

By Lorena de la Rosa and Suzanne Pearson • 13 Jun, 2024

Through creative arts and other forms of innovative outreach, “The Neighborhood” is creating connections to the Gospel and the love of Jesus. CONNECTION. It’s a common word with powerful implications. Dictionary.com defines connection as a joining or linking together; a relationship between people or objects that unites or binds them together. God has created each of us with a deep need for connection with Him as well as connection with others. Hebrews 10:24-25 speaks to this, as the writer exhorts, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” This God-given need for connection lies at the heart of a creative and innovative ministry in Japan known as “The Neighborhood.” TEAM Japan global worker, Kelly and her family created The Neighborhood as a place where connections are formed through creative arts, educational opportunities, and simply just providing a space for people to be together. A Family Calling The journey to the creation of The Neighborhood began over 5,000 miles away from Tokyo, in California where Kelly, her husband Jeff, and their five children were living. The kids were the first to sense God’s calling to missions, and asked why their family wasn’t serving in this way. How Kelly and her family came to TEAM is a God-story in and of itself. “God placed a TEAM Japan worker at our lunch table the same week that the kids posed that question to us,” Kelly recalls. “We had never heard of TEAM and so we thought, ‘let’s check this out.’ After that, God just kept confirming that we were supposed to be here.” After a period of fundraising and with much excitement, the family of seven moved to Japan in 2014. For the first five years, Kelly and Jeff served as a part of other TEAM ministry initiatives, but they began to sense a stirring for something new. Creating The Neighborhood Kelly and her family truly have a deep gift for hospitality, and regularly opened up their home to others they met in Tokyo. They saw a great need for people to have a place to gather and connect, and they wondered what doors the Lord might be opening for them to meet that need. “About a year before we were to return the States on home assignment, we were just really thinking about our future in Japan,” Kelly says. “We saw a need for people to have a ‘third place’ – a place that’s not home and it’s not work. They didn’t have a church community or any other place where they could meet people and just connect.” Kelly goes on to explain that in Japan, the culture is such that people don’t generally invite each other into their homes, but as her family did so, people embraced that opportunity. “This idea formed in all of our hearts of a student ministry center – a place where we can create community and learning,” says Kelly. “It was born out of what we were already doing in our home, but seeing how we could expand it and have better space.” God’s Provision What happened next is a true testament to God’s provision. Kelly, Jeff, and the kids returned to the States and began sharing their vision for The Neighborhood with their supporters and churches who responded generously. Upon returning to Japan, the search was on for the right space. “We had a Christian realtor that we told our dream to, and he just went looking for it,” Kelly recalls. When the realtor found a 5-story apartment building, he said, “It’s kind of out of your budget but it has what you need and want.” The Lord provided the funds and the family moved into the space in November 2019. They now occupy all but the ground floor, with living space for their family as well as classrooms, areas to study or hang out, and guest rooms for exchange students or others who need a place to stay overnight. The first floor is occupied by a pizza shop – a welcome amenity for the many groups and students who visit The Neighborhood. “It’s very convenient!” Kelly says with a laugh. The Neighborhood began to see lots of activity right away until the pandemic hit in early 2020. During the height of the quarantine, Kelly and Jeff used the time to redecorate the space and plant gardens outside the building. Then as the restrictions eased, they invited individual students or families over for meals and fellowship. It wasn’t until March 2023 that The Neighborhood was able to fully open again as intended. Kelly shares that despite the setbacks of COVID, the Lord continued to provide the funds to pay the rent.