SHORT TERM MISSIONS TRIPS
One of the most exciting things that has happened over the past 10-12 years in the life of ABIDE ministries, is being used by God to touch lives in other cities and countries. Whether it be by providing humanitarian aid, due to disasters that have occurred throughout the world, or helping to teach, preach, and present the gospel, short term mission trips have turned out to be an incredible experience for us.
When ABIDE initially began, short term missions was not something that was a priority for us. God, however, had other plans. Let me share with you what we are doing and how you can become a part of this component of ABIDE.
MISSIONS
To ensure clarity, we need to first begin by differentiating between the words
Mission and Missions.
When we speak of Mission, we are speaking in terms of the broad task for the
church. The primary mission of the church (task/function/ purpose of the church) is evangelism and edification.
The word ‘missions’, however, holds a slightly different definition. It has to do with the specific work of the church (and agencies) in the task of reaching people for Christ. It can be done through many ways and in many places. But it is a specific task that ultimately has the purpose of demonstrating the love of Christ. This demonstration of Christ’s love stretches out across various boundaries. It could be to meet humanitarian needs, educational needs, or health needs to name just a few. Missions has the ability to cross over and bridge the gap of cultural differences, social, gender, financial, and educational disparities.
ABIDE ministries has sought to do several things through our short term missions endeavors. First, we recognize that many in the Body of Christ are unaware of what missions mean and what is involved. So we seek to educate congregations and organizations about the biblical call for missions.
We then provide assessments and/or information concerning spiritual gifts.
Since the bible states that all Christians have at least one spiritual gift given to them by God, at the time of conversion, for service, ABIDE wants to help identify individuals’ gifts (for those who may not know what their gift/gifts are). The assessments are not 100% guaranteed, but it can serve as a starting point and provide individuals with an area of service to at least consider. We want people to be able to operate in an area in which they have a passion and ability to serve well.
We then attempt to make contact with the areas in which we will be traveling to see if there are needs that could utilize your gifts. Sometimes people think that their gifts can only be used in one way, and the Lord continuously shows us that this is not true. There are many people who confess later that they would have never thought they would be doing some of the things that they did on their trip.
We also want those individuals whom we will be serving to know that they have skills and gifts too. On every trip I find myself being taught so much by the very people I went to serve. One of our primary goals on our short term missions’ trips is to serve in a manner and with purpose that establishes relationships. We do this so that even when the missions’ trip ends, the relationships last forever. An intentional attempt at establishing long term connections are made so that what has occurred on a single trip will have on going and eternal ramifications and that a sense of compassion and urgency will remain in our hearts. Our prayer will be that our newly created relationship will continue to reach out to our brothers and sisters for the rest of our earthly lives.
We also recognize that there are people who cannot travel overseas or would not be physically able to do some of the work involved on certain missions’ trips but they would love to support missions. There are several ways that this can be done.
You can pray for our efforts and for those who are contemplating going on a short term trip (you can go and check out our pray link and pray for those requesting prayer for this specific area
You can be the answer to someone else’s prayers by helping to financially sponsor them.
You can write, email, blog, text, tweet, face book etc. to get the message to as many people you know, who could also help us to demonstrate the love of Christ all over the world.
We have a $1.00 campaign that is presently in progress. ABIDE is asking for people to contribute $1.00 2 times per year (conducted one week prior to Easter Sunday and the last 2 weeks of November). The funds collected will go to help feed families and to also provide children with shoes and a present for Christmas.
So whether you would like to participate or support our short-term mission trips, we would love to have you come on board with us.