Tent-maker missionary Dave Bucher (Saipan) recently wrote to Marissa Phelps, a Work & Witness trip participant.
"At one point I questioned the value of the short-term, work and witness mission trip. Two hundred people spending $500 each is $100,000. That's enough money to support two or more career missionary families on a mission field. However, I have now come to the conclusion that the short-term trip is very much a part of good overall mission strategy.
"Work and Witness will never replace the full time, career missionary that is trained in the language and culture and missiology. But the short-term work is a great shot in the arm for a field. It can create visibility for the Kingdom that a handful of highly trained people could not create in two entire life times.
"Beyond the impact on the field, a short term mission trip has a contagious spirit that is carried back to the local church and district, or as in the case of the SNU 'Commission Unto Mexico' trip, an entire region. There is that enthusiasm that will result in more than another $100,000 being willingly offered up to the cause of world evangelism. It will result in more than two individuals that will answer a call to full time or mission work. Only God knows how it will all fit together."
"I remember the excitement of being selected, the thrill of boarding the Dominican Airlines in Miami and landing on a different country’s soil for the first time.
"I was one of 50 college students chosen for Nazarene Student Mission Corps (now Youth in Mission) in the summer of 1976. Our mission was to help start the Church of the Nazarene in the Dominican Republic. And with God’s help we were able to start 10 new churches in just 10 weeks!
"I could tell you about the dysentery, the endless flies, sporadic electricity, cramped sleeping quarters, or no privacy. But I’d rather tell you what I learned.
"I learned about missionary life by observing Jerry and Toni Porter and also Louis and Ellen Bustle. I saw their frustrations with everyday living in making ends meet financially and yet I shared in their joy of serving God on the field.
"I learned how to start a missions church, complete with passing out tracts, holding tent meetings with loud music and preaching. I shared in the excitement as I watched 'Iglesia Del Nazareno' signs posted on storefront rooms serving as sanctuaries. I took part in the actual construction of a church, marveling that it was funded through Alabaster offerings.
"Personally, I learned how to meet new people, to communicate even though I didn’t know the language very well, to give of myself when I was tired, and to try new things.
"I learned just some of what it takes to be a missionary."
--Paula Meder