African Warns Short-Term Missions "Wounds" at times! But Needed Skills Come as Well.

The trendy short-term mission giant has been striding across Africa and leaving some indelible footprints, some of them positive, others negative. On the positive side, people are coming to faith, revival is breaking out in communities hospitals and schools are being developed, women are becoming economically empowered and there is significant church growth. Short-term missionaries have not only visited, they have given financially, professionally and spiritually. They have founded orphanages and ministered to financially handicapped women, equipping them with skills to improve the quality of their handcrafts for better marketability.

The giant has, however, left some indelible wounds and impressions as well. ibis is a concern raised by some national leaders. Here I will argue from interwoven data that in an age of growing partnerships between the Western and the African Church, careful and adequate pre-mission training needs to be done in preparing westerners to engage the cultural context of Africa in short-term missions. In this way, the short-term mission giant can be enhanced for greater fruitfulness and effectiveness....

During and after the short-term mission trip, the local pastor and other leaders face challenging missiological issues. These include clarifying the Missionary's’ language and etiquette, competence, stewardship of resources and contextualized worship. In one incident, a short-term missionary tried to speak the local language but ended up using a word which insult ed the local people. The pastor had to go back to the people to clarify what the missionary had meant. The same missionary also declined to eat food offered to him. This led the local people to say, “He was not prepared well enough to live with us.” The hosts found it very difficult to minister to him.

In another case, a missionary with very little training was sent to serve as a pastor. His preaching was so poor that the local pastor asked him not to teach from the pulpit and to take time to acquire some biblical knowledge.

(The Trendy Giant Wounds: Some Lessons from the Church in Africa, David Ngaruiya. EMQ, January 2008, p.58-59)