“As church leaders, this is our opportunity to cast a renewed vision;

to invite our people to take risks, to serve, and to give in new and uncomfortable ways.”

-Mark Haugen

Over the years of working in international missions, I’ve had a chance to meet so many incredible people who want to make a difference in the world. They often tell me how blessed and grateful they are to live in the U.S., and so, as a result, they want to join a mission trip hoping to spread God’s blessings. After raising their money and going to serve, they come home expressing they received so much more than what they feel they gave. 

But I also have found that they emerge from the life-changing missions experience with something else: a measure of despair.