As I mentioned in a previous post I am in Memphis stratagizing with some missionaries from the Pacific Rim about our upcoming work in Bali. Today a missionary to Myanmar (aka Burma) told me the following story. The story reminded me the reality of Satan’s activity against God’s elect.

I was working in a remote village that had hundreds of families. In this paticular village there were three Christian families. Each family owned one cow that they would allow to graze during the day and bring in during the night to protect them from tigers and other preditors. One evening the three families were together worshiping after sundown. The family who was hosting that night forgot to bring in the cow. They heard a loud comotion outside and the three men grabbed their flintlock guns and flashlights before heading out to see what was going on. They followed the noise through narrow paths in the jungle to find a tiger was feasting on the carcus of the family cow. The three men fired at the tiger peircing the beast with three bullets just before he escaped into the brush. The men follwed the blood trail through the woods and eventually back into the village. The blood trail weaved in and out of the village eventually stopping at the door of the local witch doctor. The men returned home and told the story to the missionary (the one I met today). The next morning they awoke to learn that the entire village was in an up roar over the murder of the villages spiritual leader found dead in his home of three bullet wounds.

My Bible tells me that Satan and demons are real and active but my culture and observations tell me that they are not. Who should I believe?

I have been thinking about mission trips a lot since I read THIS ARTICLE. Since becoming a Christian I have been exposed to hundreds of mission projects. Early on I was taught that the term “missions” can have scores of definitions. It could mean kindness to others, traveling far away places, handing out tracks and an endless list of sanctified actions. Each year thousands of American short-term missionaries travel local or abroad to participate in projects that are completely divorced from the establishment or advancement of any local church. They are not apostles, sent out by the Holy Spirit like Paul and Barnabas in acts thirteen , so what are they? Well the article indicates that they are vacationaries and they have been created by well meaning churches and pastors.

A Princeton University study found that 1.6 million people took short-term mission trips — an average of eight days — in 2005. Estimates of the money spent on these trips is upward of $2.4 billion a year. Vacation destinations are especially popular: Recent research has found that the Bahamas receives one short-term missionary for every 15 residents. At the same time, the number of long-term American missionaries, who go abroad from several years to a lifetime, has fallen, according to a Wheaton College study done last year.

The vast majority of these trips, though conducted by churches are not doing anything to plant, assist or enhance any church in any way. I don’t mean to say that short-term trips are bad because they’re not…  I also know that places like the Bahamas (or Iceland) needs the gospel just as desperately as Indonesia. That said though, I think it is safe to say though that not all is well in the world of short term missions.