The Mission Trip That Changed My Perspective (On Myself)

Minsong Kim (third from left, back) posing with impact trip attendees and Untold client on an Impact Trip, 2023.

Untold’s Marketing Coordinator, Minsong Kim, reflects on her experience going on mission trips after going on an Untold Impact Trip and reading When Helping Hurts by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett.

When I was 17 years old, I sat down at the dinner table and told my mom that I would like to go on a week-long mission trip to Maïssade, Haiti over spring break. Her response? “Who are you doing that for?”

I was confused. Shouldn’t she be so proud of me, a senior in high school, wanting to spend my last high school spring break serving people in a developing country instead of running around on the beaches of 30A with the rest of my senior class? Instead, she challenged me. 

“What do you think you’re really doing for those people by going into their community for just a week? Don’t you think that money would be better spent by them?” My mother, of course, knew a lot that I didn’t at the time. Still, I fundraised my few thousand dollars and, months later, was on my way to Haiti with 15 other high school students to “serve” the people of Maïssade. 

If you grew up in the Southeast like me, you have probably also been on a short-term mission trip like this, or you know someone who has. It was most likely about a week long to a developing country, specifically to a community experiencing material poverty. You probably fundraised to get there, and there were tons of photos to post on Instagram once you got back, with captions about how much your life was changed by the happy dispositions of those who have so little. I know this because that was me.

As we rode the bus up the mountains into the community, the organization we traveled with gave us just one tip: don’t be afraid to say no when you’re asked for things. Solely armed with this information, we stepped off the bus into our compound and were swarmed by crowds of Haitian children. We welcomed their hugs and let it slide when they grabbed the Clif bars out of the sides of our backpacks. Immediately, my group brought out our phones and cameras to snap photos of these children we had just met, their parents nowhere in sight. In hindsight, I reflect on, “Who are these children? Where are their parents? What are their names? What is their story?” The trip I was on happened every year, and the kids knew when the bus rolled up to this compound that it would be young Americans greeting them, eager for a photo op.

Years later, I think back on my time in Haiti fondly. It’s a beautiful country, and I don’t know that I would have made it there had it not been for my mission trip. However, now I’m able to recognize that it was my own selfish desires that led to me being on that trip.

There is nothing inherently wrong with having a desire to help those in need. Of course, as Christians, we are called to help individuals with unequal access to resources than we have. But was I truly helping by intruding into this community with no prior knowledge of the people and their culture? This cycle had begun to create a dependency on us foreign strangers that came year after year. Rather than addressing the root causes of the material poverty that the community was experiencing, it began to label people as victims of their circumstances. 

Our brief disruption into a community as “helpers” doesn’t do any favors for the people who don’t get to leave the reality after. In the book When Helping Hurts (a book we love here at Untold), authors Fikkert and Corbett write, “We are not bringing Christ to poor communities. He has been active in these communities since the creation of the world, sustaining them, Hebrews 1:3 says, by His powerful Word. Hence, a significant part of working in poor communities involves discovering and appreciating what God has been doing there for a LONG time.”

We are no better or more holy because we have access to resources others may not have. Who are we to assume we have much to offer to strangers whose needs we know nothing about?

This isn’t to villainize mission trips - evangelism is biblical. Mission work can and SHOULD be holy. But the next time you’re presented with the opportunity to visit a developing country specifically for a mission trip, I’d encourage you to reflect first. What is the goal? Why are you going? How will you interact with the people you meet, both there and after your return? I hope the Lord speaks to you in that reflection and it shows in the dignifying nature of your trip.

Recommended reading: When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert.