A friend from Walla Walla and his family have graciously allowed me to stay with them while I await a flight to San Francisco on Friday. The cheapest airfare we could find to Thailand was from San Francisco, and the need to come to Walla Walla presented itself later. It meant I'd have to leave Michigan earlier than planned but I'll get to spend more time with my mom before I head out, and my mother-in-law is flying my wife home so we can all be together.
This morning we went to visit some of our former professors, including the one who will be leading the mission trip. We also saw a friend who has been serving as a missionary in Eastern Europe and her six-month old baby. She and her husband will be joining us for breakfast tomorrow and I can't wait to hear about the experiences of long-term missionaries.
While I believe what we're doing on our short-term trips is valuable, we who go on short-term mission trips often gain more than the people we go to serve on the trip. Much of the value is in experience of other cultures and the ability to share what we learn about those cultures. In this trip, we also have the value of working in conjunction with an existing infrastructure. When we leave, the mission continues, and hopefully we've done more to reflect the character of Jesus Christ in our interactions than we have the character of the typical western tourist.
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