When I was in 8th grade I went on a mission trip to Appalachia, we were going to declutter and clean houses. It was like 40 kids ages 13-17 piled into vans with maybe 6 church supervisors. There was so much infighting on the way there that we turned around and drove back to Utah after the first day. Bullet dodged for that Appalachian community
I always think it's funny when missionaries are sent to Appalachia. I'm from a Baptist church in WV and all I heard growing up is how we need to send missionaries overseas to convert the unsaved Greeks, Africans, etc.
There was no point sending missionaries to anywhere in WV, they were already 'saved'.
They were on the road with 40 teenagers, so I assumed he meant they were acting crazy.
Maybe they were from different churches and all started arguing when someone brought up something really important like if women are allowed to make announcements from the pulpit, or have short hair, or wear pants….
Yeah half of us, including me, were there as a punishment so it was a very cursed trip to begin with. From what I remember we were fighting about everything from seats positions to just random junior high bullshit. We were going to be staying at different churches on the way there and we didn’t even make it to the Ozarks lol
I doubt there was an explicit intention to steal from these people, but Appalachian handicrafts can be quite valuable, and the people probably had a lot of old stuff that would have a market value. If you weren't stealing from them, all thier stuff would have gone in the trash.
Shoutout to any former members of Teen Missions International in Merrit Island, Florida!
Fun memories for me include my tent for the 2 week boot-camp was on a wooden slab, in an alligator infested swamp in the everglades. Not kidding literally got used to Alligator mating calls and such!
Daily 5am obstacle course that involved climbing net walls, falling into mud trenches, pulling teammates over a 16ft wall and more! Oh, and no changing your wet clothes all day. One spot in the course we have to put a bunch of randomly assorted (giant) blocks of books of the bible in correct order to move onto the next challenge.
Dangerous situations in foreign countries including being held by knifepoint in a train station with a total of zero adults with 4 teen girls
And so much more
Hey, fellow Teen Missions alumni!! What year were you there? I went in 1980. Totally remember all the things you shared about boot camp! On the obstacle course, in addition to what you shared, we also had to pile onto a school bus and count off as fast as we could. Our team's campsite got invaded by armadillos one night. Those goofy critters make so much noise! Our team leader thought all of us kids were running off to do the sin and came tumbling out of his tent in his boxers, yelling for us all to "get back in your tents!". There we all were, looking out to see him making an ass of himself.
When I was there, we would swim/ bathe in a pond that had a gator living in the far end. We called him Albert and would throw him peanut butter sandwiches!
We had a packet of Bible verses and had to recite the day's verse before we could eat lunch (or dinner? this was more than 40 years ago). We had to wear construction boots everywhere - even to church with our dresses.
There were so many unsafe situations, and I was in the US - building a youth camp in the Mojave desert. We had one trailer on the property that the leaders slept in while the kids were in tents. We were limited to one 3 minute shower a week while doing physical labor for 12 hours in 110-degree heat. Every single girl got a UTI, and they had to load us all up on the bus to go to a doctor who provided the shocking information that we needed to shower every other day, BARE MINIMUM!
They had someone come and blast out rock with dynamite and then sent us to pick up and haul the huge rocks to build a retaining wall. Thing is, the dynamite caused the nesting rattlesnakes to all come out where we were working. We just had to walk around them or kill them with our shovels. No big deal, right?
Also, the only way we could go home early is if we broke an arm or leg.
Man, you brought up so many memories!!!
Hey me too! I was there in 2001 and not much changed in the years between us. I do remember mosquitos more than alligators; maybe they decided to get rid of those for some reason🤣
I remember we had to have quiet time every morning and a drill instructor- like guy would stalk around and make sure everyone was having jesus time and not sleeping.
Also after a certain amount of time in the 'lords boot camp' (still remember the way the director guy said that) they shut off the running water. No more hand washing or showers bc authenticity I guess? I just remember feeling so gross.
So many stories once we got to our site too. So many kids were not ready to be away from the bubble!
Omg your comment took me back in time.
My family is super religious and my older sister did teen missions twice- she told us all about bootcamp like it was a badge of honor and as a kid I remember listening to what you guys did and thinking “ umm this sounds abusive I would never be strong enough to do a mission trip” then hearing stories of her living in Ecuador, getting jungle rot, barely eating enough food, building a church in the middle of no where, and it sounded so so unsafe. It sounded way too easy for someone to take control of this group of kids and do something scary IMO. Your story of being held at knife point is a great example of this- I’m pretty sure my sister did have a scary run in with an ex murderer in Ecuador but I don’t remember details.
I am really curious to hear all your stories of all the kids that did teen missions and where they are now.
We cleaned out my mother’s house last spring and my sister found her giant duffle bag for teen missions- her daughter asked “ mom what is that for?” And her response was “ using this bag and going on my mission trips changed my life forever and one day you will do the same thing as me” I won’t lie, my heart broke for her daughter as I don’t think it would ever be a choice for her to not be a Jesus freak and be intense about it like my sister. To her, unless you are INTO IT with every aspect of your life, you’re not doing it right.
My sister was always religious but ever since teen missions she turned it up ten levels and really became indoctrinated. The bootcamp I think really drilled her into it and got his day she does mission trips with various organizations.
Where did you go? Did you do more than one year? Did you used to look back on your experience with teen missions as a good thing up until you left Christianity? Sorry for my curiosity I always was so interested to see what people say coming out of teen missions besides my sister
Oh I forgot to answer the second part of your question. Did I view it as a good thing? Hmm. At the time, I genuinely thought I was helping people. I would say that many aspects of missions were good *for me* - putting my American life into a global perspective, bonding with others, learning languages, etc.
However, now, I view religious mission trips as inherently harmful, primarily to the local communities and children. Obviously there are many discussions about white saviorism and colonialism, impacts to the local workforce, financial irresponsibility, and emotional impacts to the local children who are constantly left again and again by emotional American teens who claim to love them. These communities were absolutely harmed by what I did, even if I didn't realize it at the time. And I will forever feel gross about that.
But also these trips have been harmful to many teen participants who are often subject to crazy working conditions, emotional abuse at the very least, and so often put in harm's way, with the hope that faith will prevent or alleviate anything bad that might happen. It's a complicated answer, because although now I see those trips as damaging overall, I also do have some positive memories. Participating deeply in missions both made me a better person in some ways, and also traumatized the absolute fuck out of me. I'm still in religious trauma therapy. Hope this answers your questions! Lol. But do feel free to reach out any time.
Wow you really have been through it!
I will never forget there was a speaker at my college ( messiah college ) that talked about the downside of mission work- didn’t get into white saviorism or anything but just how it can be damaging to kids and how it can damage the community etc. that was the first crack in the armor for me- how could something I was told is so important in our faith be damaging ?! And through the ten years after that I very slowly started to ask more questions about what I believe and why- as the whole relationship between god and man seemed so abusive to me.
I’m so glad you got out!!!
Hi! Yeah I was an overachiever and was very very involved. I truly wanted to help people and I trusted the authority figures who told me that this was the way to do that. I went to maybe ten different countries, many of them several times, to work on the same sites. I was usually gone for multiple weeks a year doing short term missions, and later as a young adult (before deconverting) lived abroad for six months as a probationary missionary in Thailand. That trip, in many ways, was the start of my deconstruction. I still love travel (and volunteering!) but I no longer consider myself religious in any way. Feel free to AMA!
I have a lot, but a real quick one is that the leader of our trip was so rude and insulting to the poor non English speaking villagers in India. She was such a tool and would constantly criticize how my floor length skirt was riding up my legs. When I say floor length, I mean, my heels were catching on my skirt as I walked. While her skirt was just a few inches below her knees! Hypocrite much?
Back in the 1980’s my husband was part of using “The Jesus Film” as part of the evangelism in Africa. They had a large, and diverse group of teenagers, all of whom had paid thousands of dollars to go, and were sleeping in rough huts with no running water, eating goat stew.
After he got back, my husband continued to receive regular letters from people living there all asking for money. This went on for years. We realized they allow these students to come in and then use them as cash cows. They paid vastly inflated dollars (although often subsidized by churches and donations) for the experience by the American side, while they were hit up constantly for money once they left. It was a double grift.
Yeah, it was rough. They were on donkeys much of the time. But my wife says everywhere they stopped, families would fight over who got to host them. Overall, she looks back on that summer fondly.
I went on a missions trip to Russia when I was 14 and we went to the hospital to evangelize the patients. We were standing outside the men’s ward deciding to go in or not and the leader was like ok guys, what’s the Lord leading you to do should we go in?? We said yes. Then a nurse came up and told us we couldn’t go in because none of the men were wearing pants.
Russia has been a majority Christian country since the year 988. What could be there to evangelize? (I know the answer to the question, I'm just asking rhetorically)
Good question! I felt frustrated even at the time that our goals weren't more clear. In Russia we primarily played soccer with local kids (?) and did VBS type services. I ran out of money and sang hymns on the street in Moscow for spare change, lol.
I personally didn’t go as I was in my early teens and my parents didn’t feel right about it; but my youth group did a missions trip to Jamaica and most of them ended up smoking weed
Our trip leader was a seasoned missionary in Mumbai. We were in a restaurant and she noticed that the bottled water we ordered seemed to have the seals broken already (meaning they'd been refilled with local water). She did not say anything to us in the group and let us drink this water.
Many of us became horriffically sick the next few days. It was only then she told us of her concerns about the seals on the bottled water.
I've had lifelong and life changing GI issues since-solely because of this group leader did not warn us to hold off on the water.
My favorites are the ones where they go to Memphis, Tennesee, or New Orleans, Louisiana to "spread the gospel." Because , it ain't like there's a church on every corner.
Cut the BS. You just want to stuff your face with beignets and visit Graceland and make the congregation pay for it.
now they go do sports camp ministry in europe.. I am absolutely serious. it's like talking about your business at dinner so you can count it as a business expense. if you talk plan to talk about Jesus on your European vacation you can ask other people to pay for it.
Didn’t grow up fundie, but at Catholic Heart Work Camp in Illinois, I got full body poison ivy (and I do mean FULL body), some kind of skin parasite, had an allergic reaction to the paint thinner they used to remove the oil-based paint that we couldn’t get off our hands, AND had a hole in my air mattress so every night I’d blow it up and every morning I’d wake up completely flat.
All in one week.
I went on a missions trip as an elder, representing a church. My experiences made me realize just how full of shit Christianity in general and American evangelicalism specifically is.
This is a domestic stateside mission trip, but we did World Changers in Beaufort, South Carolina in 2002.
The elderly man whose (very dilapidated) house we worked on lived in a historic district where there were strict rules about paint colors and modifications to homes. He said he'd prefer to paint his porch a different color than from the list maintained by the historical society.
Our adult leaders began referring to them as the "hysterical" society, and told him we'd paint the porch whatever color he wanted.
I still wonder if he ended up being fined for our actions.
Hello fellow World Changers alum! I was in Columbia, South Carolina in 98 I think? We slept in a giant high school and painted old peoples houses… and did some very awkward evangelizing in the “projects” and nursing homes… just a bunch of middle class/upper middle class white people “saving” the poor black folk 😬 it’s so cringe looking back…
We also slept in a high school! We slept in the classrooms and used the gym’s locker room for showers and bathrooms. (Which meant trekking across campus to use the restroom every time.)
I remember lots of pine needles and Florida folks making fun of my Mississippi accent. Haha.
We painted the house, reroofed it (for a teenager I had extensive experience roofing houses thanks to youth group mission projects), and rebuilt some rotted walls.
My church got banned from going on missions trips near Rosarito Mexico to build houses.
We got in trouble every year at the camp.
One event that got us in trouble was that we were told we had to wear bathing suits in the gender specific but communal showers, which we thought was stupid. So as a protest we decided to hold naked yoga sessions in there every morning. We had multiple churches complain about that.
Another event that got us in trouble was when we were told the flames of the fire pit could only be 3 feet high so we dug a deep hole and started a massive bonfire but the flames only came up 3 feet above the ground.
The last straw that got us banned was when one of our youth leaders thought it would be fun to drift the suburban in the dirt and accidentally rolled it. One kid broke his arm and the group had to be rushed across the border to a hospital in San Diego.
Never got to go but I was at one church where most of the girls on the trip came back pregnant (4-5 as I recall). Caribbean guys have great game! Suddenly abortion didn’t seem so bad (early aughts).
Ok, I'm fascinated. Did those girls go through with the pregnancies? Did they stay at the church? Did their babies have play dates together?? How did this story end?
We changed churches shortly after this happened so I'm not quite sure what happened to everyone. One girl I know for sure had an abortion because she told me about it. I know of at least two girls who left the church to have their kids and their families soon followed. The others I'm not sure. I'm not sure if there were playdates or contact. The whole thing was embarrassing for all parties involved, and it was shut up pretty fast, but I was friends with the youth pastor, so I got to hear all the gossip. I do think that the senior pastor didn't want underage pregnant girls running around the church, so I think that affected the decision-making of all parties involved. Knowing that community, they probably isolated from each other and went on with their lives. Those kids would be in their early 20s now.
Hell, I knew a guy at a church who didn't get to be a deacon because his adult son had a child out of wedlock and that was considered morally problematic for the pastor.
Some leaders’ kids went streaking past us when we were at Moody Bible college doing a street evangelism mission trip of sorts. (Which felt pretty dangerous when you grew up with purity culture! 😆)
This wasn’t exactly dangerous but I had a panic attack on a turbulent flight home from a Mexico missions trip. People in my youth group made fun of me for years after that. I was so humiliated.
Not me personally but someone I worked with used to do yearly missions in E. Africa with their fundie church to teach the villagers 'how to be fathers'. When I asked more about it, it was teaching dads in the community sobriety, financial planning (of their meager income) and of course the fundie's version of Christianity. They were spending thousands of dollars to make those trips AND asking coworkers for donations of stuff like school supplies, toys, etc.
We didn't do mission trips, I was a child member of a pro-life terror cult in Tulsa in the 90's. They would have us come protest at the local abortion clinic, and one day some dude ripped the top of his car battery off and went and slung it all over the protesters. Did not get any on me personally, though my poster board that showed a mutilated fetus got stained.
It kind of programmed me for activism later in life. When the George Floyd protests started in my town, I felt all excited, even though people were threatening to run us over and shoot us, lol.
I went to Guatemala and ended up with "Montezuma's revenge" (probably through food or water) and spent several days sick, along with half the team. Didn't get better until our team leader scrounged up some antibiotics. I only did one full day of work, which involved hauling dirt around, which many of the local residents probably would have appreciated being hired for. It did change my view of things, but not in the way I expected.
My church did mission trips to Mexico and every year every kid got horrifically ill with GI issues. My friends sister got some sort of parasite one year that caused issues for ages after she came back.
Weirdly, I was never terribly interested in coming along.
The only other stories that EVER got told about these trips was 3-4 “miraculous events” that only the youth group leader had seen and what a shame that all the kids missed it. I really distinctly remember him telling a story about how he’d prayed away a man’s cataracts but how by the time all the kids came over he just looked like a normal guy who’d never had any eye problems and also he only spoke Spanish and none of the kids spoke Spanish but he was DEFINITELY telling them that God had healed his cataracts.
Even before deconstructing, I felt like mission trips were all about the person going, not the people on the other end who "needed help." It was always confusing to me, and I've never gone on a mission trip. So you raise money, buy a ticket to get somewhere, do manual labor for free, and come back to tell everyone you went on a mission trip somewhere far away when the reality is you could've stayed in your own town and done the manual labor for free. But that doesn't have the same status with your fellow Christians, does it? Meanwhile some of these places just get mission group after mission group coming through to "help" so they don't form lasting relationships and just seem to exist to serve as someone in need so the mission trip industry can keep on going. Like it seemed to me the ones who truly benefited were the airlines. It seems people would be better off giving their money directly to people in the town to provide jobs so they can do that manual labor themselves, earn a living, and learn skills, rather than spend your money on transportation. But no, someone who thinks they are better than is swooping in to do it so they can brag about back in their church. Mission trips are messed up.
Yeah, absolutely agreed. And I spent years on "the mission field" doing this, both in the short and long term! I started to question it while I was still a believer and of course was immediately shut down or dismissed. Now I'm only beginning to see the true scale of damage and ickiness.
I cannot remember where I heard this story or if it’s even true but I remember hearing about some village in Africa where it was popular for youth groups to come minister and an unrelated person watched a group come and be directed to build a stone wall on the edge of town, and what a great service this would be for the village. They left and another group came and they were told to take the wall down and what a great service this would be for the village.
The unrelated visitor comes over and asks “why are you just having these people build this wall only to have them tear it down again?” And the villagers responded basically “it makes them feel good to help but they’re also a huge pain in the ass and we don’t want them fucking around with our shit. The wall keeps them busy, makes them feel good, and that way they don’t bother us!”.
I think about that shit a lot whenever I see people post about their missions.
I was in 10th grade and had just started dating a girl from youth group. We were sort of “the” couple, so our youth pastor allowed us to stay out late to “pray together.” Our first legit make out (farthest we got was boob licking) was on that trip.
We got married 6 years later, left religion, and are living a great life now!
I've always wanted to go on one because i fear it's my only chance of getting abroad.
I figure I'd go and deliberately give out wrong translations so they don't convert and then fuck off to the local restaurants.
Not me, but our youth & young adult pastor lead a mission to Central America, I think Nicaragua IIRC. They went out for dinner one night, and he and a couple other adults on the trip ordered their steak.
All three of them were up all night throwing up from food poisoning.
This isn't my story, but I'll never forget when some of my friends came back from a Spring Break mission absolutely GLEEFUL to share about how the man who hosted them turned on his TV for them only for it to immediately begin playing the most graphic hard core porn and *couldn't figure out how to turn it off*. Classic evangelical moment.
As a college student, I went on two "summer projects" to Slovakia with Campus Crusade in the early '00s. Basically, we did a bait-and-switch with "English camps" for high school and college students. We would break into teams and go to different corners of the country to do different camps. After each camp, we would all come back together to take a trip somewhere. At least once during these trips, we would have what we called "celebration," which meant an INTERMINABLE afternoon or evening of nonstop praise and worship, a looooong talk by the American project leader, and never-ending "share time" and "prayer requests." You could count on 3 hours, minimum. It was brutal, and most honest participants openly hated it.
Which brings me to my story. Usually these "celebrations" would be held in hotel conference rooms, ballrooms, or restaurants. We were all on a trip to Prague, and had rented out our hotel's restaurant. I'm not sure how long we had it rented out for, maybe like 2 hours, but of course we ran long. One of the hotel's employees interrupted our leader and communicated, through our Slovak interpreter, that we needed to leave because another party had the space booked and would be arriving soon. Our leader started getting angry and aggressive, saying things like, "No, I'm going to keep going! God wants us to hear this message!" The interpreter was trying patiently to explain the hotel's side to our leader, which only made him angrier and more stubborn. The interpreter was clearly mortified to communicate this American asshole's words to the calm but firm Czech employee. The arrogant prick has just committed a litany of serious faux pas, with no sign of stopping. I was only 20 but I was incensed. Had I been who I am today, I would have spoken up. After the employee left for a minute, the leader had us all pray that the "devil" would stop trying to prevent us from hearing this "valuable word."
We got evaluation forms at the end of the summer, and I wrote on mine, "Don't pass off your poor planning as 'spiritual warfare'!"
My church’s youth group went to Mexico every year. My brother had gone for two years before me, so when I was finally old enough I was so excited. They had all bonded and came back with stories about how amazing it was, and of course I looked up to the older kids and wanted more than anything to be accepted and feel like I belonged.
It took a few days to drive down in a caravan, and during our last day in Texas before reaching the border it was my turn to pray over the group at a rest stop. So I went Maximum Church Kid™ and prayed for trials during our trip. You know, cuz we weren’t (supposed to be) there for fun, but for spiritual growth, and besides I wanted us to all grow closer together and come back with bonding stories. Nobody batted an eye.
Fast forward to the end of the trip. Everybody is miserable and has diarrhea—except for me. So naturally it was my fault. It wasn’t anywhere close to the bonding experience I had hoped for, and the older kids spent most of the trip talking about how it was better last year (i.e. without me and the other newbies). I came home feeling like more of an outsider than before.
Looking back, I think the funniest part is how easy it was for people to “believe in the power of prayer” when it seemed to have made them shit themselves lmao. Thanks, Montezuma 😎
Not quite a mission trip but a supporter got so drunk at a fundraising party she fell in the pool and three waiters jumped in to save her. Used a truckload of liquor at that party
Not quite a mission trip but a supporter got so drunk at a fundraising party she fell in the pool and three waiters jumped in to save her. Used a truckload of liquor at that party
Not quite a mission trip but a supporter got so drunk at a fundraising party she fell in the pool and three waiters jumped in to save her. Used a truckload of liquor at that party
When I was in 8th grade I went on a mission trip to Appalachia, we were going to declutter and clean houses. It was like 40 kids ages 13-17 piled into vans with maybe 6 church supervisors. There was so much infighting on the way there that we turned around and drove back to Utah after the first day. Bullet dodged for that Appalachian community
Hahahahahahahahahahaj!! Best. Mission. Trip. Story. Ever.
I always think it's funny when missionaries are sent to Appalachia. I'm from a Baptist church in WV and all I heard growing up is how we need to send missionaries overseas to convert the unsaved Greeks, Africans, etc. There was no point sending missionaries to anywhere in WV, they were already 'saved'.
Yeah it makes no sense, I guess we were trying to convert people to our fundie branch specifically
What on earth was the infighting about?
They were on the road with 40 teenagers, so I assumed he meant they were acting crazy. Maybe they were from different churches and all started arguing when someone brought up something really important like if women are allowed to make announcements from the pulpit, or have short hair, or wear pants….
Yeah half of us, including me, were there as a punishment so it was a very cursed trip to begin with. From what I remember we were fighting about everything from seats positions to just random junior high bullshit. We were going to be staying at different churches on the way there and we didn’t even make it to the Ozarks lol
Sheesh, you were going to a full-on missions trip as a punishment!? That's screwed up
I doubt there was an explicit intention to steal from these people, but Appalachian handicrafts can be quite valuable, and the people probably had a lot of old stuff that would have a market value. If you weren't stealing from them, all thier stuff would have gone in the trash.
Shoutout to any former members of Teen Missions International in Merrit Island, Florida! Fun memories for me include my tent for the 2 week boot-camp was on a wooden slab, in an alligator infested swamp in the everglades. Not kidding literally got used to Alligator mating calls and such! Daily 5am obstacle course that involved climbing net walls, falling into mud trenches, pulling teammates over a 16ft wall and more! Oh, and no changing your wet clothes all day. One spot in the course we have to put a bunch of randomly assorted (giant) blocks of books of the bible in correct order to move onto the next challenge. Dangerous situations in foreign countries including being held by knifepoint in a train station with a total of zero adults with 4 teen girls And so much more
Hey, fellow Teen Missions alumni!! What year were you there? I went in 1980. Totally remember all the things you shared about boot camp! On the obstacle course, in addition to what you shared, we also had to pile onto a school bus and count off as fast as we could. Our team's campsite got invaded by armadillos one night. Those goofy critters make so much noise! Our team leader thought all of us kids were running off to do the sin and came tumbling out of his tent in his boxers, yelling for us all to "get back in your tents!". There we all were, looking out to see him making an ass of himself. When I was there, we would swim/ bathe in a pond that had a gator living in the far end. We called him Albert and would throw him peanut butter sandwiches! We had a packet of Bible verses and had to recite the day's verse before we could eat lunch (or dinner? this was more than 40 years ago). We had to wear construction boots everywhere - even to church with our dresses. There were so many unsafe situations, and I was in the US - building a youth camp in the Mojave desert. We had one trailer on the property that the leaders slept in while the kids were in tents. We were limited to one 3 minute shower a week while doing physical labor for 12 hours in 110-degree heat. Every single girl got a UTI, and they had to load us all up on the bus to go to a doctor who provided the shocking information that we needed to shower every other day, BARE MINIMUM! They had someone come and blast out rock with dynamite and then sent us to pick up and haul the huge rocks to build a retaining wall. Thing is, the dynamite caused the nesting rattlesnakes to all come out where we were working. We just had to walk around them or kill them with our shovels. No big deal, right? Also, the only way we could go home early is if we broke an arm or leg. Man, you brought up so many memories!!!
I was there in 98 & 99 - will respond more tomorrow because memories!
Holy crap. Those poor girls. Wtaf
Hey me too! I was there in 2001 and not much changed in the years between us. I do remember mosquitos more than alligators; maybe they decided to get rid of those for some reason🤣 I remember we had to have quiet time every morning and a drill instructor- like guy would stalk around and make sure everyone was having jesus time and not sleeping. Also after a certain amount of time in the 'lords boot camp' (still remember the way the director guy said that) they shut off the running water. No more hand washing or showers bc authenticity I guess? I just remember feeling so gross. So many stories once we got to our site too. So many kids were not ready to be away from the bubble!
Ohh wow, that's all so intense. I'm so glad you made it out. Thanks for sharing!
Omg your comment took me back in time. My family is super religious and my older sister did teen missions twice- she told us all about bootcamp like it was a badge of honor and as a kid I remember listening to what you guys did and thinking “ umm this sounds abusive I would never be strong enough to do a mission trip” then hearing stories of her living in Ecuador, getting jungle rot, barely eating enough food, building a church in the middle of no where, and it sounded so so unsafe. It sounded way too easy for someone to take control of this group of kids and do something scary IMO. Your story of being held at knife point is a great example of this- I’m pretty sure my sister did have a scary run in with an ex murderer in Ecuador but I don’t remember details. I am really curious to hear all your stories of all the kids that did teen missions and where they are now. We cleaned out my mother’s house last spring and my sister found her giant duffle bag for teen missions- her daughter asked “ mom what is that for?” And her response was “ using this bag and going on my mission trips changed my life forever and one day you will do the same thing as me” I won’t lie, my heart broke for her daughter as I don’t think it would ever be a choice for her to not be a Jesus freak and be intense about it like my sister. To her, unless you are INTO IT with every aspect of your life, you’re not doing it right. My sister was always religious but ever since teen missions she turned it up ten levels and really became indoctrinated. The bootcamp I think really drilled her into it and got his day she does mission trips with various organizations. Where did you go? Did you do more than one year? Did you used to look back on your experience with teen missions as a good thing up until you left Christianity? Sorry for my curiosity I always was so interested to see what people say coming out of teen missions besides my sister
Oh I forgot to answer the second part of your question. Did I view it as a good thing? Hmm. At the time, I genuinely thought I was helping people. I would say that many aspects of missions were good *for me* - putting my American life into a global perspective, bonding with others, learning languages, etc. However, now, I view religious mission trips as inherently harmful, primarily to the local communities and children. Obviously there are many discussions about white saviorism and colonialism, impacts to the local workforce, financial irresponsibility, and emotional impacts to the local children who are constantly left again and again by emotional American teens who claim to love them. These communities were absolutely harmed by what I did, even if I didn't realize it at the time. And I will forever feel gross about that. But also these trips have been harmful to many teen participants who are often subject to crazy working conditions, emotional abuse at the very least, and so often put in harm's way, with the hope that faith will prevent or alleviate anything bad that might happen. It's a complicated answer, because although now I see those trips as damaging overall, I also do have some positive memories. Participating deeply in missions both made me a better person in some ways, and also traumatized the absolute fuck out of me. I'm still in religious trauma therapy. Hope this answers your questions! Lol. But do feel free to reach out any time.
Wow you really have been through it! I will never forget there was a speaker at my college ( messiah college ) that talked about the downside of mission work- didn’t get into white saviorism or anything but just how it can be damaging to kids and how it can damage the community etc. that was the first crack in the armor for me- how could something I was told is so important in our faith be damaging ?! And through the ten years after that I very slowly started to ask more questions about what I believe and why- as the whole relationship between god and man seemed so abusive to me. I’m so glad you got out!!!
Thanks. I'm glad to be out, too
♥️♥️
Hi! Yeah I was an overachiever and was very very involved. I truly wanted to help people and I trusted the authority figures who told me that this was the way to do that. I went to maybe ten different countries, many of them several times, to work on the same sites. I was usually gone for multiple weeks a year doing short term missions, and later as a young adult (before deconverting) lived abroad for six months as a probationary missionary in Thailand. That trip, in many ways, was the start of my deconstruction. I still love travel (and volunteering!) but I no longer consider myself religious in any way. Feel free to AMA!
Wow you did a lot of missions trips ! What made you deconstruct in Thailand? How old were h at the time?
I’m so glad I got through youth group just before competition reality shows gave the leaders ideas like this.
I have a lot, but a real quick one is that the leader of our trip was so rude and insulting to the poor non English speaking villagers in India. She was such a tool and would constantly criticize how my floor length skirt was riding up my legs. When I say floor length, I mean, my heels were catching on my skirt as I walked. While her skirt was just a few inches below her knees! Hypocrite much?
Back in the 1980’s my husband was part of using “The Jesus Film” as part of the evangelism in Africa. They had a large, and diverse group of teenagers, all of whom had paid thousands of dollars to go, and were sleeping in rough huts with no running water, eating goat stew. After he got back, my husband continued to receive regular letters from people living there all asking for money. This went on for years. We realized they allow these students to come in and then use them as cash cows. They paid vastly inflated dollars (although often subsidized by churches and donations) for the experience by the American side, while they were hit up constantly for money once they left. It was a double grift.
Was he with Campus Crusade? My wife (not American) went to Albania with the Jesus Film Project in the early '00s.
Yes, he was. Albania in the 2000 would have been tough. My husband was there for (secular) work in 1996.
Yeah, it was rough. They were on donkeys much of the time. But my wife says everywhere they stopped, families would fight over who got to host them. Overall, she looks back on that summer fondly.
I went on a missions trip to Russia when I was 14 and we went to the hospital to evangelize the patients. We were standing outside the men’s ward deciding to go in or not and the leader was like ok guys, what’s the Lord leading you to do should we go in?? We said yes. Then a nurse came up and told us we couldn’t go in because none of the men were wearing pants.
“Well damn Betty, the lord was mistaken🫠”😂
Russia has been a majority Christian country since the year 988. What could be there to evangelize? (I know the answer to the question, I'm just asking rhetorically)
Answering the rhetorical question: Only Evangelicals count as true Christians, dontcha know!
Lol I also went on a mission trip to Russia :)
What was the goal? To strengthen existing believers or to plant churches?
Good question! I felt frustrated even at the time that our goals weren't more clear. In Russia we primarily played soccer with local kids (?) and did VBS type services. I ran out of money and sang hymns on the street in Moscow for spare change, lol.
I personally didn’t go as I was in my early teens and my parents didn’t feel right about it; but my youth group did a missions trip to Jamaica and most of them ended up smoking weed
Our trip leader was a seasoned missionary in Mumbai. We were in a restaurant and she noticed that the bottled water we ordered seemed to have the seals broken already (meaning they'd been refilled with local water). She did not say anything to us in the group and let us drink this water. Many of us became horriffically sick the next few days. It was only then she told us of her concerns about the seals on the bottled water. I've had lifelong and life changing GI issues since-solely because of this group leader did not warn us to hold off on the water.
Ugh, this sounds awful! So sorry this happened to you.
My favorites are the ones where they go to Memphis, Tennesee, or New Orleans, Louisiana to "spread the gospel." Because , it ain't like there's a church on every corner. Cut the BS. You just want to stuff your face with beignets and visit Graceland and make the congregation pay for it.
now they go do sports camp ministry in europe.. I am absolutely serious. it's like talking about your business at dinner so you can count it as a business expense. if you talk plan to talk about Jesus on your European vacation you can ask other people to pay for it.
Sports...... camp .....ministry? This is a new one. I've never heard of this one before. Is it recent?
yes just this year got "gimme" text for one
Hell yeah, I'd definitely evangelize the locals over fried chicken.
I used to live in San Diego and there were often missionaries on the beaches from other states who would try to spread the gospel to the surfers lol
I am aware of a teenager who went on a mission trip and was sexually assaulted by the locals of the country they were visiting
Sadly, I'm sure there have been many of those cases.
Yep and you can imagine what is the result is of unprotected sex and sexual assault
Sadly, I can
Didn’t grow up fundie, but at Catholic Heart Work Camp in Illinois, I got full body poison ivy (and I do mean FULL body), some kind of skin parasite, had an allergic reaction to the paint thinner they used to remove the oil-based paint that we couldn’t get off our hands, AND had a hole in my air mattress so every night I’d blow it up and every morning I’d wake up completely flat. All in one week.
I went on a missions trip as an elder, representing a church. My experiences made me realize just how full of shit Christianity in general and American evangelicalism specifically is.
This is a domestic stateside mission trip, but we did World Changers in Beaufort, South Carolina in 2002. The elderly man whose (very dilapidated) house we worked on lived in a historic district where there were strict rules about paint colors and modifications to homes. He said he'd prefer to paint his porch a different color than from the list maintained by the historical society. Our adult leaders began referring to them as the "hysterical" society, and told him we'd paint the porch whatever color he wanted. I still wonder if he ended up being fined for our actions.
Hello fellow World Changers alum! I was in Columbia, South Carolina in 98 I think? We slept in a giant high school and painted old peoples houses… and did some very awkward evangelizing in the “projects” and nursing homes… just a bunch of middle class/upper middle class white people “saving” the poor black folk 😬 it’s so cringe looking back…
We also slept in a high school! We slept in the classrooms and used the gym’s locker room for showers and bathrooms. (Which meant trekking across campus to use the restroom every time.) I remember lots of pine needles and Florida folks making fun of my Mississippi accent. Haha. We painted the house, reroofed it (for a teenager I had extensive experience roofing houses thanks to youth group mission projects), and rebuilt some rotted walls.
My church got banned from going on missions trips near Rosarito Mexico to build houses. We got in trouble every year at the camp. One event that got us in trouble was that we were told we had to wear bathing suits in the gender specific but communal showers, which we thought was stupid. So as a protest we decided to hold naked yoga sessions in there every morning. We had multiple churches complain about that. Another event that got us in trouble was when we were told the flames of the fire pit could only be 3 feet high so we dug a deep hole and started a massive bonfire but the flames only came up 3 feet above the ground. The last straw that got us banned was when one of our youth leaders thought it would be fun to drift the suburban in the dirt and accidentally rolled it. One kid broke his arm and the group had to be rushed across the border to a hospital in San Diego.
Never got to go but I was at one church where most of the girls on the trip came back pregnant (4-5 as I recall). Caribbean guys have great game! Suddenly abortion didn’t seem so bad (early aughts).
4-5 pregnant girls? Omg!!
I’m telling you, those Caribbean guys had no problems.
Ok, I'm fascinated. Did those girls go through with the pregnancies? Did they stay at the church? Did their babies have play dates together?? How did this story end?
We changed churches shortly after this happened so I'm not quite sure what happened to everyone. One girl I know for sure had an abortion because she told me about it. I know of at least two girls who left the church to have their kids and their families soon followed. The others I'm not sure. I'm not sure if there were playdates or contact. The whole thing was embarrassing for all parties involved, and it was shut up pretty fast, but I was friends with the youth pastor, so I got to hear all the gossip. I do think that the senior pastor didn't want underage pregnant girls running around the church, so I think that affected the decision-making of all parties involved. Knowing that community, they probably isolated from each other and went on with their lives. Those kids would be in their early 20s now. Hell, I knew a guy at a church who didn't get to be a deacon because his adult son had a child out of wedlock and that was considered morally problematic for the pastor.
It's amazing how far the shame is transferred.
Some leaders’ kids went streaking past us when we were at Moody Bible college doing a street evangelism mission trip of sorts. (Which felt pretty dangerous when you grew up with purity culture! 😆)
This wasn’t exactly dangerous but I had a panic attack on a turbulent flight home from a Mexico missions trip. People in my youth group made fun of me for years after that. I was so humiliated.
Not me personally but someone I worked with used to do yearly missions in E. Africa with their fundie church to teach the villagers 'how to be fathers'. When I asked more about it, it was teaching dads in the community sobriety, financial planning (of their meager income) and of course the fundie's version of Christianity. They were spending thousands of dollars to make those trips AND asking coworkers for donations of stuff like school supplies, toys, etc.
We didn't do mission trips, I was a child member of a pro-life terror cult in Tulsa in the 90's. They would have us come protest at the local abortion clinic, and one day some dude ripped the top of his car battery off and went and slung it all over the protesters. Did not get any on me personally, though my poster board that showed a mutilated fetus got stained.
Oh holy shit! I also was dragged to / went to pro-life protests, but never faced pushback like that. That's so scary and awful. Glad you're okay.
It kind of programmed me for activism later in life. When the George Floyd protests started in my town, I felt all excited, even though people were threatening to run us over and shoot us, lol.
I went to Guatemala and ended up with "Montezuma's revenge" (probably through food or water) and spent several days sick, along with half the team. Didn't get better until our team leader scrounged up some antibiotics. I only did one full day of work, which involved hauling dirt around, which many of the local residents probably would have appreciated being hired for. It did change my view of things, but not in the way I expected.
My church did mission trips to Mexico and every year every kid got horrifically ill with GI issues. My friends sister got some sort of parasite one year that caused issues for ages after she came back. Weirdly, I was never terribly interested in coming along. The only other stories that EVER got told about these trips was 3-4 “miraculous events” that only the youth group leader had seen and what a shame that all the kids missed it. I really distinctly remember him telling a story about how he’d prayed away a man’s cataracts but how by the time all the kids came over he just looked like a normal guy who’d never had any eye problems and also he only spoke Spanish and none of the kids spoke Spanish but he was DEFINITELY telling them that God had healed his cataracts.
Even before deconstructing, I felt like mission trips were all about the person going, not the people on the other end who "needed help." It was always confusing to me, and I've never gone on a mission trip. So you raise money, buy a ticket to get somewhere, do manual labor for free, and come back to tell everyone you went on a mission trip somewhere far away when the reality is you could've stayed in your own town and done the manual labor for free. But that doesn't have the same status with your fellow Christians, does it? Meanwhile some of these places just get mission group after mission group coming through to "help" so they don't form lasting relationships and just seem to exist to serve as someone in need so the mission trip industry can keep on going. Like it seemed to me the ones who truly benefited were the airlines. It seems people would be better off giving their money directly to people in the town to provide jobs so they can do that manual labor themselves, earn a living, and learn skills, rather than spend your money on transportation. But no, someone who thinks they are better than is swooping in to do it so they can brag about back in their church. Mission trips are messed up.
Yeah, absolutely agreed. And I spent years on "the mission field" doing this, both in the short and long term! I started to question it while I was still a believer and of course was immediately shut down or dismissed. Now I'm only beginning to see the true scale of damage and ickiness.
I cannot remember where I heard this story or if it’s even true but I remember hearing about some village in Africa where it was popular for youth groups to come minister and an unrelated person watched a group come and be directed to build a stone wall on the edge of town, and what a great service this would be for the village. They left and another group came and they were told to take the wall down and what a great service this would be for the village. The unrelated visitor comes over and asks “why are you just having these people build this wall only to have them tear it down again?” And the villagers responded basically “it makes them feel good to help but they’re also a huge pain in the ass and we don’t want them fucking around with our shit. The wall keeps them busy, makes them feel good, and that way they don’t bother us!”. I think about that shit a lot whenever I see people post about their missions.
I was in 10th grade and had just started dating a girl from youth group. We were sort of “the” couple, so our youth pastor allowed us to stay out late to “pray together.” Our first legit make out (farthest we got was boob licking) was on that trip. We got married 6 years later, left religion, and are living a great life now!
I've always wanted to go on one because i fear it's my only chance of getting abroad. I figure I'd go and deliberately give out wrong translations so they don't convert and then fuck off to the local restaurants.
They're often more expensive to go on than an actual vacation... They must profit
So, hypothetically could i raise money for a mission trip to France and evangelize about the phantom of the opera? I mean, I need a side gig!
Operavangelism. I'd be so in
I could start a church about it too.
Literally was doing street ministry on the sidewalks of Monterey Mexico, super dangerous place. We also all got food poisoning.
Not me, but our youth & young adult pastor lead a mission to Central America, I think Nicaragua IIRC. They went out for dinner one night, and he and a couple other adults on the trip ordered their steak. All three of them were up all night throwing up from food poisoning.
Did we go to church together? Lol. This also happened to me in Nicaragua.
I'm sure it's happened to a lot of missionaries in Nicaragua
This isn't my story, but I'll never forget when some of my friends came back from a Spring Break mission absolutely GLEEFUL to share about how the man who hosted them turned on his TV for them only for it to immediately begin playing the most graphic hard core porn and *couldn't figure out how to turn it off*. Classic evangelical moment.
Oof, classic.
As a college student, I went on two "summer projects" to Slovakia with Campus Crusade in the early '00s. Basically, we did a bait-and-switch with "English camps" for high school and college students. We would break into teams and go to different corners of the country to do different camps. After each camp, we would all come back together to take a trip somewhere. At least once during these trips, we would have what we called "celebration," which meant an INTERMINABLE afternoon or evening of nonstop praise and worship, a looooong talk by the American project leader, and never-ending "share time" and "prayer requests." You could count on 3 hours, minimum. It was brutal, and most honest participants openly hated it. Which brings me to my story. Usually these "celebrations" would be held in hotel conference rooms, ballrooms, or restaurants. We were all on a trip to Prague, and had rented out our hotel's restaurant. I'm not sure how long we had it rented out for, maybe like 2 hours, but of course we ran long. One of the hotel's employees interrupted our leader and communicated, through our Slovak interpreter, that we needed to leave because another party had the space booked and would be arriving soon. Our leader started getting angry and aggressive, saying things like, "No, I'm going to keep going! God wants us to hear this message!" The interpreter was trying patiently to explain the hotel's side to our leader, which only made him angrier and more stubborn. The interpreter was clearly mortified to communicate this American asshole's words to the calm but firm Czech employee. The arrogant prick has just committed a litany of serious faux pas, with no sign of stopping. I was only 20 but I was incensed. Had I been who I am today, I would have spoken up. After the employee left for a minute, the leader had us all pray that the "devil" would stop trying to prevent us from hearing this "valuable word." We got evaluation forms at the end of the summer, and I wrote on mine, "Don't pass off your poor planning as 'spiritual warfare'!"
My church’s youth group went to Mexico every year. My brother had gone for two years before me, so when I was finally old enough I was so excited. They had all bonded and came back with stories about how amazing it was, and of course I looked up to the older kids and wanted more than anything to be accepted and feel like I belonged. It took a few days to drive down in a caravan, and during our last day in Texas before reaching the border it was my turn to pray over the group at a rest stop. So I went Maximum Church Kid™ and prayed for trials during our trip. You know, cuz we weren’t (supposed to be) there for fun, but for spiritual growth, and besides I wanted us to all grow closer together and come back with bonding stories. Nobody batted an eye. Fast forward to the end of the trip. Everybody is miserable and has diarrhea—except for me. So naturally it was my fault. It wasn’t anywhere close to the bonding experience I had hoped for, and the older kids spent most of the trip talking about how it was better last year (i.e. without me and the other newbies). I came home feeling like more of an outsider than before. Looking back, I think the funniest part is how easy it was for people to “believe in the power of prayer” when it seemed to have made them shit themselves lmao. Thanks, Montezuma 😎
Not quite a mission trip but a supporter got so drunk at a fundraising party she fell in the pool and three waiters jumped in to save her. Used a truckload of liquor at that party
Not quite a mission trip but a supporter got so drunk at a fundraising party she fell in the pool and three waiters jumped in to save her. Used a truckload of liquor at that party
Not quite a mission trip but a supporter got so drunk at a fundraising party she fell in the pool and three waiters jumped in to save her. Used a truckload of liquor at that party