A short-term mission trip can be defined as a trip in which volunteers travel to a new location for one to three weeks to serve communities and often share their religious beliefs. On a mission trip, teams may partake in activities like painting or building houses, hosting clothing giveaways, or simply building relationships with residents and teammates. Mission trips are becoming increasingly popular in churches across the United States and have come to be a central activity for evangelical teams and youth groups. My own life has been influenced by a mission trip in which my parents took part in 2006. After traveling to Honduras with a church group, my parents discovered a love for Latin America and the service of others. They immediately began to sponsor the education of disadvantaged children, embarked on the adoption process of a girl who would become my sister, and planned future trips to return to Honduras and spend time with people they loved. Their love for missions spilled into my own life, and I went
on my first trip to Honduras in 2016 as a freshman in high school. I left this trip with a new perspective, feeling in awe of the planet and more compassionate for my friends in Honduras and my own community. I have seen short-term mission trips as beneficial for most of my life, but I have learned that not everyone feels the same way. A few years ago, I started to hear opinions from mission trip opponents about the damage of missions and the money wasted by self-righteous Americans. These arguments gave me discomfort about trips I had once regarded as life-changing. Consequently, I set out to answer a question: What are the impacts of short-term mission trips? My research revealed both their positive and negative potential consequences, such as the infusion of hopeful energy into a community and the global perspective experienced by volunteers but also the perpetuation of ignorance and unsustainable donations. Overall, I found that short-term missions can have a net beneficial impact when approached mindfully.