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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am very religious. And many, many religious people including missionaries on the ground have problems with parachuting in for 10 days never to be heard from again. To the PP whose church had a 25 year partnership with a specific town I will make an exception to my general rule. [/quote]

That's not uncommon, and many churches in the USA partner with churches in other places. Ours has a long-time partnership with a church in Kenya.[/quote]

This is a very interesting read from a mother and son about their experience on a year long mission trip to a country in Africa.

http://amyhollingsworth.com/books/runaway-radical/

Some of their answers from on interview on http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/04/25/the-dark-side-of-christian-mission-trips/

[i]"It sounds like the group sponsoring your trip was very adamant that you spread a specific brand of Christianity — and that trumped helping the people in any other way. Is that an accurate assessment?

For the most part. I mean, they weren’t so much pushing a specific doctrine or creed as they were evangelism in general. This was really disappointing for two reasons. One, I’m not an evangelist. It’s just not my thing. Secondly, I had been led to believe that this particular mission organization really prioritized humanitarian projects and services, but that wasn’t the case. They forbade me from seeking out other opportunities to help in the community unless I was going into the villages to convert people.

How typical is that of churches that sponsor these sorts of trips?

In my experience, it’s not that the church is unwilling to help alleviate the physical needs of the people they’re trying to reach, it’s that they’re afraid to emphasize it too much. Apparently, making the gospel too “social” waters it down. It’s something I’ve seen both at home and abroad, where the church feels like it has to balance helping the poor with evangelizing the poor, but the helping part usually suffers as a result.[/i]''

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