We Don't Need Your Help

I bunked with Jake Shenk one night.

Jake and the spider he found

Now, Jake has been a missionary for decades, most of his life I think, and has seen it all. He's pastored churches, served as bishop and overseer, mentored countless leaders, literally written the book on Ndebele, the language of western Zimbabwe (and I do mean literally -- his book is even used in universities), managed farms, successfully talked himself out of speeding tickets, spotted wildlife from miles away, and handled spiders as big as his hand with a boyish smile on his face. He reminds me a little bit of Jack Palance in City Slickers.

I had the opportunity to meet Jake and his wife Nancy in September of 2015 on a short-term trip with Priority 1 Ministries serving at Ekuphileni Bible Institute in Mtshabezi, Zimbabwe. At the end of the week, Jake took our group to Hwange National Park because, as he put it, "You can't come to Zimbabwe and not see an elephant." We stayed at the Park one night, and I ended up sharing a room with Jake.

I was pleased with how it all worked out, because I had hoped for an opportunity to chat with Jake and ask him something. Now I had the perfect opportunity. I wanted to hear his opinion on short-term teams in general, and in his setting in particular. Is it actually worth it to bring foreigners like me all the way to Zimbabwe? In financial terms, the cost of plane tickets alone could supply construction materials for multiple church buildings, and could potentially pay the salaries of a dozen national workers. Basically, I asked him, do you actually need short-term teams?

Why did I ask this question? I work in short-term missions. I have studied them formally. So I'm very aware of both their benefits and their drawbacks. Short-term missions have become a rite of passage for teens in churches in North America today, they are so ubiquitous. Any youth leader worth his/her salt will plan at least one missions trip per year, sometimes more. I know how beneficial short-term trips can be, but I also know that they have weaknesses that many churches, organizations, and leaders fail to address. Short-term groups can bring more hassle than help, if they are done poorly. After the goodbyes, thankyous, and return flights, does anyone truly benefit?

He answered quickly. Yes, he said, the groups are worth it. He told me that the Zimbabweans are beyond flattered that these (mostly) Americans would give up their time and money to come to help them out. They are thrilled and encouraged by it.

OK, great. Then, what kind of teams would be most helpful to you and to the church in Zimbabwe? I asked.

Work teams, he said. He told me all about a system they had going for a number of years through which a Zimbabwean congregation would commit to putting up the church building itself, and the denomination would construct the roof, usually by means of a North American missions team. It worked well, he said. Everyone had ownership of the project, and the nationals loved having the teams come. It was mutually beneficial, and Jake would love to get something like that going again.

Hey, if that's what you need, I told him, then we will do our best to make that happen.

In answering my question, though, Jake said something I may never forget:

"We don't need teams to do evangelism. The locals are pretty good at that."

Wow.

I kept thinking about that statement. How humbling. But isn't missions evangelism? Isn't that our ultimate goal in traveling so far, in going through so much preparation, in raising all that money? I kept thinking how inverted it was compared to the US: We've got beautiful buildings full of people who are lousy at evangelism. Not everyone, of course, but that's the general pattern.

Is it possible that the whole thing is backwards?

Perhaps what we need is this: After our American construction team builds that church roof, you send a team from one of those rural Zimbabwean churches to the US, where they can help us with evangelism.

Because we don't need teams to do construction. The locals are pretty good at that.