Dear Returning.

I pray this letter reaches you before that feeling deep inside of you is gone. My hope is that these words will be encouragement and acknowledgment of the truth that you are experiencing and have experienced from your encounters on your trip.

Let me speak to my experience just briefly, so you understand where I am coming from. I have personally taken four short-term trips in my life (including a two month YWAM Outreach). During each of those trips I came face to face with gripping poverty I had not been aware of before. Each time, I was moved by what I saw and stirred in my heart to live my life differently. My journal pages during those trips reflect that, as I’m sure yours do. Also, at the end of each experience two unique things happened. One, our group, as scheduled by the leaders of our team, did something ‘touristy’ and ‘fun.’ These last days often included shopping, spending larger amounts of money, and living in a way that was in direct contrast to the poverty and stirring that my heart was experiencing. The second thing that happened at the end of each trip was that the leader’s either said explicitly or implicitly that though I had some strong feelings about the way I had been living prior to my trip, I would eventually adjust to where I was comfortable again. Unfortunately, they were right.

What was never said to me, and what I want to say to you now is that that tugging at your heart, that current impassioned disgust with our consumeristic culture, that feeling that you should drastically change the way that you have been living, all of that is the Holy Spirit instilling truth in you. They are truth’s that you won’t hear preached from a pulpit, it won’t be the topic of a Youth Group Bible Study, and you will find very few leaders, mentors, or peers in your life that will encourage you in your new found convictions and passion, but don’t give them up. The Holy Spirit has placed a great stirring on your heart through the unique trip that you have gone on and it would be a shame to let others snuff that out.

I’m afraid you won’t hear this from anyone except this letter, so please, please hear this loud and clear: Those feelings that you are experiencing after your return from your trip, they are the work of the Holy Spirit on your life. Your opportunity to see face to face the depths of poverty of others in our world was an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to show you your brothers and sisters, God’s Children, whom you should, and do, care deeply about. Your heart is more then likely telling you that you should do something about those feelings. For many, they have a hard time coming back to their old lifestyle and eating out frequently or shopping, or just being surrounded by so much unnecessary stuff when others around the globe are barely surviving. Usually, entire groups feel those similar feelings, but no leader and rarely any group member stands up and says that they should take those feelings and put them into action. I’ve heard countless people return from missions trips deeply questioning their lifestyle and then slowly over a few weeks and months, return to life as usually, with only a handful of stories and pictures to show the effects of the trip on their lives. Never have I heard the story of a group returning from a missions trip, acknowledging the collective feelings of desire to change their lifestyles and then acting on them.

The Holy Spirit is working on your life and your heart. The feelings you have from your experience that our challenging your old way of life are the Holy Spirit working on your heart. Do not turn a deaf ear to them, do not let your culture, peers and even leaders, drown out that voice in your life. And for those who have already forgotten that feeling and that voice, pull out your photo album, remember the stories, and stir that tugging on your heart again. If you are involved in a church that is going on a short term trip this summer, especially youth, please tell them the Holy Spirit is working on their heart and encourage and support them to follow that leading, you might be the only one.

Peace in Christ,
Ariah Fine