Youth For Christ: Short-Term Missions Game On

Tens of thousands of Christian youth use the summer to frequent camps and retreat sites, but many students also use the time to take short-term mission trips.

Project Serve, a missions arm of U.S.-based Youth for Christ, will direct over one thousand students to help overseas works.

Acting as "reinforcement" for a week, the students will help out at churches and ministries that YFC have partnered with in this program, said Lucas Rosentrater, Project Serve Marketing and Mexico Area Coordinator who organizes all trips to Mexico and also leads trips.

The mostly high-school-aged students will be exposed to a different world, giving them an opportunity to serve, said Rosentrater.

"When kids get out of their comfort zone, whether that be in mission trips, jail, etc. and the dynamic that kids have when they have when they get out of their comfort zone makes them more available to change and listen to the voice of God," said Rosentrater.

There are 13 trips that have been filled this year -- to Mexico, U.S., Uruguay, Jamaica, Ireland, Botswana, Bolivia, Russia, and Denmark. Four other trips - to Honduras, France, St. Vincent, and one Tsunami relief trip - have been canceled.

According to Ralph Winter, the Founder of US Center for World Missions, short term missions are great learning opportunities, but are not effective missions because "short-termers can't speak the language" among other reasons. The result? Students are often turned off from long-term missions.

However, YFC's rebuttal is that they participate in an already established ministry in the nation who invites them, thereby limiting the cross-cultural pains. In essence, the students act as reinforcements to an existing program, said Rosentrater.