1. Service trips are usually expensive to fund, and they are often a waste of money.

Small groups, whether sponsored by colleges, church or other faith communities, or secular organizations, often spend thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars on trips lasting from a few days to perhaps a few weeks. Obviously this can be a burden for the participants in those groups. More significantly, however, is the fact that little of the money spent on these trips actually finds its way to the community being served. An eye-opening study from Princeton University in 2005 found that 1.6 million Americans had taken short-term mission trips that year, with the trips lasting an average of eight days. Shockingly, they spent about 2.4 billion dollars on those trips.

In 2006, Kurt Ver Beek, a sociology professor at Calvin College, completed a study of college students’ short-term service trips to Honduras, where they built homes for hurricane survivors. He found that the groups spent an average of $30,000 dollars on their trips. The problem is that local groups could have constructed the same exact homes for about $2,000 dollars each.

So ask yourself: Is the expenditure of all of this money worth it, not only to me and my group but also to the community? How much of what we spend will directly impact the people we are visiting? And this is a hard one: Would it be better simply to send the money to the community and stay home?

Begin this path

1. Reason #2 to Consider Cancelling Your Service Trip to Central America:
2. Reason #3 to Consider Cancelling Your Service Trip to Central America
3. Reason #4 to Consider Cancelling Your Service Trip to Central America
4. Reason #5 to Consider Cancelling Your Service Trip to Central America

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