Leading short-term mission projects is among the various
forms of ministry that Becky and I are involved with here in Peru. Sometimes we work with groups of adults, or
groups with a blend of youths and adults. But most of our projects involve working with church youth groups from
the U.S. who are led by a youth pastor and a few other adults.  The teens are normally between the ages of 15
and 18. 

We normally partner with a local church in a poor
community for these projects. We

consider this partnership vital. We do
our best to work with churches that are Kingdom-minded and spiritually
healthy. If short term projects are to
have a long-term impact, the local church needs to follow-up with the progress
that is made and to care for the spiritual seeds that were planted during the
project. Our experience is that a number
of people will respond to the gospel and invite Jesus into their lives. This new spiritual life needs to be nurtured
and guided. The folks from the U.S. can't
do that-the local church can. We choose not
to work with local churches that do                        ministry in the marketplace

The forms of ministry vary. A typical project will include children's
ministry, youth ministry, door- to-door visitation and some form of community service:
construction, for example. We teach our
participants how to listen for God's voice and this process of listening prayer
infuses everything we do-especially our ministry activity.

There is a preparation process for our projects. The group leader is sent a training program
called "Missions 101" and he or she must commit to working through that program
with the participants. A well planned
and executed short term mission project requires multiple months of preparation-the
actual number of months depending on how intensive the training is. Four to six months of preparation is normal.

Our experience is that some groups come well prepared and
other groups, not so well. We find that
many teens do not have a clear picture of what salvation is and very few
understand the spiritual authority that is available to them. So we build into the orientation process
times to help the young people understand what scripture teaches about salvation,
spiritual identity and spiritual authority.