It’s amazing what you can find on the Internet. As we all know, some is good and some is bad. For this post, I Googled the greeting, “How are you?” and came across a website called the How Are You Doing Project.

Basically, the website has an 800 number you can call and leave a message about how you are doing. The project is described as an “exercise in everyday empathy.” This website, in my opinion, seems to give people a false sense of empathy when they anonymously air their feelings in a message. It merely reinforces the belief that we are just trying to be kind when we ask, “How are you?” We don’t really want to know how someone genuinely is doing because it might ask us for some type of commitment.

Lately, I have wondered if anyone asked Jesus how he was doing leading up to the crucifixion and actually cared about how he was doing. Did Peter, James, or John sit down with Jesus on that final day to find out how he was handling all that was happening to him? Maybe their caring led Jesus to ask those three to keep watch. Even if they took the time to ask Jesus how he was, they couldn’t hang with the son of God; all three fell asleep. Honestly, I have to admit that I would have probably done the same, I would have fallen asleep as well.

Thinking of the lukewarm church in Laodicea, I have an image in my mind that at every service, people went through the motions of worship and asked each other, “How are you?” not really wanting to know. Lukewarm people probably don’t want to know how you are doing because you might actually tell them how you are, and that could require them to do something on your behalf.

Many of you have called, written, or emailed us at Amor Ministries to ask how we are doing. I usually respond with, “Do you really want to know?” I am going to trust that you do, and I will tell you how we are doing.

We have good days and bad days, just like anyone that is going through the challenges of the current economy, safety concerns of Mexico, and now the swine flu, which, by the way, isn’t as bad as the media made it out to be.

Every cancellation of a Mission Trip hurts. Our Mission Services reps have taken a beating by some of the things that have been said to them. The one that makes all of us the saddest to hear is, “We should take care of our own kind.” Scott and I heard that when we first started the ministry 29 years ago. Those people must have skipped over that perennial Bible favorite of the Good Samaritan.

Despite the difficult times, I want you to know that there is more good going on in the Ministry. We are experiencing team unity like never before. Efforts such as voluntary pay cuts and the Mexico Ministry Planning Board donating back their annual retreat money have allowed us keep of staff intact to this point. Most touching to me, individual pastors in Mexico raised money for the Casa de Amor house sponsorship program. I don’t have to remind you how little they already make. The pastors have been hit hardest by all of this because of commitments they made to families expecting new houses, yet they have sacrificed significantly in our time of need.

We love it when members of our National Advisory Board and Board of Directors consistently call with words of encouragement and e-mail us to say they are specifically praying for that day on our behalf. Others have written to say there is nothing that will keep them from coming, much like group from Bella Vista Church in Rockford, Michigan featured on their local ABC station.

Another encouragement came in the form of groups that redirected their trips this spring to Puerto Peñasco, some driving as many as 18 extra hours. I visited Peñasco several times during spring, and I met some pretty incredible group leaders. The list goes on and on. This is a shout out to all of you!

How are we really? Well, we are not at the point, nor are we even close, to the desperate end where Job found himself. We are trusting God in the present and with our future.
We do need your help, however. In the next week or so, you will be getting a letter from Amor Ministries asking you to stand with us during this difficult time. Your support is needed now more than ever. Without it, Amor could look very different as we enter our 30th year of ministry to the poor.

If you really want to know how we are, then email us or call us so we can tell you. And you can tell us how you are, as well. So, how are you?

By Gayla Cooper Congdon, Founder & CSO

This February, I paused for a few moments before flying out of Charlottesville, Virginia.  I had spoken about the Step Back from the Baggage Claim book/movement to 125 students at the University of Virginia the night before, and it was time for my own personal “step back” moment.  I sat in “The Virginian”, one of the oldest restaurants along the main campus drag, having lunch with two men I was meeting for the first time.

Rod, a friend of one of my best friends in the entire world, and his 88 year-old Uncle, completed our threesome.  We began our time together by sharing about our lives, our families, our career paths.  As I did my best to describe my hometown of Columbus, Ohio they responded with their perspectives on Charlottesville.  It was in the midst of that discussion that both African-American men spoke about race relations in their town.

“We still have a ways to go”, the 88 year-old gentleman muttered in between bites of his lunch.  He then continued on with a story that I won’t soon forget.  He spoke of being a part of “The March on Washington” with Martin Luther King, Jr.  It was during a long night of hiking toward Washington with a group of supporters where he recalled curling up in a sleeping bag on the ground.

Revving engines and screams of “the Klan, the Klan” were the frightening sounds that woke him from his sleep.  He wrestled to get out of his sleeping bag and make sense of the chaos as the noise grew louder.  Suddenly, arms grabbed the foot of his sleeping bag and dragged him out of the way as the speeding wheels of a truck filled with KKK members whizzed past where his head had laid.

His tears ended the story prematurely.  Over 45 years later, the pain was still as sharp as ever.  My heart leaped.

This sacred moment was shared with two beautiful human beings.  And, as is true with all “step back from the baggage claim” moments, stepping back provided new perspective, was centered on including other people, and created space so a greater spirit could emerge in our lives.

He was right.  “We still have a ways to go.”

“For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”

- Matthew 18:20

Jason Barger is an 11-time Amor Mission Trip leader who has connected over 1700 people to build 120 houses in Mexico. As the former Director of Camp Akita in Ohio, he designed and implemented programs for over 1900 kids a summer centered on faith, love, service and leadership. Jason’s experience with servant-leadership led him to the creation of First Community Church’s Streets Mission Project to serve the homeless of Columbus, Ohio as well as mission trips to the Casa Hogar Sion Orphanage in Tijuana and the Village Mountain Mission project in the Dominican Republic. Jason is the author of the book Step Back from the Baggage Claim: Change the World, Start at the Airport and spends most of his time today serving, writing, speaking and consulting for organizations looking to bring about positive change. Jason, his wonderful wife, Amy, and their two sons, Will and Benton, currently live in Columbus, Ohio. To connect with Jason, please visit www.stepbackfromthebaggageclaim.com

“Spiritual Crack” is a term I’ve used to describe my mission trips with Amor Ministries.  Growing up in Colorado and going with my youth group to Amor’s Chihuahua location to build a house was the highlight of my year – I had to get my fix.

A lot of us who went on the Amor trips every year became the “Timothy’s” of our church – we went on to full-time ministry.  Even those who didn’t end up in full-time ministry incorporate their experience of encountering Christ through the poor in their professional lives.

Yet as impactful as the Amor mission trip was on me and my peers, I refer to it as an Accidental Transformation.  If you have been on an Amor trip, you know the transformational possibilities.  We were transformed through that week every year, but no one was guiding and forming that transformation for us.

Our mission experience, maybe like yours, only lasted for a week every year.  We met once before the trip to sign forms and plan out who was bringing what tools.  Then a few of us might share with the church what we did on the Sunday we returned.  That was it until the next year.

Does this describe your mission trip experience?  Are you counting on just the few days spent in the mission field to provide the transformation you want for your group?

Kara Powell and Brad Griffin with The Fuller Youth Institute have co-authored a book, Deep Justice Journeys, to help you have purposeful transformation in your group.  They provide a framework for preparing your group spiritually and culturally for their mission experience and, most importantly, debriefing the experience as it happens and after you return home.

While the Amor trip is an incredible catalyst for transformation, it is just that – a catalyst.  It requires you to invest in learning from and applying the lessons from the experience back home.

Deep Justice Journeys gives you 50 experiential activities from which to choose to engage your group.  We encourage you to make the most out of mission trip by committing to purposeful transformation.  This book will give you the tools to do it.

This fall my parents hosted two college students for dinner from an MBA program in Hong Kong.  Norris Ng and Tianyu (Bill) were on a two week cultural exchange program with the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University.  Part of this exchange was the opportunity to experience a “normal” American family dinner.  Well, I’m not sure we could provide “normal”, but we did gather the troops for a Barger family dinner (complete with racing grandkids).

Norris and Bill speak wonderful English, are very intelligent and clearly-talented students.  Their openness, desire to learn about our culture, and willingness to share about their customs back home was a true gift to our family.  It was a profound three hours for everyone.

In the midst of our conversations around the table that night, Norris shared about the perception that her skin color receives back home.  From our vantage point, she has beautifully colored Asian skin that folks here dream of.  Not back home.  Her lightly tanned skin is considered “too dark”, she says.  She explained that all of the skin products in China have “whitening” in them because they want their skin to look more like the westerners they see in the media.  They covet our skin color.

Those of us native to Columbus, Ohio looked around the table at our wintry-pale skin.  We flashed to the products that crowd the shelves in our stores, advertisements on television – all focused on “bronzing” our skin.  Americans spend more than $5 Billion a year on “getting and staying tan” (according to an MSNBC report in 2006).  We admittedly spoke about our desire to have darker skin and the beauty we see in it.

Two view points – nearly 8,000 miles apart – both in pursuit of what the other has.  Both rooted in a feeling of inadequacy.  Both with an image of beauty focused on what someone else has.

What will it take for us to feel comfortable in our own skin today?

What could it mean for us today when we look in the mirror?

What will it mean for the world when both images are embraced as beautiful?

Thank you, God, for who we are today – beautiful and different.

Jason Barger is an 11-time Amor Mission Trip leader who has connected over 1700 people to build 120 houses in Mexico. As the former Director of Camp Akita in Ohio, he designed and implemented programs for over 1900 kids a summer centered on faith, love, service and leadership. Jason’s experience with servant-leadership led him to the creation of First Community Church’s Streets Mission Project to serve the homeless of Columbus, Ohio as well as mission trips to the Casa Hogar Sion Orphanage in Tijuana and the Village Mountain Mission project in the Dominican Republic. Jason is the author of the book Step Back from the Baggage Claim: Change the World, Start at the Airport and spends most of his time today serving, writing, speaking and consulting for organizations looking to bring about positive change. Jason, his wonderful wife, Amy, and their two sons, Will and Benton, currently live in Columbus, Ohio. To connect with Jason, please visit  www.stepbackfromthebaggageclaim.com

Today we are seeing more and more students eager to make a difference in the world, and getting students involved in short-term mission (STM) work is easier for many of us than it has been in previous years. But more and more youth workers and researchers have become concerned that our impact may not be as strong or as deep as we think.

Research by folks like Kurt Ver Beek and Bob Priest have stirred up conversations for the past few years on whether STM is really leading to long-term transformation, both among those who go and those who host them in their homes and communities.  As we at the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI), along with research partners Terry Linhart and Dave Livermore, summarized some of that research when we were developing this project:

• The explosive growth in the number of STM trips among both kids and adults has not been accompanied by similar explosive growth in the number of career missionaries.
• It’s not clear whether or not participation in STM trips causes participants to give more money to alleviate poverty once life returns to “normal.”
• Participating in a STM trip does not seem to reduce participants’ tendencies toward materialism.

So what can we do to make more of a lasting difference?  Research indicates that for justice work to lead to deeper impact, leaders and students need to spend more time before, during, and after their service preparing for and processing their experiences.

That’s why we developed the Deep Justice Journeys curriculum, with a Leaders Guide and Student Journal companion.  Last week we posted a new video on our website about this newly-released curriculum that gives a taste for the model we used to create Deep Justice Journeys.

We’re so excited to partner with the leaders at Amor to bring this unique training resource to you this summer.  The practical tools in Deep Justice Journeys will help you prepare students for what to expect ahead of time and facilitate daily reflection during your trip. Tested by youth ministries across the country, the leaders guide and student journal will also help your students apply what they’ve learned in the mission field to their own lives as they seek to live out justice back at home.

Here’s to mission work-through Amor and wherever else God may lead your ministry-that truly transforms lives as we partner for Kingdom purposes!

PS: For over 200 free resources for your youth ministry related to short-term missions and a host of other topics, check out http://fulleryouthinstitute.org and sign up for our free monthly E-Journal! To buy Deep Justice Journeys click here.

Kara Powell, PhD, is the Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI) and a faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary (see www.fulleryouthinstitute.org).  As a twenty year youth ministry veteran, she speaks regularly at youth ministry conferences and is the author or co-author of a number of books includingDeep Justice Journeys, Deep Leadership, Deep Justice in a Broken World, Deep Ministry in a Shallow World, and the Good Sex Youth Ministry Curriculum.