Interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor on short-term mission trips. Here are excerpts:

• Short-term trips, lasting two weeks or less, drew about 1.6 million Americans to foreign mission fields last year.

• Nearly 1 in 3 American youth now take part in a cross-cultural service projects before finishing high school.

• Americans are jumping at the chance to become missionaries – with one key stipulation of the 21st century: They expect to get their comfortable lives back a few days later.

• Critics say impoverished people, especially overseas, often end up pandering to cash-wielding, untrained missionaries who leave a bad impression and don’t make meaningful lifestyle changes upon return.

• “Kids are going down and ‘loving on’ Mexican kids for a week and then coming home and being the same racist white kids they were toward their Latino classmates before they went on the trip.”

Here’s the whole article: “Rise of sunshine Samaritans: on a mission or holiday?”