Healing Guatemala

If you plan to have a short term mission trip to Guatemala, you need to decide several things when you plan. You need to decide what kind of ministry you want to do, how many team members you want to have, how many days or week you want to stay, and what do you want to achieve through the mission trip.

First all of, I like to suggest several ministries that you could do with Healing Guatemala. First one is medical ministry. You could perform minor surgeries while your team staying in mission compound. Or you team could visit remote communities, providing the general medical service. Secondly, your team can focus on VBS. There are many local Methodist Church who want to have VBS. Healing Guatemala could arrange this. Another option would be we can combine the children ministry and medical ministry, if your team does not have medical professional. Healing Guatemala provides the medical staffs, while your team works at VBS. In this case, your team needs to provide the medicine and medical supplies. Thirdly, your team could do construction mission. Currently Healing Guatemala started the construction of the mission complex. The mission complex will have worship space, medical clinic (surgical operation rooms, radiology, laboratory, outpatients unit for medical and dental service, gynecological cancer screening room, and inpatient rooms.), guest rooms for short term mission teams, and houses for the missionaries and staffs. Also I think haircut ministry, TaeKwonDo ministry, other ministries would be great too!

Secondly, in terms of team characters, you need to decide how many members you want for your team, and what the ages of the team members would be. From my experience, the optimal size of team is 8 to 15, of course it would be diverse according to what kind of your ministry. If you have less than 8, it would be little bit hard to achieve what you plan, and if you have more than 15, it would be hard to give the proper assignment to each of your team member while your team is on mission. About the ages of the team member, ages does not matter to do the mission. However, the reason I mentioned this is ages affect the ministry that you want to do. If your team consists of elderly persons, it would not be good idea to plan to do a heavy construction project.

Thirdly, with regard to time period of your mission, it depends on your project. However, mostly the short term mission teams from local church plan to stay for 1 to 2 weeks. Until our mission complex completed, Healing Guatemala can arrange the local hotel and restaurant with clean and safe environment, and with reasonable cost. If your team visit us after our mission complex is completed, your team will stay in our mission complex. Also, I like to suggest your team to have time to experience local culture and living environment, maybe one or two days. Mission is not getting a project done simply. Mission is the very presence of God through your team’s presence. Local people see the love of God through your team. Understanding local people and their living condition is the first step to love.

Fourthly, your team need to set up the clear answer to the question, “What do we want to get through this mission trip?” I think in doing mission there are two axis, in fact there are three. One axis is the mission team. Second one is the mission field. The last axis is of course God. The goal of the mission trip could be viewed based on the mission team and/or the mission field, which both of them should be consistent to the will of God. Your team may decide what to achieve on your team’s side as well as on the need of the mission field.

Lastly, I like to give some information about the cost of the mission trip. We do not have exact number of the cost, but I hope you can get a rough insight about the cost when you plan to make a short term mission trip. First of all, you need the cost of transportation; airplane fare and mini bus rental. Airplane fare varies according to the airline, the departing cities, or season. But usually to get to Guatemala from the States, it ranges from 700-900 USD. The minibus rental (including a driver) ranges from 150-200 dollars per a day. Secondly, with regard to the cost of the lodging and meals, usually local hotel charges 20-30 dollars per one person per a night. You could get a meal with 6-12 dollars at local restaurant. If you need translators, usually they ask 15 dollars a day. Also you need to prepare the supplies for your mission project. In a medical mission, the cost of the medicine and medical supplies is around 3000 dollars per a week (in case your team has one medical profession in mobile clinic settings.) In VBS, the cost of the supplies is, from my experience, less than 1000 dollars. In construction project, the cost depends on what kind of project you have, but in regular construction project, materials for a week costs around 2000-3000 dollars. Again, these are not exact figures. If you need an example of a budget, please let me know.