Short Term Missions Risk

They excelled! Folks, in mid-September Gilbert Langerak of the Canadian Council of Christian Charities and Ken Hall of Roberston-Hall Insurance offered an excellent seminar on Safety and Security for Short Term Mission Trips. It was a great seminar and I benefited from it immensely.

They addressed the following questions in a direct, forthright and embracing manner:

• What are the top security concerns with sending groups overseas?
• What health and medical checks should be required of mission trip participants?
• How can we mitigate the risk of injury and liability?
• What legal responsibility do leaders have for the health and safety of mission trip participants
• What are the best practices for avoiding the risks associated with short-term mission trips?

If you will be providing any level of leadership to a Navigators of Canada short term mission, I want to talk to you! They were clear where our greatest risks lie, what we can do to make things safer for the people we are responsible for and how we can reduce and minimize our legal risk and exposure.

I remember a conversation I had with Alan Andrews, the previous US Navigators National Director, and before that National Director for the Navigators of Canada. We were discussing finances, expenses, effort and investment of resources. He felt there were two things that were costly and well worth the investment. They were to do all we do with excellence. Not perfection. Excellence is doing the best you can with the resources at hand. The other was overseas missions.

We are called to the nations! To bring the gospel, healing and reconciliation. Nothing inexpensive here! We are called to lay down our lives.

And our short-term missions efforts are part of that! Thanks for looking at this together with me!