Project Serve is the short-term mission trip ministry of Youth for Christ. (Photo courtesy of YFC)
North America (MNN) ― Youth for Christ had to cancel half of this summer's missions trips to Mexico, losing 300-400 opportunities to share the Gospel. Why? Media reports on the swine flu and drug-related violence scared Christians away.
David Schultz, YFC's national director for Project Serve, is concerned about the way America's evangelical churches are making decisions.
"Pastors and parents just said, 'We're not going to send our kids down there. They walk across the border of Mexico, and they're going to be killed,'" said Schultz.
The problem is that Christians didn't understand how much the violence actually impacted most people and most areas of Mexico.
"The whole violence issue in Mexico, while very real in three or four major cities along the border, did not tell the true story," Schultz explained. "There are just many, many, many small towns in between those three or four major cities that hardly even know of drug violence and drug cartels--and these are towns where we send teams."
Reports of spreading swine flu in Mexico put the final nail in the coffin for many missions trips to Mexico. Now, the feared pandemic has failed to materialize. In the news, both the swine flu and the drug violence appeared to be bigger problems than they actually were.
"All the hoopla and the media reports over the last three or four months have revealed that since there's nothing being talked about now, that it was a situation that was blown out of proportion." Schultz said.
He believes the evangelical church in America needs to re-evaluate its decision-making process and learn to trust Christians on the ground in other countries rather than the media. The church should be "taking the input of people that work down there continually, rather than the news media that maybe sends a reporter down there to spend a day or two reporting dramatic events," said Schulz.
YFC will not pressure parents to change their decisions about their children's travel plans. "The parent's decision reigns supreme, and we acknowledge that," Schultz said. "They're responsible for their children, and we understand that and respect that."
However, the church as a whole would be better served to listen to indigenous Christians instead of being controlled by fear. Schultz compared the situation to the city of Baltimore, where he lived at one time.
"We had nearly 500 murders in Baltimore City the year I left," he explained. "There are places I didn't go because I knew Baltimore City, and there are times of the day I didn't go...The point is that when you trust the indigenous hosts, they know their country intimately; they know where they can and can't go. My reasoning is, this: the situation down there is no different than going to a major city here in the United States."
Americans' failure to trust Mexican Christians "presents an incredible credibility issue," Schultz said. He will soon travel to Mexico and have the opportunity to explain the situation to indigenous Christians face-to-face.
"Our folks in Mexico live with whatever problems they have down there, and they don't understand the fact that the American church can make...a spontaneous decision based on one or two news reports that they hear, and not trust our indigenous hosts when they say it is safe to come down here," he said.
Schultz hopes the church will reconsider its reliance on the media in making decisions about international travel and learn to listen to other sources of information.
"We as an evangelical church are in danger of focusing inward rather than outward because of the fear and economics," he said. "I don't think that's what God would have us to do. That's not how I want to make my decisions and raise my family. It's just a caution, a red flag that's come up in my mind this spring in dealing with all this."
