Subscribe
Jobs
Cars
Real Estate
Apts
Classifieds
Shop
At 62, Pat Nuffer is in the midst of a life-changing love affair – with people with disabilities in Sudan.
Nuffer first visited the impoverished northeastern African nation on a short-term mission trip in 2005. She has returned six times since.
The Fort Wayne woman has also started a non-profit agency, Hands of Mercy, to support a church program that helps Sudanese people with disabilities earn income for their families.
“I think they’re wonderful,” Nuffer says of mission trips. “This is how I got started. My eyes were opened by going to Sudan for the first time.”
In recent years, many Fort Wayne-area churches have organized overseas missions trips lasting from a week to a month. But lately, the trend has been showing signs of stress.
With unrest in countries where missions are popular, the sagging economy and critics who question whether participants are little more than Christian tourists, it is a recipe for a pullback. Still, area congregation officials think mission trips are worthwhile. But churches are rethinking their role so resources aren’t squandered and hosts aren’t put under undue stress.
“We believe the Bible indicates that the mission to be carried out is local in nature and global in scale, and that leads us to develop international relationships,” says the Rev. Kevin Wendt of Fort Wayne’s Concordia Lutheran Church, underscoring its commitment to sending mission teams overseas.
But Wendt wonders whether his congregation will continue to travel to Ethiopia, which mission teams visited in 2006 and 2008 to set up a sister-school relationship, attend a program for AIDS patients and train native-born missionaries.
“We’re actively looking for what the next step is,” he says, adding that the congregation might bring people from Uganda to Fort Wayne and present information about the church’s ministries here, instead of going to Africa this year. Unrest in Africa “does give you pause” about traveling there, he says.
The Rev. Eric Dunaway, small groups pastor of Pathway Community Church in Fort Wayne, says there has been talk about a “Plan B” for a June trip that would take teens to Mexico.
Mexico has been hit by a spate of drug-related killings in recent months. The alternative to a mission there would be sending travelers to the Dominican Republic, where the church also has ties.
“At this point, there’s some … concern over the safety issues. To my knowledge, they are planning on still going (to Mexco),” Dunaway says, adding mission trips will “absolutely” continue.
“It’s something we feel very strongly about for mobilizing our people both for the impact of their ministry on the world, but also on their spiritual formation. I would like to see us send more and more people, up to 10 percent of our congregation, overseas in the coming two to three years.”
At The Chapel, the Rev. Rick Hawk says trips aren’t immune to the effect of the economy. The Fort Wayne church recently sent a medical team to Haiti and plans to send people to China next month.
“We haven’t postponed or canceled any trips,” he says. “The reality of the economy is it has an effect (on whether people can afford to go and the fundraising). … Maybe this (current) trip had 15 people rather than 25. You never know.”
Several area pastors agree that trips are most effective when churches or their denominations maintain relationships with the people and church organizations in their host countries.
The Rev. Stan Buck, senior pastor of Sonrise United Methodist Church in Aboite Township, says trips may mean short-term stress for hosts but bring long-term aid.
“I’ve seen the studies that have questioned the value of them, and maybe they don’t have a huge payoff in a short time onsite, but maybe (a trip) introduces people to something and they become more invested in that ministry over the long term,” he says. “I think they tend to multiply resources.”
Sonrise has forged ties to a ministry in Haiti that has an orphanage, a church, an outreach to homeless people and a school.
Whether a mission trip is worthwhile is a complex question, Dunaway says.
“I think where short-term (mission) teams have failed is when we go there and expect to somehow instantly affect this culture with Western ideas and have our own self-centered thinking, when in reality our role is to go there and just serve in however the hosts need us to serve,” he says.
Nuffer, mother of a grown son with Down syndrome and now a Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod deaconess, says her mission trips led to her second life’s work.
Her non-profit works with the Lutheran Church of Sudan. She raises money from American church groups. The fundraising will soon result in a permanent brick building as a center for the disabled. She also brings supplies for a work program and collects used eyeglasses to distribute.
“People walk for days for Mama Patricia – that’s what they call me – and glasses,” she says.
“People with disabilities in that kind of primitive culture, well, it means that they have been disenfranchised from their communities and their families, Nuffer says. “If they have physical disabilities and they can’t work, they can’t go out and harvest crops and plant seeds, and in a society where gathering food is the main occupation, they’re not considered useful. They’re often left to beg. They’re often left to die.
“I think if people are looking for a feel-good vacation, it’s important to know that this isn’t it. It’s a difficult country to go to. …You have to have a strong constitution for the food and the water, and you can’t get sick because there’s no medical help to go to.
“But I felt a huge responsibility once the Lord opened my eyes to see such deprivation and need.”
