As attendees of a Christian university, the idea of mission trips is no foreign topic. It’s been engraved into many students’ brains since they were small children attending church with their parents.
However, as social media continues to climb as an outlet of self-promotion, the thought that mission trips might be used merely as image enhancers becomes prominent.
The list of reasons behind why people go on mission trips is extensive. At a place like APU, it could be for MAS credits, to “find yourself while helping others” or to serve God.
Yet how come as soon as people come back, or get a stable Wi-Fi connection, their profile picture is changed to them with the group of individuals they are helping, whether that be children in Mexico, women in Africa or students in Peru?
That’s where the question up for debate comes in. Are people going on mission trips to get complimentary comments on their new profile pictures, as a short vacation or because they actually care about the people they serve? APU sends students to 28 countries over the year. With that number, you are bound to have one or two friends who have participated in one of these mission trips before.
This mindset of “I’m the only one who goes on mission trips to help the people” runs rampant in today’s society when a number of individuals believe that they are the only saints on a campus full of sinners. If people change their profile pictures to them and children they connected with in Africa, others may believe they are doing it to get the confidence-boosting compliments that will come.
Some students do go on missions trips to experience India or to make it seem like they truly care about “that” city in Africa. Some students do spend hundreds of dollars for that trip just so they can say they’ve gone. This does take up valuable spots on mission trips when maybe a student’s talents are needed in some other country with some other program.
As always, there are two sides of every coin.
“Posting a picture with a child in need is not only using that child as an object, but using a missional platform to portray yourself as ‘holy’ to those you may or may not know in the digital world,” said junior English major Missy Fackler, who will serve in Peru this summer with an APU team.
But sophomore business major Casey Adams, who will serve in South Korea this summer, said what really matters is “not what they made their profile photo, but what they did, where they went and what impact they made.”
This debate now comes down to a question. Why does anyone care if Jane Doe actually went to India to help women involved in sex trafficking or if John Doe only went to Mexico to make the ladies think he’s great with orphans?
In all reality, it doesn’t matter. The trip only affects the student’s life and the life of the subject of the trip. It is not our place to critique why people go on mission trips. Profile pictures are supposed to be representations of oneself. If an individual feels that the best representation of themselves is a picture of the person in Ecuador building a house, then that’s that. It’s not up to you to judge.