The volunteers have arrived! The team is sitting in your living room and they're ready to get to work! The catch is that they don't yet know enough about the culture and the people to effectively assist your ministry. Where do you go from here?

Orientation

The volunteers' training to work with you has been fairly general up to this point. You may have sent them specific culture and worldview information, but you cannot guarantee that they volunteers read it. Even if they did read everything you sent, their frame of reference for the information is so limited that they could not really absorb and internalize the material. Now that they are on the field with you, though, the culture information is staring them in the face. They are able to internalize the information because they are now experiencing the information.

When the volunteers arrive on the field, they are ready to know more specifics about the people, the culture, the ministry, and the expectations of them. In the first meeting after their arrival on the field, review the cultural information that you have already sent to them and to emphasize culture and ministry issues that are most important. Rehearsing this information will help the team recall it from their memories and the information is becoming more and more real to them now that they are in-country. Keep this meeting brief and include some team building activities to keep the volunteers moving so they do not go to sleep from jet lag.

If the volunteers need to exchange money and learn to maneuver around town or the city, their first day on the field is a good time to help them with these items. A sightseeing tour can help them learn to use public transportation, for example, or acquaint them with public restrooms. Some missionaries create a scavenger hunt and send the volunteers out to find the needed items (including exchanging money) and learn to maneuver in the culture. Give the volunteers some tips on calling taxis, buying bus tickets, and other pertinent information for getting around town to help them feel a bit brave about being turned loose in a foreign city.

During the second meeting is the time to introduce over new cultural material, even role playing evangelism opportunities that might arise. Lead the team in the Bible study about the Harvest to solidify their understanding where their efforts fit in the larger ministry strategy picture. Many of the volunteers will not consciously think about what stage of the harvest process your ministry is in, nor where their project fits into the overall ministry strategy. For those who came wanting to see souls reaped, they will not be as frustrated if they understand, for example, that the broad sowing they are doing is critical to the later abundance of the reaping of souls in the harvest process.

Daily Interaction with Volunteers

• Encourage your volunteers to have a daily personal quiet time and to keep a spiritual journal. The journal will help them with their spiritual reflections and help them see how God has led, blessed, and challenged them through the entire experience, as well as, prepare them for future ministry.
• Encourage your volunteers to have daily group prayer and share time. This daily debriefing is an important time to process the experiences and the activity of God in the lives of the team members. The team leader needs to be sensitive to the leadership of the Lord and how He is moving within the context of their ministry situation. This is the context to help team member learn how to hear a word from God, to see Him working in daily activities, and/or to feel His leadership in their lives. Culture shock issues that create negative attitudes toward the ministry and culture will often be shared during the daily debriefing time, although the group setting may not be the most appropriate place to work out the issue. You can the team leader can decide the best course of action in those cases.
• Ask the team to submit a daily summary of the activities of God. This listing should be short specific things the team has seen or experienced. If the team has access to communicate with their prayer partners, then those who are praying at that specific time for them should be notified of what God has done. If not, then these should be kept, compiled and shared later with those who had committed to pray for them.
• Spend some quality time with your volunteers. Share your vision for your people group. Be open to volunteers to know you and your spiritual journey coming to the field. Some volunteers will be wondering how God called you to the international mission field in order to gauge the call of God in their own life. Also, allow volunteers to minister to you and your family.
• Encourage taking pictures or videos. You will want the volunteers to be able to show images of the work, to show answers to prayers, and to use as an enlistment tool for advocacy. Help the volunteers understand the do's and don'ts of taking photos in your culture and if any sites are off limits for photos.

Debriefing

Several days before the volunteers return home, begin to process their experience and help them to form the basis of presentations that they will give at home. In order to be good advocates for your people group/population segment and ministry, the volunteers will need to know how to present their stories in a touching, meaningful manner. Use How To Tell Your Story to guide volunteers through this process. Have them practice their stories and presentations on each other in small group settings.

Encourage the volunteers to tell their stories from the perspective of what God did, rather than what they learned about themselves. Too many volunteers return to tell, for example, that they learned they could live for three weeks without make-up and a curling iron rather than sharing how God gained glory from their time on the field.

Besides being able to tell their stories to their church groups, the volunteers will need to understand their experiences and feelings about the project. The daily debriefing times will begin their processing, but a general debriefing time is necessary to bring all of the pieces together. Debriefing questions will help them create cohesiveness from their experiences and begin to develop action plans for advocacy when they return home.

In this debriefing time, help the volunteers understand re-entry stress and how to cope with it. Also, give them some tips for their family and friends about how to help them integrate their mission experience with daily life in the USA.

Post trip activities

• Encourage the team members to stay connected with their prayer partners. Your new “team members” will have a responsibility to share what God has done (Acts 14:27). This will help them make the connection between their prayers and the activity of God on the mission field. (That is an important lesson to learn!) Also, as you share prayer requests with the team member, they can pass those requests on to their prayer partners so the work of prayer multiplies for your ministry and people group/population segment.
• Encourage the team to have a few team meetings after they return home. During these meetings, they can share what God did in their daily lives as a result of this project, what they learned about the world, themselves, and God, and their plans for integrating what they learned on this trip in their daily lives. You could set up a time for the team to call you during one of the meetings so you can continued to stay in touch with them.
• Help the volunteers share with the next team that is coming. Be available to share insights or any materials that would help prepare the next team. These are your advocates. Train them to do the best public relations job that they can for the glory of God among your people group!

By helping volunteers become a part of your team, they can then be challenged and moved to a greater experience. When they return, the volunteers will be surprised how far they have moved or changed, especially in their relationship with the Father. Therefore, the value of the mission trip will increase and you will be building the capacity for more people to reach your people group.