How to Fund a Mission Trip

Last year when I was planning my mission trip, the cost was an overwhelming fear.  I knew I was suppossed to go.  I had all the divine confirmation I needed.  I had the overwhelming passion about orphans, the desire to help, and it's all I could talk or think about…this mission trip.  I knew that God wanted me to go.  There is no way He would put that desire in my heart and confirm it with His scripture and then not make it happen.


“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

After I signed up for my trip and paid the deposit, I did something I had never truly done before.  I told God that I was going to have complete faith wiht the fundraising!  I KNEW He wanted me to go on this trip, so I promised to have faith that He would get me there!  I also asked him to show me if I was starting to doubt Him and to quickly redirect me.  I also asked my friends and family to keep me accountable.  

I had to do my part, but I also needed to trust completly in Him to make it happen.  This wasn't easy.  I had failed miserably at having complete faith during the adoption of our daughter.  Waiting for over four years on "His perfect timing" was not easy, infact it was the most difficult and challenging thing I had ever encountered spiritually. Trusting Him with raising money for my mission trip was an opportunity to for me to learn to have complete faith in Him, to learn to ask for help and to grow spiritually in the process.

I am so thankful for that journey.  It taught me so many things, but most importantly that if and when you give up control and trust completely in Him…HE WILL COME THROUGH!  It's as if God was just waiting on me to stop doubting, worrying and being filled with fear, and just trust Him!    

If you are signed up or are considering signing up for a mission trip, I'm pretty sure that you are supposed to go. That desire in your heart is the first clue.  And His word is the second.  Pray that God would give you more confirmation.  For me, it was running into people that had been on a mission trip, an ad in a magazine, a burning desire to do something about it.  I would follow blogs and watch videos of others on short term mission trips and picture myself there.  

Fundraising for a mission trip can be very overwhelming.  It can be overwhelmingly scary.  Or it can be overwhelmingly amazing.  My past fundraising experience was overwelmingly amazing!  Thru my friends, family and strangers, I raised ALL of the money I need with EXCESS in just six weeks!  For real!  I blogged about it here.  I am no superwoman, or anything extrordinary.  I just chose to try something different, and I got different results!  

So if you have considered joining a mission team, please don't let money keep you from doing it!  I had one of the most memorable experiences of my life.  I saw Jesus in the children I loved on.  I fell in love with a country and it's people.  I grew deeper in my spiritual life and I learned that if we trust God, He will do miraculous things!  

I hope to lead two mission trips a year with Visiting Orphans.  This year, I am leading the following:

Ecuador (March 3-10, 2012)

Uganda (July 21-August 1)

Join me…really!  There are many spots still available for Ecuador and Uganda is filling up fast!  There will be a waiting list after the trip is full.  

Need a little more time?  No worries…I will have another two teams next year!  

The countries may vary, but the mission will never: to love, to serve, to give and to love some more!