Short Term Mission 2024

Informal Proposal

Goal: Seek the Missions Committee’s approval to pursue a Short-Term Mission trip for the Summer of 2024 with the following two main objectives:

  • Has lower barriers to participation than foreign trips
    • A mission trip that is within a half-a-day’s driving distance
    • The endeavor is significantly less expensive than recent trips to Mexico
  • Offers Redeemer the opportunity to learn how local missions can be tied to a church

Scope:

  • A trip that is between 6 and 10 days
  • Allows for the general population of Redeemer to participate, not just single segments or age groups
  • A trip that has either a missions sending agency (preferred) or a local church oversight

Additional desired outcomes:

  • The ability to send Redeemer members to the site/work during the year to assist the ministry.
  • Train/Educate Redeemer members on church growth in communities
  • Help Redeemer be part of the PCA’s goal of facilitating the multiplication of PCA churches in the U.S. and Canada from 1,932 to 3,000 congregations in the next 10 years.

Mission to North America

Midwest ShortTerm Trips
mnashortterm.org/mid-west

  • Chicago is about 8 hours via van/car.
  • St Louis is about 4 hours via van/car.
  • Oklahoma City is about 5.5 hours via van/car.

Oklahoma

PCA Churches in OK

Restore OKC
from: https://www.mnashortterm.org/restore-oklahoma-city

MINISTRY OVERVIEW
We are a faith-based community development ministry operating in NE Oklahoma City. Ministries are created under the umbrella of Restore OKC as we listen to the needs of the community and dream together about how we might engage and respond together. Just as there are many facets of the cycle of poverty, Restore OKC has many ministry arms. These arms currently include Two Roosters (Job training), Stone of Hope (school/education support), Freedom Farms (Youth job training, community gardening and education) and Workday (Basic home repair for seniors and widows). We want them to overlap. We believe that the Church has the resources, creativity and calling to engage. We believe that this work forges us into the multi-ethnic family that we were created to be. We believe that when we leverage the resources we have been gifted, we can see the cycles of injustice and oppression broken and see flourishing abound in our communities.

WHAT IS WORKDAY?
The Workday exists to engage and equip the body of Christ to do Spirit-led deeds of justice and mercy primarily on Oklahoma City’s Eastside. We do this both because the need is great and because poverty and oppression can be found almost anywhere, and God calls us as his children to enter in and to demonstrate his love and goodness. It is our hope and prayer that as volunteers serve with us they will be empowered to replicate the same thing in their own communities. We LOVE to host teams, so if your group is looking for a way to serve for a morning, weekend, or week-long summer team we would love to talk about hosting your group!

WHAT CAN I EXPECT TO DO ON A WORKDAY?

  • ​Mow a widow’s lawn
  • Scrape and paint a widow’s home
  • Work in a community garden
  • Deliver furniture to a single-mother or widow
  • Helping a widow or single mom with basic home repairs that she cannot afford
  • Visiting residents of a city nursing home
  • Building or repairing wheelchair ramps
  • Visiting our friends with flowers and donuts and praying together with them

LODGING

​Teams will stay at a local church and be hosted by our partner ministry, Next Step Ministries.

Toiletries, towels, pillows and blankets or sleeping bags are required.

SCHEDULE​

Sunday: teams arrive in afternoon and get situated.
Monday-Thursday: Teams work at various
RestoreOKC sites from roughly 9:00-3:30.
Friday: Day off to explore OKC. Usually a cookout in the evening at host location.
Saturday: Depart.

COST

$475 per person

From Next Steps Ministries
https://nextstepministries.com/mission-trips/oklahoma-city-oklahoma/

HOW WE SERVE
Next Step began serving in Oklahoma City after a devastating tornado tore through the neighboring community of Moore in 2013. Today our efforts have moved beyond immediate disaster relief to focus on long-term, community development within the city.

From an email exchange with Josh Dodson, Director of Restore Homes, a ministry of RestoreOKC

RestoreOKC was launched out of City Presbyterian Church, in partnership with another church, back in 2016. When my wife and I attended New City Fellowship in St. Louis, we were loosely involved with all the work they did with summer teams. They had the facilities and the capacity to host hundreds of volunteers all summer. Since we started in 2016, we knew we wanted to do something similar. However, New City is 25 years old. We don’t have the facilities and capacity that they do. We ended up developing a great relationship with a local leader for a group called Next Step Ministries. NSM is a national organization. They facilitate short-term mission teams all over the US and beyond. They funnel the short-term teams to a handful of cities where they work with local organizations–like us! Here is a link with more information: https://nextstepministries.com/mission-trips/oklahoma-city-oklahoma/#el-47f6d7bf. Until we have the capacity to help provide lodging, food, etc. we will most likely continue our partnership with Next Step.

I had some follow-up questions. Here they are with his answers.

1.) What’s available? Good question. So, I believe most of the dates are available for the summer. I think you are far enough out that you could book any week that you wanted. Here is a link to the dates: https://nextstepministries.com/mission-trips/oklahoma-city-oklahoma/

2.) How big of a team? So, the groups that come through Next Step vary. We’ve had teams come with five people. We also have a church in San Antonio that comes every summer and usually brings between 60-100 people. You can bring however many you would like. The only caveat would be that Restore might only be able to take a portion of that number. The teams that come work with a number of partner organizations in OKC, Restore being one of those. Teams can request to work with one specific organization if they want to. This is great however if there are way more volunteers wanting to work at Restore than we have work for that week, then Next Step would have to split part of the group up among other other local organizations. Make sense?

3.) Can you work on Fridays? Another good question. Some of the groups do things different. We have one group that comes and works Monday-Thursday and they head out on Friday. We have other groups that do the typical Monday-Thursday work week and then spend Friday site seeing or doing fun things around OKC. Occasionally groups will work a fifth day. It can be doable but will probably depend on the project and the specific week. Regardless, you should be able to communicate all of these hopes or desires with Next Step in advance.

4.) Can we do small mission trips during the year? I think this could work out. I think if things were planned out far enough in advance we could potentially accommodate this. Let’s talk more about this.