Recently, a short-term mission team from
New Zealand was in a car accident in Kenya and three team members died. It was
nothing short of a tragedy. From an earthly perspective, I can’t imagine why
people who sacrificed to serve God would die what seems a senseless death.
While most trips go off without a hitch, tragedies can happen whether a team is
in a safe place or a dangerous one. As
leaders in short-term missions, what do we do with risk and danger?
This brings up an interesting dilemma. If
God has called us to something, should the risk even matter? The argument can
be made that the very fact that one would consider risk shows that he or she
should not participate in a trip. However, we are also the overseers of
precious lives that trust our leadership. We would not be good stewards of our
team if we took them into risky situations unnecessarily. So how do we go about
managing risk and taking care of our people? Here are some ideas to consider as
you plan and even make policies.
First, you
have to decide as an organization or church how much risk you are willing to
take on. At
DELTA, we classify ministry locations into mild, medium, high, and critical.
Some groups might find they don’t feel comfortable with anything more than a
medium while others might be ok with a high or a critical field location. What
is important is that you have considered this and made a decision on what is
acceptable before you are faced with the specifics of a particular team.
Once you know your risk threshold, develop
a system for gathering information. Consider a service like Frontier Medex that
sends daily updates of current events so you are informed of new incidents. The
US State Department
as well as other international state departments can have some good information
too. Make sure you also include local sources of information like local news
outlets, missionary partners, or others who have first-hand knowledge.
Second, develop
a way of quantifying the risk. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard objections to
mission trips over safety, but the person can’t vocalize what makes the trip
dangerous. The best way to handle generic objections is to have information. I
use a Risk Assessment Tool that allows three people to name the 3 or 4 biggest
dangers and evaluate both the likelihood it would happen and the severity of
the impact if it happened. For example, getting kidnapped might be low on the
likelihood but high on severity. Contracting an intestinal bug might be high on
the likelihood but low on severity of impact. Once the risks are defined, you can
make a plan to mitigate them.
Third, have
a crisis and contingency plan. Don’t wait for something bad to happen to figure out how you
would react. A good crisis and contingency plan includes an emergency response
team. It should also spell out the duties of the emergency team members,
procedures on notifying families, who will monitor the ongoing situation, who
will be a “spokesperson,” how you will document your action steps, and so on. It
should also include policies on who decides when evacuation is mandatory and
who pays for mandatory and optional evacuation.
Fourth, be
prepared. Make
sure you purchase travel medical and
evacuation insurance. It can cost, literally, less than a couple of dollars
per day. Other ways to be prepared are to ask your host about what plans they
have for emergencies, give your team leader an In Case of Emergency form that
has emergency contact numbers for people in the host country and at home,
include forms for logging injuries and collecting the information required by the
insurance company. You may also want to have the name of a crisis consulting agency handy so you know
who to call in an emergency.
Does this seem overwhelming? Start with the
first step before worrying about the other 3 or contact DELTA Ministries to
purchase their Crisis and Contingency Plan or to receive coaching on developing
your own.
Questions for the author? Need coaching or
consulting? You can contact Tory at 520-404-0841 or toryr@deltaministries.com.
