Pilgrims arrive at Holy Island carrying wooden crosses
A GROUP of weary pilgrims, which included members who set off from Carlisle on Saturday (April 12), arrived at their intended destination on Good Friday.
There were two legs of the annual Northern Cross pilgrimage, one from Carlisle and the other from Lanark in Scotland, and during the trek they carried wooden crosses to symbolise the meaning of Easter.
On the whole the weather was kind to the Carlisle group, apart from at one point during the midweek, but when they finally set foot on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, after crossing the causeway during low tide, it was a lot kinder.
One of the organisers John Wallace, who was helping with the Carlisle leg and is from Twickenham in London, said he was pleased to have reached the end of the journey.
When asked about how he felt about reaching the end of the journey he said he was delighted to have managed it all the way. He added: 'I was on foot every step of the way from Carlisle.'
He said that the highlight of the trip was the 'amazing for hospitality in many of the places we stopped'.
He added: 'I don't know how many we had altogether, I haven't counted but we must have been at about five or six places, where we stopped, where people prepared a meal for us and were very hospitable."
And, regarding the low points, he said, when they revised the route it worked very well for the first part and then they discovered that during the second part, which was a marked right of way, it was heather up to their thighs and it was 'extremely difficult'.
He said that, at one point, the weather was so bad that they ended up completely soaked.
Fellow member Mark Attwood, who lives just north of Carlisle, said he felt it was not quite the end of the journey and added: 'I'm not sure how it feels.'
He said the high point of the journey was about more about 'being with people that are joy to be with' and 'people that that feel like a stone in your shoe'. And he said that the low point was 'probably ending a great journey'.
Richard Morris, who is from Gloucestershire, felt it was 'absolutely great' to reach the end of the trek and added: 'We've been building up to it for a week and there were lots of hills and all sorts of experiences. So to arrive here on a Holy Island is really good.'
Regarding the high point he said: 'I think the destination is good. The journey is good. The company of Christians is good but it's great sharing the good news, you know, especially as we can ourselves as good news people in a bad news world.'
He agreed that that the low point was the bad weather and added: 'I think it was Wednesday when the weather was really bad.
'It was lashing with rain. It was cold and miserable. And then we went across a moor where there wasn't actually a path so we were clambering over heather.
'We saw all sorts of things. It was almost worldly when you saw the mosses that were growing. It was quite unbelievable, but we survived and we did well.'
According to the Northern Cross website participants 'bear witness to the passion, death and resurrection of Christ' and that carrying a cross is a very symbolic act at this time of year.
Hosts of the participants during the event include Anglican, Catholic, Church of Scotland, Methodist and Baptist members.
It states: 'On the other side Northern Cross gives us a chance to get away from the world – a retreat – in beautiful countryside, in the open air away from the daily grind, television and newspapers; a chance to think and reflect; a chance to share in a small Christian community for a week.'
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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
31 Dream-Turned-Nightmare Vacations That Went So, So, So, So, So, So Horribly Wrong For People
Reddit user u/ujin- asked the community: "What was the scariest moment you've had on vacation?" The thread quickly filled with tales of travels gone very, very wrong. BuzzFeed Community members also shared their own vacation horror stories. Here's what people shared: 1."On a family trip to Spain during Easter week, my husband got food poisoning from oysters (he was the only one who ate them). He got violent diarrhea, and on Easter Sunday, as he was driving, he passed out and went up a curb, knocking down a stop sign and almost mowing into a crowd of people on their way to Easter Mass! I had to drive to Madrid and he had a very long, hard flight back to the USA!" —Anonymous 2."We flew from Los Angeles to Rome to start a three-week vacation. On the first full day of the vacation, I tripped on an extra curb set away from the sidewalk and broke two ribs and shattered my arm (humerus) into six pieces. I spent the next day in a Rome emergency room. 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We heard people shouting and furniture banging around. Then there were three gunshots followed by silence and the sound of footsteps running down the hallway and out the door. I've never seen my parents pack a car faster in all of my life." —u/Sparky3200 4."We were on our honeymoon and flying into the Toronto airport. We were about to land to make a connecting flight overseas when we heard grinding under the plane. This repeated a couple of times, and then the pilot, calm as can be, clicked on the intercom and said, 'We seem to be having a little trouble with the landing gear. Everyone, please take your seats and buckle your seatbelts. We're going to delay our approach. Please bear with us.' One of the flight attendants rushed towards the cockpit. The seatbelt light went on, and I looked at my husband, who hates to fly. He just gave me a look of pure dread and terror, not saying a word. I knew this trip was my idea, so this was all my fault." 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I recovered and realized my son, who's 17 and bigger than I am, was holding onto me. He took water into his snorkel and started panicking, so he grabbed me. I was trying to tread water, hold up another full-grown man, and figure out how to get somewhere safe to stand or get to shore." "I started dipping in and out of the water because my arms and legs started getting tired, and I was treading for my son's life. Finally, I got the other snorkelers' attention and called for help, and a group of them came over. Someone with a paddleboard got my son, and then I floated and paddled as much as possible while a dude there pulled me toward a boat. I almost passed out from exhaustion when I got on the little boat. I legitimately thought both my son and I were goners. The thing is, we're both good swimmers. If he hadn't been panicking, he could have swum to shore, which wasn't far away, or expelled the water from his snorkel and continued swimming. And since he was pulling me down, I was panicking and not thinking straight enough to tell him what to do. It was one of the scariest experiences of my life." —u/SweetCosmicPope 7."On our way to the New Orleans airport at like 4:00 a.m., the vehicle next to us on the highway shot at us for no reason. The bullet went through the windshield and rearview mirror, lodging in the roof right between me and my wife's heads." —u/Guerilla555 8."My uncle decided to mess around on a trail in Yellowstone near some hot pools. He was walking backward on the trail and FELL OFF right onto the crust near the hot pools. By sheer luck, he didn't fall through. It was horrifying. I thought we were witnessing a man die." —u/alizabs91 9."It was the last day of our trip to San Diego, and my friend and I called an Uber for brunch. A car pulled up that didn't match the app description at all. The car was the wrong model and had the wrong license plate. The driver yelled my name, acting super casual like, 'It's your Uber! Come on in!' My phone rang, and it was the actual Uber driver I requested. He was confused about why I hadn't gotten in the car yet. I tell him I didn't see his car, and he says, 'Uber hasn't updated my car model or license plate yet,' but the person in the car clearly wasn't even on the phone! He was looking straight at me!" "I told the person on the phone I was canceling, and the next thing I know, the driver in the car yelled at me through the window to get in. He even got out of the car at this point. My friend and I ran back into the hotel lobby. We explained the situation to the front desk, and thankfully, the staff jumped into action. We also reported it to Uber. I am grateful we were close enough to the hotel to run away. If we weren't, I don't know what would have happened." —u/Moon2078 10."I was 13 on vacation overseas with my mom. We woke up at 5:00 a.m. due to jet lag, and the morning was beautiful, so we decided to go for a swim. We are used to a very calm sea (technically, a bay), so we didn't think swimming was a big deal when there were no lifeguards. As a result, we got caught in a rip current without knowing what it was. My mom was a very weak swimmer, so she told me to swim to the shore and call for help. But the shore was empty, so I knew she just wanted me to leave her and save myself. I grabbed her by the hand and swam as hard as I could. Luckily, we were close to the shore, and my desperate 'sprint' got us to a place where we could stand. We returned to our room and felt incredibly sleepy, so we went to sleep and woke up 10 hours later. When we looked out the hotel window, we noticed the red flags on the beach, and no one was swimming." —u/Sleepy_Glacier 11."On a three-week tour of Thailand with my Muay Thai instructors, we happened to be in Krabi during December 2004. We took an early boat ride for about two hours to Bamboo Island to snorkel and hang out on the beach. We noticed a weird feeling in the water, like something was stinging, and got out after a while. Then we noticed, 'Wow, that is a bizarre loud wave coming in.' Our next thought was, 'Wow, that big wave just keeps coming. I wonder if that's related to how all the water receded a few minutes ago, making the shoreline a thousand feet wider?' Then we climbed the highest point on the island and sat there for about 12 hours, watching the next two tsunami waves come in and leave, all while wondering if the highest point would be high enough to avoid the water." "The pre-smartphone days were rough; we had no idea what was happening. After being rescued by the Thai Coast Guard and getting back to the mainland 12-15 hours later, we found out that thousands of people had died. It was a shock. 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I kept waving and backing up and waving, then turned, and my back heel was right at the edge of the Grand Canyon. I was not the smartest kid." —u/DueEntertainer0 17."I got bitten on the neck by a cheeky monkey in a park in Vietnam. I did not have a rabies vaccination and had to rush to the nearest hospital to get the shot. It was scary as hell. I was traveling solo." —u/Honey-bee542 18."We lost my baby brother at Seaside Heights Boardwalk. My family went wild for about an hour. We finally found him sitting outside a saloon surrounded by bikers and their chicks. He had a bowl of popcorn and a tall soda. They were all facing the boardwalk and watching people go by, waiting to see if he recognized anyone looking for him." —u/Rosanna44 19."I was on an overnight bus from Delhi to Dharmsala. (I am female and was 26 at the time). We stopped at a gas station at night to use a restroom. I was the last in line, and when I came out, the bus was taking off and headed back onto the highway. 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That brief ride to the next station was the longest wait of my life. Luckily, a man saw the whole situation and got off the train with me, and we both sat on a bench waiting for the next train, not even being able to speak the same language. My dad finally arrived on the next train, but that was a horrible and traumatic experience. Thank god for good Samaritans; it could have been awful." —u/zevoruko 23."My in-laws' family overloaded a golf cart shuttle, and as it was climbing a hill, it tipped, falling 10 or so feet down the embankment. My father-in-law was underneath it with his mother and two other people, including the 20-year-old driver, still in the cart. If it weren't for him holding it up, his 70-year-old mother would have been crushed as well, and the cart would have continued falling into the lake 20-30 feet below. 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As we drove into the area, the fog was so bad that we couldn't see very far, and we were afraid we'd never get to actually see it. As we pulled into a parking lot, the fog drew back, revealing a breathtaking view of snow-frosted canyons. One other car was parked there, with a young couple. The woman stood up on a wall above a sheer drop after the guy with her asked her to pose for a picture. Suddenly, he shoved her hard. Her arms windmilled for several seconds, and she almost fell. Somehow, she got her balance, yelled at him (he just stood there and watched her almost go over the edge), then they both got in the car and left. I was speechless. I know I had just watched that guy try to kill that girl. My companions never saw anything because they were looking at the amazing view." —carotha 28."On the second day of our vacation in Puerto Rico, my husband and I were excited to go to the local beach. There were some kite surfers, but no one was swimming in the ocean because the waves were pretty big. We wanted the ocean experience, so we went out, but only up to our knees. My husband started diving into the whitewater and encouraged me to as well. I grew up in CA and knew how to dive under waves, but I was nervous for some reason. I did it anyway. The third time I dove, I could no longer touch the ground when I came up because there was a drop off, and I was swept back into the bigger waves. I tried my hardest to swim towards shore, but the tide was too strong and I was now battling huge waves to stay alive." "I yelled for help. My husband was trying to come to my rescue, but was fighting the waves to get to me. My energy quickly depleted, and after the next wave, I only barely came up for air. That's when I realized that no one was going to be able to save me, and I was going to drown. At that moment, a voice told me to stop fighting the waves. My survival instinct told me otherwise, but the voice was calm and commanding. So I did, and within two giant waves, I had been brought close enough for my husband to grab my arm and pull me to shore. I sat quietly, shaking and blue, for a while as my husband cared for me. Needless to say, I avoided the beach pretty much the rest of our trip." —Anonymous 29."Driving in Maui, I noticed a dump truck headed toward me, getting closer and closer to the lane line. I kept watch, and we passed each other with no incident. I looked in my rearview 10 seconds later, and it collided head-on with a car behind me in our lane." —u/jwangy84 30."I arrived at the airport in my long-distance girlfriend's country. I was traveling alone, and she was coming to pick me up. As I was leaving the airport, people aggressively tried to offer me rides (cabs, Uber, unlicensed, etc.), which I obviously declined. Then, one guy called out to me by name and said he was sent to pick me up. I called my girlfriend to ask about it. She freaked out and told me to return to the airport immediately until she arrived to get me. So, I guess I almost got kidnapped or something? I have no logical explanation as to how they knew my name." —u/unsoldburrito "I was about 11 years old while on vacation at the beach with my family. I was swimming in the ocean and got stuck in a rip current, which pulled me far from shore. My father came out to save me. As we were both succumbing to exhaustion and starting to drown, someone on a surfboard floated over and had us hold onto the board until lifeguards made it out to us. As we were catching our breath on the shore, we looked around for the surfboard person, but they were nowhere to be found." —u/k_marts Have you ever been on a dream vacation that quickly turned into a nightmare? What happened? Tell us in the comments or share anonymously using this form.
Buzz Feed
4 days ago
- Buzz Feed
31 Vacation Disasters That Will Make You Stay Home
Reddit user u/ujin- asked the community: "What was the scariest moment you've had on vacation?" The thread quickly filled with tales of travels gone very, very wrong. BuzzFeed Community members also shared their own vacation horror stories. Here's what people shared: "On a family trip to Spain during Easter week, my husband got food poisoning from oysters (he was the only one who ate them). He got violent diarrhea, and on Easter Sunday, as he was driving, he passed out and went up a curb, knocking down a stop sign and almost mowing into a crowd of people on their way to Easter Mass! I had to drive to Madrid and he had a very long, hard flight back to the USA!" "We flew from Los Angeles to Rome to start a three-week vacation. On the first full day of the vacation, I tripped on an extra curb set away from the sidewalk and broke two ribs and shattered my arm (humerus) into six pieces. I spent the next day in a Rome emergency room. I tried to get a flight home the following day. 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Then there were three gunshots followed by silence and the sound of footsteps running down the hallway and out the door. I've never seen my parents pack a car faster in all of my life." "We were on our honeymoon and flying into the Toronto airport. We were about to land to make a connecting flight overseas when we heard grinding under the plane. This repeated a couple of times, and then the pilot, calm as can be, clicked on the intercom and said, 'We seem to be having a little trouble with the landing gear. Everyone, please take your seats and buckle your seatbelts. We're going to delay our approach. Please bear with us.' One of the flight attendants rushed towards the cockpit. The seatbelt light went on, and I looked at my husband, who hates to fly. He just gave me a look of pure dread and terror, not saying a word. I knew this trip was my idea, so this was all my fault." "I went vacationing in Mexico with my family when I was 9. 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The bullet went through the windshield and rearview mirror, lodging in the roof right between me and my wife's heads." "My uncle decided to mess around on a trail in Yellowstone near some hot pools. He was walking backward on the trail and FELL OFF right onto the crust near the hot pools. By sheer luck, he didn't fall through. It was horrifying. I thought we were witnessing a man die." "It was the last day of our trip to San Diego, and my friend and I called an Uber for brunch. A car pulled up that didn't match the app description at all. The car was the wrong model and had the wrong license plate. The driver yelled my name, acting super casual like, 'It's your Uber! Come on in!' My phone rang, and it was the actual Uber driver I requested. He was confused about why I hadn't gotten in the car yet. I tell him I didn't see his car, and he says, 'Uber hasn't updated my car model or license plate yet,' but the person in the car clearly wasn't even on the phone! He was looking straight at me!" "I was 13 on vacation overseas with my mom. We woke up at 5:00 a.m. due to jet lag, and the morning was beautiful, so we decided to go for a swim. We are used to a very calm sea (technically, a bay), so we didn't think swimming was a big deal when there were no lifeguards. As a result, we got caught in a rip current without knowing what it was. My mom was a very weak swimmer, so she told me to swim to the shore and call for help. But the shore was empty, so I knew she just wanted me to leave her and save myself. I grabbed her by the hand and swam as hard as I could. Luckily, we were close to the shore, and my desperate 'sprint' got us to a place where we could stand. We returned to our room and felt incredibly sleepy, so we went to sleep and woke up 10 hours later. When we looked out the hotel window, we noticed the red flags on the beach, and no one was swimming." "On a three-week tour of Thailand with my Muay Thai instructors, we happened to be in Krabi during December 2004. We took an early boat ride for about two hours to Bamboo Island to snorkel and hang out on the beach. We noticed a weird feeling in the water, like something was stinging, and got out after a while. Then we noticed, 'Wow, that is a bizarre loud wave coming in.' Our next thought was, 'Wow, that big wave just keeps coming. I wonder if that's related to how all the water receded a few minutes ago, making the shoreline a thousand feet wider?' Then we climbed the highest point on the island and sat there for about 12 hours, watching the next two tsunami waves come in and leave, all while wondering if the highest point would be high enough to avoid the water." "My appendix ruptured while on vacation in England. Full perforation. I was on a school trip, and my classmates had to continue their trip, so I was left behind. It happened on my second day in England, and I spent 13 days alone in the hospital before getting out. Then, I had two days left before I flew home. I was puking my guts out and crapping my brains out. Tubes down my throat, oxygen in my nose, catheter down my pipe. I was 15, and my parents didn't have passports, so I had to handle it myself. I had one amazing nurse (we are still friends to this day, 19 years later), and that alone made the whole ordeal worthwhile." "Remember that 2018 Hawaii Ballistic Missile false alarm? That. I was visiting my brother and sister-in-law, and my girlfriend and I thought we were going to die. We called our loved ones to say goodbye and cried in the closet, taking shelter, waiting for our imminent doom. The funny thing is, we were supposed to have left days prior, but I decided we should stay an extra three days since the seven-day flight round-trip ticket was the same as the 10-day one. It took 45 minutes or so for the correction to go out. Everyone in public looked like they went on with their day just fine. We remained shell-shocked the whole day, and my girlfriend and I needed therapy when we got home." "On a girls' trip to Cabo, my friend and cousin decided to do an ATV beach excursion. Before taking off, I asked if I could ride with any of them, and they said no, and the tour guide wasn't allowed to carry a passenger with him. Therefore, I was left to ride on my own. I didn't want to ride on my own because I have carpal tunnel on my right index finger, and it acts up with frequent usage. Take a guess where the accelerator was located? The tour was over an hour long, so I was worried. On the way to the beach, I was placed behind the guide, so it wasn't bad because I set the speed for the others. However, I was placed last on the way back, and they were hungry for speed." Buggy on the beach "I got sun poisoning as a kid, became delirious, sleptwalk (which I have no history of doing), opened the hotel doorway, and knocked on what I thought was my parents' bedroom. A guy answered and told me I had the wrong room. Luckily, I somehow found my way back to my room, went to the bathroom, and went to bed. I remember it all, so I don't know if it was sleepwalking or only happened as a result of my sun poisoning. Who knows. It's terrifying to think about what could've happened, especially as a kid." "When I was 12, my dad took me to the Grand Canyon. He had bad arthritis and couldn't walk well, so I asked if he wanted to walk down a trail. He said he'd stay put, but I could go. I walked down the trail, like a switchback, only a little ways. Then I turned to see if I could see my dad, and was waving to try to get his attention. I kept waving and backing up and waving, then turned, and my back heel was right at the edge of the Grand Canyon. I was not the smartest kid." "I got bitten on the neck by a cheeky monkey in a park in Vietnam. I did not have a rabies vaccination and had to rush to the nearest hospital to get the shot. It was scary as hell. I was traveling solo." "We lost my baby brother at Seaside Heights Boardwalk. My family went wild for about an hour. We finally found him sitting outside a saloon surrounded by bikers and their chicks. He had a bowl of popcorn and a tall soda. They were all facing the boardwalk and watching people go by, waiting to see if he recognized anyone looking for him." "I was on an overnight bus from Delhi to Dharmsala. (I am female and was 26 at the time). We stopped at a gas station at night to use a restroom. I was the last in line, and when I came out, the bus was taking off and headed back onto the highway. I sprinted after it, repeatedly screaming, 'No!' at the top of my lungs. Someone must have heard or seen me, and the bus stopped. I truly do not know what I would have done had I been left behind." "I was in one of the ruined temples of Cambodia and got lost from my group, and I ended up in a restricted section by mistake. I photographed a dead end with roots coming down the wall. Looking at the photo later, I noticed an infamously venomous snake in the corner, staring at me in a defensive position." "While studying abroad in New Zealand, I took a solo trip to the South Island. I was supposed to go with a few friends, but they canceled at the last minute. This was my first solo trip ever, and I booked a few hostels along the way. There was a French man whom I immediately noticed upon arriving at my hostel in Queenstown. I remember him saying something odd to me. Then, after a day at the hostel, he moved into my room. He then spent an entire afternoon in the room staring at me while I watched YouTube in my bed. Later, when I went to grab dinner in town, I spotted him off in the distance as if he had followed me." "I was 7 years old on my first European trip, and we were in Brussels. My dad and I were waiting for the subway, and when it arrived, it was crowded, so my dad decided not to get in, but I decided I could get in between people, given my small size. I remember turning around to realize my dad was not on the train with me, and the doors closed as he reached to pull me out. Panic. Tears. My dad yelled at me, 'Get off at the next station.' That brief ride to the next station was the longest wait of my life. Luckily, a man saw the whole situation and got off the train with me, and we both sat on a bench waiting for the next train, not even being able to speak the same language. My dad finally arrived on the next train, but that was a horrible and traumatic experience. Thank god for good Samaritans; it could have been awful." "My in-laws' family overloaded a golf cart shuttle, and as it was climbing a hill, it tipped, falling 10 or so feet down the embankment. My father-in-law was underneath it with his mother and two other people, including the 20-year-old driver, still in the cart. If it weren't for him holding it up, his 70-year-old mother would have been crushed as well, and the cart would have continued falling into the lake 20-30 feet below. He had some nasty bruises, but everyone was okay overall." "We were tent camping in a state park, and a large tree limb fell in the middle of the night in the campsite next to ours. It fell directly across where a tent would go if we had picked that site, which we almost did. It scared the living crap out of us when we heard the 'boom' sound that woke us up at 3:00 a.m." "I got food poisoning while in Japan. I was with a tour group on a bus with no bathroom when the diarrhea struck. I had to wait until we arrived at our stop, which was five agonizing minutes away. When we finally got out, I had to scramble to find a store that A) had a bathroom and B) wasn't busy to avoid the embarrassment of crapping my brains out. And it's not like anyone spoke English, which made it harder. It took 10 minutes of me searching, all while holding in impending diarrhea, before I finally found one. 10 minutes is an eternity when you're holding in liquid poop. I was drenched in sweat from the effort of holding it in and the fear that I might crap myself in public, in a foreign country." "We were on our way back from a small trip. My mom had texted that my kiddo was sick, so we did our best to get home fast. It was about a three-hour drive on all back roads with few places to pass. We got stuck behind two semis. My partner insisted I go past them, but something told me not to. He pushed it for about five minutes, but I just would not. Something in me said no. Suddenly, the first semi stopped to turn, and the semi behind it had to slam the brakes and swerve to stop in time. You could see the smoke coming off the tires. If I had tried to pass, we would have been hit. I fully believe we would have died. It was a silent ride home." "I saw the Grand Canyon for the first time back in the '90s in the winter. As we drove into the area, the fog was so bad that we couldn't see very far, and we were afraid we'd never get to actually see it. As we pulled into a parking lot, the fog drew back, revealing a breathtaking view of snow-frosted canyons. One other car was parked there, with a young couple. The woman stood up on a wall above a sheer drop after the guy with her asked her to pose for a picture. Suddenly, he shoved her hard. Her arms windmilled for several seconds, and she almost fell. Somehow, she got her balance, yelled at him (he just stood there and watched her almost go over the edge), then they both got in the car and left. I was speechless. I know I had just watched that guy try to kill that girl. My companions never saw anything because they were looking at the amazing view." "On the second day of our vacation in Puerto Rico, my husband and I were excited to go to the local beach. There were some kite surfers, but no one was swimming in the ocean because the waves were pretty big. We wanted the ocean experience, so we went out, but only up to our knees. My husband started diving into the whitewater and encouraged me to as well. I grew up in CA and knew how to dive under waves, but I was nervous for some reason. I did it anyway. The third time I dove, I could no longer touch the ground when I came up because there was a drop off, and I was swept back into the bigger waves. I tried my hardest to swim towards shore, but the tide was too strong and I was now battling huge waves to stay alive." "Driving in Maui, I noticed a dump truck headed toward me, getting closer and closer to the lane line. I kept watch, and we passed each other with no incident. I looked in my rearview 10 seconds later, and it collided head-on with a car behind me in our lane." "I arrived at the airport in my long-distance girlfriend's country. I was traveling alone, and she was coming to pick me up. As I was leaving the airport, people aggressively tried to offer me rides (cabs, Uber, unlicensed, etc.), which I obviously declined. Then, one guy called out to me by name and said he was sent to pick me up. I called my girlfriend to ask about it. She freaked out and told me to return to the airport immediately until she arrived to get me. So, I guess I almost got kidnapped or something? I have no logical explanation as to how they knew my name." And: "I was about 11 years old while on vacation at the beach with my family. I was swimming in the ocean and got stuck in a rip current, which pulled me far from shore. My father came out to save me. As we were both succumbing to exhaustion and starting to drown, someone on a surfboard floated over and had us hold onto the board until lifeguards made it out to us. As we were catching our breath on the shore, we looked around for the surfboard person, but they were nowhere to be found." Have you ever been on a dream vacation that quickly turned into a nightmare? What happened? Tell us in the comments or share anonymously using this form. Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Yahoo
Mission trips are an evangelical rite of passage for US teens – but why?
As tourists head to airports this summer, American travelers are likely to see groups of young people in matching T-shirts awaiting flights to Latin America or further afield. Their T-shirts sport biblical verses or phrases like 'Here I am, send me' or 'Called to serve,' and the teens may gather for prayer before boarding. These young people are heading off to be short-term missionaries: an experience that has become a rite of passage in some corners of Protestant Christianity as overseas travel has become more affordable for Americans. According to some estimates, as many as 2 million youth and adults per year participated in Christian mission trips before the pandemic, including overseas trips and trips to poor communities at home. While it is difficult to confirm these numbers, mission trips are now especially commonplace within evangelical churches, with larger and more affluent churches offering multiple trips throughout the year. Some congregations plan their mission trips in-house. Others enlist the services of mission companies with names like World Race, He Said Go and World Gospel Mission. Typically, these companies combine humanitarian service, development projects and faith. They promise participants adventure, spiritual growth and an opportunity to serve as Jesus' hands and feet in the world. I have been studying short-term missionaries for the past six years. I have interviewed dozens of pastors, trip leaders and young missionaries, and I have had the opportunity to participate in a mission trip in Central America. Through this research, I have learned about why so many young Christians want to go on mission trips and have been struck by their desire to 'serve.' Yet, as a geographer, I am concerned by their lack of knowledge about the people and places they visit. The missionary impulse within Christianity comes from the Great Commission, a Gospel verse in which Jesus instructs his disciples 'to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.' The spirit of evangelism thrived among European and American Christians in the 19th century, fueled by frontier expansion and colonization. Protestant missionaries spread throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific, seeking to win souls for Christ. Also important, in many of these men's and women's eyes, was something often referred to as the 'white man's burden': the imperialist idea that they had a duty to introduce Western civilization to supposedly 'backward' people. Missionaries had mixed success in converting so-called natives to Christianity. But they left lasting impacts through the many institutions they established around the world, including schools, universities and hospitals. Contemporary missionaries are the inheritors of these earlier waves. Yet they also have some distinctive characteristics. Historically, mission work was a lifelong calling and profession, one that often meant never coming home. Career missionaries continue to have a role in missions today, sometimes financially supported by denominational organizations like the Southern Baptist Convention's International Missions Board or by donations from individual churches. But the movement is now dominated by short-termers who are in the 'mission field' for a couple of weeks or months. Some trips go to destinations where Christians are a minority, such as the Middle East, India or Southeast Asia. More commonly, they take place in countries with a sizable Christian population and partner with local evangelical organizations and churches 'planted' by long-term missionaries. Trip organizers I interviewed emphasized that the mission teams are there to serve and to take direction from their local partners. Another distinctive feature of short-term missions is their approach to faith. Rather than push 'conversion' as a goal, today's mission leaders emphasize 'relationship building' in hopes that connections will gradually lead people closer to Christian beliefs. Trips are oriented not just around the spiritual transformation of the local community but also the spiritual transformation of missionaries themselves. Pastors and organizers say that trips are meant to teach young American Christians what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus, to share the gospel and to love people who are not like them. Organizers talk about young people learning to 'live missionally' and to see opportunities to build God's kingdom in their ordinary lives. Short-term missions, however, also appeal to young people's desire to see the world and to be adventurous. The language used to describe and promote trips is remarkably similar to secular overseas volunteering or 'voluntourism,' as well as gap-year programs before college. Both experiences are built around the idea of getting out of your comfort zone and experiencing cultural differences in the name of self-improvement, preparing for life in a globalized, diverse world. Another similarity is that both Christian and secular programs usually involve some kind of service project: building a house, digging a well or leading recreational activities for children. Such activities are meant to give young people confidence in their ability to 'make a difference' in the world, while developing resilience and gratitude. Not all evangelicals see the value of mission trips. Critics have argued that American short-term mission teams dump unwanted goods on host communities, are culturally insensitive and commonly assume that locals need American 'expertise.' Construction projects push out local workers and often result in shoddily built structures – suggesting the enormous sums of money spent on mission trips might be better spent if donated directly to local organizations. Books like 'When Helping Hurts,' by evangelical authors Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett, aim to explain how leaders can make mission trips more effective, both in terms of alleviating poverty and in terms of evangelism. Warning against a 'white savior' attitude, they suggest that the purpose of short-term missions is to 'walk with the poor' and build lasting relationships that will lead people to Christ. In my research, I have met mission trip leaders who are trying to put these ideas into practice without harming the communities they visit. But troubling elements persist. Trip organizers want to open American Christians' eyes to realities of the world outside of their bubbles. Yet their messages tends to imply the effects of poverty can be overcome through personal faith in Christ. Short-term missionaries I interviewed did not blame people for being poor but were reluctant to describe the hardship they witnessed in terms of social injustice. The mission teams I studied learned almost nothing about the impacts of corruption, violence and social inequality on the communities they believed they were there to help. Trip leaders felt that such information would bore participants and detract from the spiritual aims of the trip. In effect, what mattered to the volunteers and organizers was simply that places were poor and foreign rather than the reasons poverty was so entrenched. Many of the short-term missionaries I interviewed described feeling changed by their trip and becoming more aware of their own privilege. But the focus on spiritual fulfillment means that these young people may be missing out on opportunities to deepen their understandings of the world and to build solidarity with the communities they visit. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Caroline R. Nagel, University of South Carolina Read more: When a child chooses a donor to sponsor them, it's a new twist on a surprisingly old model of international charity How Christian missionary media shaped the world Whether or not a man convicted of abusing African 'orphans' is exonerated, the missionary system that brought him to Kenya was always deeply flawed Caroline R. Nagel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
