The Impact of Short-Term Missions: A Case Study of House Construction in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch

Abstract

This study surveyed 162 short-term mission participants who traveled to Honduras to help build homes after the 1998 devastating Hurricane Mitch. The survey found that while participants reported that their trip had resulted in significant changes in their lives, including their financial giving, their donation records did not reflect any substantial differences — a fact which calls into question the self-reported positive changes in other areas. This study also compares the responses of over 30 Honduran families who had new homes built for them by North American short-term mission groups after the hurricane with those of a similar number of Honduran families whose homes were built not by North Americans but by Honduran Christian organizations. It found that having homes built by the North American STM groups versus Honduran Christian organizations seemed to make no difference to the new homeowners — positive or negative — despite the fact that the STM group spent on average over $30,000 to build a house the local Christian organization could build for $2000. Finally, the author proposes that both STM participants and the Honduran recipients resemble saplings, which can be bent and held in one place for a week or more, but once released quickly return to their previous state. The author ends by reflecting on how this “sapling model” explains the fact that local Christian organizations had a much more substantial impact on the families than the STM groups did and its implications for increasing the impact of STM in the future.