should you take your child someplace dangerous?

SHOULD YOU TAKE YOUR CHILD SOMEPLACE

DANGEROUS?

Should you take your child someplace

where the water is not safe?

Where they could be injured far from an

English-speaking doctor

Someplace where the police might take bribes?

Yes

And it might save their life when

they are a teenager.

My wife Katharine and I have gone on five church mission

trips with our daughters:

three times to Mexico and twice to

Guatemala.

Our first trip was a short hop across

the border to Juarez for two

days. Twenty-one children, twenty parents and one

grandparent built two houses.

The homes had three rooms, each 12 feet by 12 feet.

Our younger

daughter had just turned seven.

I don’t know which was scarier: Watching my 7 year-old climb up

on the roof with a hammer or…

Or watching her run around, playing with barefoot children

who lived in packing crates in the desert.

Nine years later, when she was a senior in high school, and we chaperoned 60 American high

school students on a mission trip to Mexicali.

These two busloads of teens came home with a

changed view of life.

They are less concerned about designer jeans.

They are less worried about their problems—which somehow

seem smaller.

How can short trips like these save your child’s life?

How can trips that immerse our children into a world with less safety and comfort actually protect them?

Because it builds compassion

It builds character.

Because it inoculates them from consumerism

Because it helps protect them from depression

Is playing on an unpaved Mexicali road

safer than the keys to your car on a

Saturday night?

Take your child someplace dangerous and find out.