Pastor Jacob Birch and Short Term Mission Trips

I have led 3 short term trips (1 Japan and 2 to Mississippi) and raised many thousands of dollars for individuals and groups of all ages to go on STMs from the various churches i have been apart of. There are many positive attributes to STMs and most of them are found by following these 10 Things You Need to Know Before You Go on a Short Term Mission Trip. Add Pastor Jake's 11th... give 10% of your total short term missions trip budget to a long term missionary through something like the Global Advance Fund of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada. Read, understand and Obey.

Update - August 30th 2013

I just received a short term missions prayer letter from a congregant that has probably gone on 20+ STMs through our church, denomination and many other missions. They shall remain nameless. But i read their letter over and something bothered me. So i read it again. And again. Then it hit me. 

Using the power of Google I search for the terms "God", "Jesus Christ", "Jesus", "Lord". "Mission" and "Holy Spirit". Here were the results:

God - 0 found

Jesus Christ - 0 found

Jesus - 0 found

Lord - 1 found (noting that someone they met had accepted the "lord" some years beforehand) 

Holy Spirit - 0 found

Mission - 5 found (all either used in the word missionary, describing someone they met or in the title of a group they were working with) 

I,Me,We,Us - 22 times