“We realized there were still some gaps in what teams knew before they arrived.”— Andrea Kroeze
Andrea Kroeze knew short-term missions from the traveler’s side before she knew it from the host’s. Growing up in New Jersey, she became involved with Touch the World through her church and took her first mission trip at eleven. She continued participating through school and joined the staff after college.
A few years later, Andrea and her husband, Jesse, moved to Uganda. Receiving visiting teams gave them a different view of the experience. Students could arrive eager to help and still be poorly prepared for the culture, relationships, and work of the ministry hosting them.
The gaps had practical consequences for their hosts. Good intentions did not necessarily equip a visitor to understand poverty or recognize how a short visit fit into years of local work. Andrea began developing training materials, discussion guides, internships, and learning experiences to help address those problems.
That work developed into a training approach organized around identity, culture, poverty, and mission. Students would consider their own assumptions as well as the place they were going. Preparation meant learning to listen and asking what would actually help the people receiving them.
Touch the World’s Mission Center in Pennsylvania gave that approach a setting for immersive training. Simulations, discussion, worship, and reflection helped students prepare before traveling. Missions Academy brought training online for churches and organizations preparing their own teams.
The gap year program allowed Andrea and her colleagues to work with students over a longer period. Nine months offered time for questions and habits that a short pre-trip training could only begin to address. Spiritual formation, mentorship, and community life became part of the preparation for service.
Andrea’s work connects experiences that are often treated separately: being sent, receiving visitors, and teaching people who are preparing to go. The questions she encountered in Uganda still give that teaching a practical test. Will students arrive ready to listen, build relationships, and serve in ways that make sense to their hosts?
