Mission trips

Come and work. Then go play.

A week with us is both things, and we would not want it any other way. You will fix the building, and you will spend real time with the kids — the soccer, the movie night, the trip to the zoo. There is one boundary underneath all of it, and once you understand why it exists, everything else is easy.

Chiapas, 2023

What a week actually looked like

This is our own first trip, to a partner home in Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Scott's daughter Rylie came with us, shortly after finishing her third round of chemotherapy, and she worked the whole week. It is the honest measure of what we are inviting you into, so here is all of it.

We worked

Hard, and on what the director asked for

  • Scraped and repainted the dormitories
  • Replaced the artificial turf in the play area
  • Built and planted garden beds
  • Fixed doors that had stopped closing
  • Hung a television for Sunday movie nights
  • Made improvements to the bakery the home runs for income

And we were with them

Which is half of why it mattered

  • Hugged nearly every child there
  • Played soccer with the boys until we were beaten
  • Painted a long line of small fingernails
  • Took them to the movies
  • Took them to the zoo
  • Took them rafting

Anyone who tells you a service trip is only about the building has either not been on one or is trying to sound serious. The wall matters. The afternoon at the zoo matters too, and for some of those kids it was the better part of the week.

The one line

Be wonderful for a week. Just don't become somebody's one person.

Why this is the boundary

The injury many of these young people carry is that an adult arrived, became theirs, and then stopped arriving.

That is a very specific wound, and it is not caused by warmth, by soccer, or by a hundred hugs in a courtyard. It is caused by singling out one child, becoming their special person, and then leaving on a Saturday.

So the line is not don't interact. It is: arrive as part of a group, be generous with all of them, and don't make a promise to one child that your plane ticket has already broken. Everything on the list below follows from that single idea.

The long-term relationships are the job of paid, trained, supervised mentors who commit to three years. You are not competing with them. You are giving the kids a very good week.

Yes, please
  • Play. Soccer, cards, nail polish, whatever they're into
  • Eat with them
  • Come on the field trip
  • Let them hold the ladder and help with the work
  • Learn names. Use them
  • Be affectionate the way the home's own staff are — in the open, in a group
Never
  • Be alone with a child, or behind a closed door
  • Single out one child as “yours”
  • Photograph any child, on any device
  • Give gifts, money, phone numbers or social media to a child
  • Promise a child you will come back
  • Take a child off-site without the home's authorization

That second-to-last one matters more than it looks. A promise a child cannot hold you to is a small cruelty, however kindly meant — and they have collected enough of those already.

Before you come

A week of paperwork, and then you're in

None of this is distrust, and none of it is about you. The young people at our partner homes are in protective care, and some of them are there because an adult somewhere was never checked. We would rather be the organization that does the boring part properly.

  1. A short applicationWho you are, why you want to come, and what you can actually do with your hands. Half a page is plenty.
  2. Two referencesContacted, not just collected. At least one who has seen you around young people.
  3. Background checkA criminal record check in your country of residence, at your cost. Everyone does it, including family, including us.
  4. Waiver and code of conductA signed liability waiver and a one-page code of conduct covering child protection and privacy. Plain language, no small print.
  5. A briefing before you flyAbout an hour. What the home is like, what the week looks like, and how to be great with the kids without crossing the line above.

Most people clear all five inside a week or two. If something in your history worries you, tell us early rather than late — it is very often fine, and we would rather have the conversation than find out at the airport.

Privacy

The one thing we can't be relaxed about

We do not publish images of the children we serve — not their faces, not their names, and never a name next to a place. Some of the young people in these homes are there for reasons that make being findable genuinely dangerous, and a photograph on a personal feed travels further than anyone intends.

So: no photographs of children, on any device, at any point — including the ones you mean to keep private. It is the single rule we will never bend, and it is the one we brief hardest.

Photograph the wall you fixed, the garden you built, the turf you laid and each other. Every trip gets a set of images you can share, and the home keeps its own record of the week for the kids. You will not leave empty-handed.

Upcoming

Trips we're planning

Dates are provisional until the foundation is formed and insurance is in place. Register interest and we will contact you as each trip is confirmed.

To be confirmedChiapas, Mexico

Facilities week — partner home, Tuxtla Gutiérrez

Dormitory repairs, replastering, painting, garden beds and whatever else the director puts on the list. Roughly six to ten people, five working days, self-funded travel and accommodation. At least one afternoon is set aside for an outing with the kids.

The specific work is set by the home's director, not by us. We arrive with tools and hands, not a plan.

LaterChiapas, Mexico

Trades week

For qualified tradespeople — electrical, plumbing, carpentry, tiling. Smaller group, more technical scope, work a general volunteer team cannot safely do.

Under reviewColombia

Nothing yet

We will not run trips anywhere we do not already have a working partnership and a year of relationship behind us. Colombia does not meet that test today.

Register interest

Tell us you'd like to come

This is not an application and it commits you to nothing. We will send you the dates, the cost and the actual application when a trip is confirmed.

Questions first? Write to us — one of the two of us answers.