The beautiful two-story restaurant is a showplace for the Ohio city of Independence. The white columns out front and brick veneer give it a colonial American look, reminiscent of something you would see in Philadelphia, PA. Inside, the restaurant is adorned with a huge chandelier and beautiful murals.

In Dallas, TX beside a busy freeway is a restaurant shaped like a giant children’s lunch box. The two story edifice is brightly painted and catches the eye of everyone driving past.

What do these two restaurants have in common? They are both McDonald’s.

Whether you are on a snowmobile in the McDonald’s drive-thru in Pitea, Sweden, or playing video games at the huge arcade inside the Orlando McDonald’s, there are some things that you can expect at any McDonald’s anywhere in the world.

You can expect the Big Mac to taste the same. You can expect that the restroom usually will be clean. You can expect certain items on every menu, even if you are eating at the Lafayette, Indiana store, which at one time offered 120 unique items. The locations may be different, the architecture unique, and the menu varied, but McDonald’s is still McDonald’s.

With this analogy in mind, think about the different mission trips your ministry leads. Whether you are a missions agency conducting dozens of annual trips or a church leading just a couple each year, is there consistency with your trips? Are there some things that participants should expect regardless of where they go and who actually leads the trip? Do you have some consistent or universal elements that are true of every trip you do? Are those elements in writing and does every trip leader know what they are?

This is important for many of the same reasons that McDonald’s strives for consistency in their operations.  They want their customers to have a great experience no matter where they go. So, if that means raising their own cattle in Russia in order to have the quality of beef consistent with the rest of the world, then they do it.

Think of those who go on your trips as “customers.” True, you’re not in business and it’s not about making a profit—but it is about making sure that you impact every life in the best way possible.

Should trip participants who travel with one staff member have a more rewarding experience than those who travel with a different staff member? Should one team have better training than another? Should individuals in one group have to arrange their own airfare while another group has a coordinator do it? Should national leaders get follow-up funds from one of your groups but not from another?

Experience has shown that ministries with certain consistencies in all their groups will do better at attracting both initial and return trip participants. Each trip can still be unique, but like McDonald’s, “customers” should come to expect certain things to be true no matter where they go or who on your team they go with.

In our next blog we’ll explore specific elements to consider making universal for all of your trips.

The captain speaks over your plane’s intercom. “We are 150 miles out from our final destination and beginning our descent.”

It’s hard to believe that your mission trip is almost over. In a few moments you will touch down at your home airport. All the months of planning and preparation leading up to the trip are now a memory. Your international ministry, though exciting and challenging, has finished—at least until next time.

For some mission trip leaders, departing the plane marks the end of the trip and the end of their responsibilities for that mission. But there should be at least two more tasks that you complete—conducting an after action review and writing a debrief report.

The after action review (AAR), which was developed by the military to assess training missions and improve future performance, is a great tool that ministry leaders should also use.  When you conduct an AAR you gain valuable information that can lead to significant improvements in future trips. When you include the results of that AAR with a debrief report, you leave behind a written record beneficial to colleagues and to those serving after you.

Think of it as part of your legacy. What you discover can help future leaders and continue to make a difference long after your trip is over. Even if you do not plan to return to the particular ministry site you just finished, an AAR is still valuable.

AARs don’t have to be complicated. They basically ask five questions:

1. What did we set out to do?
2. What actually happened?
3. Why did it happen?
4. What could we have done differently to enhance the outcome?
5. What insights and lessons did we gain that could be shared with others in a similar situation?

The U.S. Army Guide to After Action Reviews emphasizes that AARs should be facilitated by someone who will not only ask the questions, but encourage each person to openly engage in the discussion. They also should include everyone involved. That’s good advice for ministry AARs as well. You may want to consider conducting an AAR with your team just before you leave the field, or at least with key leaders as soon as you get back. You also want to be sure someone takes notes on what is said.

Our next blog will focus on how to write a mission trip debrief report, including key components that will ensure you have the right information to positively impact future ministry.

You are in the middle of your mission trip and having a great time.

You are reminded of all the people who helped you get there—the ones who prayed and financially supported you. You want to express your appreciation to them. You want them to know how thankful you are for their kindness, but you don’t want to wait until you get home to show your gratitude.

What do you do?

You give your cell phone to a colleague and ask him to take a picture of you in your unique setting. He does and hands the phone back to you. You click on the phone’s WYWH app button and select the photo you just took. The photo now fills the screen. You touch the screen again and it shows the back of a postcard, which is where you type out your message.

Thanks so much for making this trip possible. This is a great experience and some amazing things are happening here. Can’t wait to get home and tell you all about it.

Next you select your supporter from your phone’s address book before hitting the send button. Then just like that, you have a printed postcard on its way to your donor before you get home from your trip! This isn’t an email postcard or electronic greeting card—it’s the real thing delivered by the U.S. Postal Service.

Imagine the look on your supporter’s face when he or she goes to the mailbox and gets the postcard of you on your mission trip.

You don’t have to imagine with WYWH–an amazing service that turns your photo into a quality postcard and mails it for you. It will work from anywhere in the world, just as long as your phone can access the Internet.  

WYWH has an app for the iPhone, but any Internet-enabled cell phone can use the service. The app is free, but there is a cost for each card you send. If you buy in bulk and pre-pay, you can send a postcard for as little as $1.30—which is probably a lot less than if you were to buy a card overseas and mail it internationally. It’s also a lot faster since the postcard is printed and mailed within the U.S. Plus, it is completely customized. It is your picture and your message!

Your first two postcards are free. Go to www.wywh.net to sign up and get more information. We have used this service and have been very pleased. It is a great way to say “thank you” to those who made your trip possible.

Mission trips—there’s an app for that!

“What did I do with our flight schedule?”

“Is our flight delayed?”

“Are we supposed to tip in this country? How much?”

“Is there going to be a national holiday while were in this country?”

The answers to these questions and a lot more can be quickly answered by a touch on your mobile phone, thanks to two apps (“applications”) that promise to help you be better organized for your next mission trip.

The first app is a travel organizer app called Tripit. Tripit organizes all of your travel plans into an itinerary as close as your phone. When you receive a confirmation email with flight information, car rental, etc. simply forward it to plans@tripit.com and Tripit automatically builds your itinerary.

The app shows maps for airports you will be using, as well as maps to the city where you are traveling. Tripit also allows you to share your itineraries with family and friends so that they can stay connected with you while you travel.

The basic Tripit app and service are free. For $69 per year you can upgrade to the pro version which sends you alerts about flight delays and gate changes, and gives options for alternative flights. The pro version also keeps track of all your frequent flyer points.

The Tripit app is available for iPhone, Blackberry, and other devices. Find out more and sign up at www.tripit.com.

The second app we’ve put in this category is GlobeMaster: Offline Travel Guide & Utilities. For less than a dollar, this iPhone and iPod Touch app delivers a big bang. It is a travel guide for 1400 cities in more than 260 countries, but that is just the start.

With GlobeMaster you can view maps and more than 4100 photos of places around the world. There is a tip calculator with detailed information on tipping for your current country. It provides information for airport transportation as well as information on local communications and emergency contacts.

GlobeMaster has a very nice interface, and also provides travel alerts and safety tips. This is a great reference tool that you will want to have as you travel. Download it via iTunes.

Have you discovered a great travel mobile phone app? Tell us about it. We’d love to hear from you.

We’re wrapping up our series on apps for mission trips with our next blog. We’ll share how to send thank-you post cards via U.S. mail to your trip donors and prayer partners all from your phone, while you are still on your trip.

Stay tuned—there’s an app for that!

It happens on every mission trip to a non-English speaking country.

You need to communicate something to a national but there aren’t any interpreters around. You might try making hand gestures or frantically thumb through your little phrase book, but what if you could press a button on your phone to translate what you want to say?

That’s the promise made by a number of language translation apps (“applications”) for mobile phones like the iPhone. We’ve looked at several of them, but the best we’ve discovered seems to be Odyssey Translator, available for iPhone and iPod touch.

Odyssey has several different languages available, each sold separately starting at $5. Current offerings are Italian, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and Mandarin Chinese. The company reports that Dutch, Russian, Japanese and Greek are under development.

Odyssey Translators are 100% resident on your iPhone or iTouch—no wi-fi or data connection needed. Select what you want to say from 210 categories and the app allows you to build your own phrases and sentences–more than 100,000 of them. You can actually hear how to pronounce the words.

One reviewer wrote “We travel to Cozumel often and I like to try to speak as much Spanish as possible as a courtesy. After trying several other translators, I came across this one. It’s AMAZING. Not only does it teach you the words, it will show you how to pronounce them too. You will love it!”

Odyssey does have several scaled-down versions that they offer for free, but judging by the reviews, you would be best to steer clear of them. We suggest sticking to the “pro” (paid) versions if you want something that is actually beneficial.

Do you have a recommendation for a good app for cross-cultural communication? We’d love to hear about it. Please comment and share your thoughts.

We will continue our series on apps for mission trips with our next blog, which will focus on apps to plan and organize your travel.

Stay tuned—there’s an app for that!