With a good plan and the determination to make it happen, you can raise the amount you need.

Start by writing a letter to your family and friends describing the mission you are undertaking and ask them to consider supporting you. Hand-written letters will come across as more sincere and heartfelt than emails, so bear that in mind. Include a pre-addressed return envelope for their donation.

Reach out to friends for their ideas on ways to raise funds. They might be willing to help with car washes, bake sales and other events, and they might have contacts at restaurants and other businesses that could hold fund-raisers  on your behalf.

A great idea for a fund-raiser is to sell hand-crafted items from the country you are planning to visit, with a portion of the proceeds going to your trip. Use your social media pages to promote sales and let friends know about your upcoming trip.

Finally, take a close look at your budget for luxuries you can do without for a while. Deferring monies normally spent on those daily lattes, nice restaurants and premium cable channels to your trip fund will reap rewards in no time.

So, if you’re excited about serving abroad but are apprehensive that you won’t be able to come up with the money, pray about it and create a plan. Don’t let fear keep you from doing what you feel led to do. Use the suggestions above and you will raise the money — and grow a lot in the process!

For best preparation, follow this timeline to get ready for your trip.

Six to nine months ahead

Book air travel: This is the time to confirm your travel details with your destination office. Contact Ministry Travel so we can obtain the best airfare and other rates for your group. Discuss your needs for travel insurance with your agent.

Pay deposits: Your agent will provide specific details for your group, but deposits will be required not long after reservations are made. Refund terms vary depending on whether payment was made by check or credit card.

Review visa requirements: Your Ministry Travel agent will advise you how to determine the visa requirements for the country or countries you plan to visit, and assist you in obtaining any necessary documents.

Determine immunization requirements: Check with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to find out the most current immunization requirements for the country or countries you plan to visit. Then, receive the required immunizations. Check with your physician about whether you should update your tetanus, polio and other standard vaccines as well. Obtain proof of all immunizations for the visa process.

The CDC provides information and printable forms for recording what vaccines were received and when.

Four to six months ahead

Apply for visas. Complete visa applications and gather signed passports and photos for submission. The U.S. State Department’s website provides detailed visa information, searchable by country.

Two to three months ahead

Submit final list of travel group. The airline will want a final list of the members of your group several months before departure. This will vary depending on the destination and the airline. Also, remember that the names on the list must be identical to the names on their passports.

Update group members. This is the time to remind fellow travelers of the due date for the balance of the trip expense and the final amount due. Double check the names on tickets and itineraries for accuracy, and contact us at Ministry Travel if there are any discrepancies. Also, if you have not bought travel insurance for this trip, you may still do so. Your agent can explain the various options available to you.

Consider baggage regulations. Check with your airline or agent about current baggage rules and regulations. You need to know what is allowed for free and what additional baggage charges will be. In addition, it’s good to know about restrictions on imports, so you don’t bring anything with you that is not allowed into the country you are visiting.

Two weeks ahead

Check in with field office. This is the time to check with those at your destination about who is meeting your group at the airport, and obtain phone numbers for your contacts there, in case of emergency. In a safe place, record the addresses and phone numbers of the American embassies or consulates in the nations you are visiting. You can find a list here.

Double check credentials. It’s important to make sure everyone in your group has passport and visas, plane tickets, immunization records, a copy of the passport in case of loss or theft, and any applicable missionary credentials.

One week ahead

Secure transportation to the airport. Make sure your plans allow adequate time for traffic delays and airline check-in — note that international flight check-in takes longer than domestic check-in — and adequate space in the vehicles for everyone’s luggage.

Three days ahead

Confirm flight plans. Call the airlines to confirm flights for departure and return.

Day of departure

Final credential check: Before heading to the airport, make sure every passenger has his or her airline tickets, passport, visas, medical documentation and other necessary credentials for foreign travel. Check to see that all luggage is properly identified.

Those final few days can either be filled with stress, or they can be enjoyable as you anticipate the experience. The difference is often determined by how you tackle that final week. Here are some practical tips to help you make the most of the days leading up to your international mission trip.

Create a preparation list. Start working through it the final two weeks before your trip. This is a list of everything that needs to be done before you go. It includes actions such as scheduling lawn care, arranging pet boarding, paying bills, withdrawing cash from the bank, stopping the mail and, of course, packing. Try to get as many of these tasks done early, so you have time to handle any unplanned issues that might arise.

Begin preliminary packing. Start early, at least a week before departure. For me, this begins with laundry. I find it easier to plan the trip wardrobe if I can see all of my clothes either hanging up in the closet or folded in dresser drawers. I then create a mission trip staging area — usually a corner of the bedroom — where I can assemble the clothes and other articles I will take. My passport is always one of the first items that go into the staging area.

Work from a packing list. Check the items off the list once when you put them in your staging area, and then again when you actually place them into your luggage. Inevitably there are things on the list that you realize you don’t have. Starting your packing early allows time to purchase those items without feeling rushed.

Finish packing several days before departure. Remember that packing often takes longer than we expect. Completely pack your suitcase and have it ready to go. Also, be sure to weigh your suitcase to make sure it fits within airline requirements.

Overweight and extra bag fees can run into the hundreds of dollars on international flights. Your carry-on bag should be mostly packed by this time, with the exception of any medicines or last-minute items.

Schedule extra family time. This may mean lunch with your spouse or a special activity with your children. Your family will appreciate this, and it will ease the burden of you leaving.

What often happens before a mission trip is that the traveler is preoccupied, rushing to tie up loose ends, and thus spends even less time with family. Emotionally, this is the equivalent of being gone an extra week. By preparing ahead, you can reduce the stress on your family and make the time before your trip more meaningful.

Prepare spiritually as well as physically. Carve out some personal prayer time, enlist a prayer team and don’t neglect daily Bible reading. These activities also help reduce stress and enable you to keep the trip in perspective.

Review travel details carefully. In the final few days before departure, review all the information for your trip, paying close attention to departure times, airport instructions, meeting locations and so on. Make sure that you have your team leader’s cell phone number, in case there are any problems the day you leave. If you are the team leader, be sure you have each team member’s phone number and that everyone knows when and where to meet that day.

Information review also means checking the conditions at your destination as well as any places through which you will be traveling. Are there any weather concerns that could impact your travel? Are there any new security or safety issues?

Assess current situation at your destination. It is always good to check the travel section of the U.S. State Department’s website right before a trip. At the site, find your destination country and look for the link to recent embassy notices. Next, click on the link for warden messages. These will be the latest updates from embassy officials about any travel concerns.

Print out your boarding pass. You can reduce stress by printing out your boarding pass 24 hours before departure. This saves time at the airport and can make your check-in process much smoother. International flights typically are larger planes carrying a significant number of passengers, so the check-in lines for these flights can get quite long.

Will the week before your next mission trip be enjoyable or stressful? Much of that depends on how well you plan and how early you begin your preparations. By incorporating these tips into the final days before your trip, you will experience less stress and be better prepared for the incredible adventure of international ministry.

______________________________

Frank Banfill is president of MaxPoint Ministries and regularly leads mission teams. His work has taken him across six continents. He writes on behalf of Ministry Travel, the world’s source for missionary travel.

They also build bridges—literally as well as figuratively.

Yonathan shared on our Facebook page his mission trip story of helping build a bridge for the Bribri people of Costa Rica. He wrote, “In the last few years, many mission teams have assisted with various significant work projects, but perhaps the most crucial was a suspension bridge in the remote village of Alto Coen, deep in the Costa Rican rainforest. An isolated community of about 130 people, Alto Coen is only accessible by an hour boat ride, a half hour bus ride, and a four hour hike.”

Yonathan shared that for years the isolated village dreamed of having a 100 meter suspension bridge. “The project had been a prolonged, complex process for the Bribri as they fought to find aid and funds to build this much-needed bridge. With the addition of a bridge, families would no longer be constrained by the powerful river that divided their village. The children from the far side of the river would be able to attend school regularly, and doctors would be able to reach the entire village to provide medical attention for the ill,” wrote Yonathan.

Their dream became a reality thanks in part to the efforts of American short term mission volunteers who labored for many days in hot summer heat. But the praise, said Yonathan, goes to the village’s people. “By far the ones who labored the longest and the hardest were the people of Alto Coen. It has been nearly nine years since they first began planning for the apparently impossible endeavor, yet they never gave up. They accomplished tasks by hand that most people would only consider undertaking with heavy equipment.”

How does Yonathan feel as he reflects on that mission trip?

“It is an uplifting feeling every time I return and see them eager to work and accomplish a new project that will empower their community. Continue to pray for the people of Alto Coen,” he said.

Helping those who empower others—that’s what we do each day here at Ministry Travel. We’re glad that we can play a part in helping people like Yonathan make such a difference in people’s lives. If you are planning a mission trip, we would love to provide you with discounted international airfare and excellent service from travel agents who really know missionary and humanitarian travel. Contact us at www.ministrytravel.com or by phone at 1-877-541-5726.

On Monday, the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City issued an emergency message to U.S. citizens advising against all in-country travel until the weather improves and landslides are cleared. “The recent heavy rains mean that water saturation in the mountains is high and more landslides could occur,” said the advisory.

Honduras has issued a “state of red alert” according to the British Foreign Office. The situation there is similar to Guatemala with travel also disrupted by landslides and flooding. Reuters is reporting 81 people dead and thousands of people have abandoned their homes across Central America. In El Salvador, more than 13,000 people were forced to flee the rising waters. Humanitarian groups there are concerned about long-term food supplies as the floods have wiped out much of this season’s harvest.

What should you do if you are on a short term mission trip and your ministry team faces natural or other disasters? First, make sure that you get good information. That starts before you go by registering your team with the U.S. State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program at http://bit.ly/ptDdL9. This will enable the local U.S. embassy to get in touch with you in case of an emergency or advisory condition. Also, monitor local news and stay in touch with local authorities for information about road closings.

Second, don’t take chances. Roads in developing countries can be treacherous under normal conditions let alone during severe storms. Also, many of these nations do not have the resources to quickly respond to multiple emergencies and road closures. It often is better to extend your trip a couple days and allow for the situation to stabilize. If you do that, however, be sure to contact your Ministry Travel agent so that we can notify the airlines and work on re-booking you. Failure to do so may result in losing the entire value of your ticket.

Finally, look for ways to serve in the midst of the crisis. In the case of the Guatemalan medical team, a hospital near where they were stranded asked for their assistance. Flexibility is always important for these trips, especially when hit by unforeseen events such as severe weather.

USAToday reported that airfares rose in the U.S. nearly 10% for the 12 months ending in August compared to the previous 12 months, and the major U.S. airlines will cut capacity 2%-4% next year. This means 2012 airfares could go up even more. Baggage and miscellaneous airline fees are also on the rise.

In addition to fare increases, travelers can expect tax increases in 2012, especially on international trips. The White House has proposed travel tax increases, the UK is threatening increases, and various individual countries have already raised their taxes. Bulgaria, for example, just raised one of their travel taxes by 8%.

What does all of this mean to the mission traveler? Here are four things to keep in mind:

You can’t use last year’s mission trip budget. If you base your 2012 trips on what you paid for your 2011 trips you can expect to be greatly disappointed. Instead of guessing, call us and let us give you a no-obligation quote so that you can work with realistic numbers.

You may need to alter your trip dates. It is always true that flexible travel dates often lead to substantial savings; this is especially the case for 2012.

Consider alternate airlines. Some frequent missionary travelers have their favorite airlines and will stick with them even if they have to pay a little more. In 2012, however, you could be paying a lot more. Be open to considering other airlines. Your Ministry Travel agent can give you all the details and let you make apples to apples comparison of airlines.

Watch the luggage weight. It is reported that some airlines are charging as much as $450 for overweight bags on international flights. Pay attention to the airline weight rules and know that if your trip involves different airlines, there may be different weight restrictions. This is especially true if you are transferring to smaller regional or national airlines. For example, with certain tickets a team traveling to Tanzania from the U.S. can have three 50-pound bags, but if they take an in-country flight the national airline limits them to one 44-pound bag. Again, contact us for details on luggage rules and for information on our special tickets that allow for free extra bags.

As always, the earlier you can plan your trips and purchase your tickets the better off you will be, especially going into a volatile 2012. Contact Ministry Travel today at 1-877-541-5726 or www.ministrytravel.com and find out about our airfare discounts for your 2012 international mission trips.

App:

Trip Journal

What it does:

Let’s you journal your trip through video (on video equipped phones), pictures and writing; track your travel; and share everything through Facebook. It also exports to YouTube, Flickr, Google Earth and Picasa.

Why we like it:

The app has a beautiful interface and neatly organizes trips around waypoints. Once you have identified a waypoint you can shoot video, take pictures, make notes, or locate yourself on a map. Trip Journal tags these with the waypoint name which makes it easy to view your trip. You can jump back and forth between waypoints, media and your notes. When you later review your photos you know right where they were taken—no need to tag the photo as Trip Journal does that for you.

The app includes an interactive map and uses both GPS and cell tower triangulation to locate your position. It even provides your elevation. Trip Journal’s statistics feature shows the total distance traveled, elapsed time, high and low elevations, and average speed. The Facebook connectivity is excellent. With one tap of the screen it not only uploads all of your pictures and videos, but it also organize them with your notes and maps before placing the entire trip into a complete online journal.

How we use it on mission trips:

One of the biggest challenges on mission trips is keeping a journal. Every day is filled with interesting and exciting experiences and you want to capture as many of those experiences as you can. With the fast-paced nature of these trips, however, there is little time to sit down and write. Plus if you wait until the end of the day to journal, chances are you will forget a lot. With Travel Journal you can make notes on the fly quickly and easily with just a few taps on your cell phone.

We’ve used the app to find our coordinates at remote locations in Africa that are not on any maps. Once we got home we plugged those coordinates into Google Earth and had a nice visual for our post-trip presentations.

Cost:

Trip Journal is currently on sale for $0.99.

At Ministry Travel we are always looking for ways to not only help missionary travelers and humanitarians save on their international airfare, but also provide tips and resources to help them have more productive trips. When you need help with missionary travel arrangements we are just a phone call (1-877-541-5726) or mouse click away.

Take travel, for example.

For those of us in the business, navigating complex itineraries, adjusting to airline changes and enduring airport security screenings are old hat. It is easy to forget that most people travel very little, and many have never traveled internationally. At Ministry Travel, however, we strive to treat every client with care remembering that many of our clients come to us as travel novices.

So it is exciting when we hear back from “newbies” about their first ever mission trip and we enjoyed reading on our Facebook page Ric’s story about his first trip:

A big shout-out to Ministry Travel for their help in making our first foreign mission trip a breeze…Arriving in Nairobi late in the evening and looking at this lively metropolitan city of a few million people, I said to myself, ‘this is not going to be too bad’. This was, of course, before the 10 hour bus ride across the Kenya countryside getting to our final destination of Mumias, Kenya. What a ride. We started our pastor and leaders conference…then were able to travel to six village churches and share God’s precious word. We were able to hand out over 300 Bibles and make a large donation to help with several orphanages…TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

We appreciate Ric’s compliments, but most of all, we appreciate the fact that another person had the opportunity to experience international missions first-hand. Ric is already preparing for his next trip. He wrote, “The Story doesn’t end there, it’s only beginning. That was the first mission trip; we now are gearing up for a trip this year into India.”

Whether you are like Ric and preparing for your first-ever mission trip, or you are a seasoned pro, Ministry Travel looks forward to helping you! We not only provide discounted flights for missionaries, but we help you sort through the maze of international travel. Contact us today on the web at www.ministrytravel.com or by phone at 1-877-541-5726.

The report is divided into individual country reports that provide great detail on the religious conditions in every nation of the world. Included in the country reports are religious demographics, overview of the country’s religious laws, restrictions on freedom, and summaries of religious abuses.

The report documents what many mission groups and global Christian leaders already knew: violence and discrimination against Christians continues to grow in many parts of the world. What’s not in the report, however, is what has many religious liberty watchers upset.

By law the State Department must designate as “countries of particular concern” (CPCs) nations that engage in or tolerate severe violations of religious freedom. This report included the same list of CPCs as the last report released in early 2009. “Repeating the current list continues glaring omissions, such as Pakistan and Vietnam,” said the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom  (USCIRF) in a written statement. USCIRF is a bipartisan federal government commission appointed by congress and the president to review international violations against religious freedom and make policy recommendations.

The eight countries keeping their CPC designation are Burma, North Korea, China, Eritrea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan. The USCIRF earlier had recommended adding to the list Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria and Turkmenistan.

The report highlighted religious liberty issues in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, and Vietnam in addition to the eight CPC nations.

The report specifically mentioned the government of Eritrea (located in the Horn of Africa) as it continued to “harass, arrest, and imprison thousands of believers.” It noted that 2,000-3,000 pastors and church members were being detained without trial. The report went on to say that the Eritrea government demands that “adherents renounce their faith, or force them to relocate or flee the country.”

The report also explored countries that allow some religious freedoms but whose governments discriminate against some groups or favored one religion over another, such as Russia and Belarus. It noted that in 2010 the Russian government brought criminal cases for the first time against individuals who possessed banned religious literature, and that the government restricts access to places of worship.

The complete report can be found at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2010_5/index.htm. Scroll down the page to find the country or countries that interest you. Countries are organized by world regions.

As we all know, Irene landed a real blow to the East Coast. But travelers also had to deal with Tropical Storm Maria in the Caribbean, Typhoon Talus impacting Japan and Hong Kong, Tropical Storm Lee in the Gulf Coast, Tropical Storm Nanmadol hitting Taiwan, and so on.

We often note in our updates that airlines have issued “travel waivers.” What this means is that airlines have relaxed their rules for cancelling or changing tickets if you are flying to or through cities affected by severe weather. We’ve noticed that since the storm-related travel fiascos of last year, airlines seem to be a little quicker to issue those waivers–which makes sense since they don’t want to deal with thousands of stranded passengers.

Note, however, that every airline’s “waiver” is different. Some will only allow you to postpone your flight for a couple days, some will let you fly early ahead of the storm, while others will let you cancel altogether without penalty. So always check the website of the particular airline that you are flying for their specific waiver details. And of course, keep watching our social media feeds for updates.

One article that we mentioned in our feeds this month was from the U.S. State Department on preparing for hurricane and typhoon season. They gave an 11 point “checklist” for travelers that bears mention here:

1. Enroll your trip with the State Dept., (travelregistration.state.gov)
2. Check with the airlines about travel services (the “waivers” that we mentioned earlier)
3. Carry an international cell phone that can be used to stay in touch with family in the States
4. Research the region so that you are familiar with local emergency procedures
5. Pack an emergency supply kit
6. Secure extra bottled water and non-perishable food
7. Know local emergency phone numbers as well as the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate
8. Have a water-proof container for your passport and other travel documents
9. Get travel insurance prior to your trip
10. Leave with family back in the States your detailed itinerary with local contact numbers
11. Keep with you a photocopy of your passport, driver’s license and any credit cards that you take, and leave a photocopy with someone in the States

At Ministry Travel, we not only care about saving you money on airfare for your missions and humanitarian trips, but we also want you to have a safe trip and effective ministry. So continue to watch our blog and social media sites for all the latest information and tools to help you as you help others.