Mission Trip to India - the great American evangelist dream

A simple search on social media shows that a lot of Christians in the US - both teens and adults - want to go to mission trips to India. A lot of American missionaries come to India every year because there are a lot of people to be converted.  For teens, it is like a summer trip and this is a great adventure for them. The teens often come in groups in summer and sometimes accompanied by adults. The adults sometimes come alone and sometimes in groups. Some adults are full-time missionaries and/or pastors in local churches in the US. Some take time off from work to go on these mission trips. Fundamentalism is what drives them. Every one in India has to converted to Christianity.

What is a mission trip?

A mission trip is a client visit in the soul harvesting business. The clients want to see the huge number of souls being harvested. India is a huge harvest field for the missionaries. So they want to see the action live. A vendor NGO makes the arrangements for different activities. For example, this recent mission trip was coordinated by this missionary organization in Andhra Pradesh. They plant churches, train local church planters, missionaries. They call it 'leadership training'.  One guy is considered a hero because he planted 30,000 churches in North India. They even baptize the new converts. They cover all aspects of conversion. This fundamentalist even wants to target Israeli tourists in Goa(See the comment by Jim Christie.) No one has a right to be left alone, according to our missionaries.

Why is India special?

India is special because there are lot of non-Christians to be converted in India. Joshua Project is a huge project which profiled a lot of "people groups" in the world where there are not a lot of Christians. You see missionaries, both foreign and Indian, using phrases from Joshua Project: 10/40 window, 500,000 'unreached' villages etc., Read my earlier post to see why India is special in this 10/40 window.  Foreigners send massive amounts of money to India for conversions. They want to see with their own eyes the massive conversions going on in India. So they come to India on mission trips.

Lies, Illegality and the bogus persecution narrative

India gives missionary visas for missionary activities. But people come to mission trips on a tourist visa. It is illegal to do missionary activity on a tourist visa. Go to twitter and ask them yourself. Most will not answer and some twitter handles may go into protected mode. Honesty is not a priority in missionary activities. Some people confirm they are coming on a tourist visa. There are missionary websites telling how to lie in visa applications. I am not going into this bureaucratic issue of visas. If someone wants to do something illegal, they will find loopholes in the system anyway.

The point is not about lies in visa applications or at immigration checks at airports. The missionaries tell more lies about it and build a bogus persecution narrative. If you see these missionaries when they are on these trips, they simply say they are in a certain part of India. They never tell the precise location even when a schoolmate asks them. The reason they say is their security. I doubt that is the case. They do not tell that they are doing illegal missionary activities on a tourist visa. In Feb 2014, a guy named David Grant was arrested for such illegal activity. This is how the missionaries built a persecution narrative around that news. The guy was arrested for visa fraud and the missionary narrative says he was arrested for simply preaching the gospel. This bogus narrative of persecution is a constant in missionary propaganda.

Ignorance fueled by hate

The missionaries use the usual hateful language. They cannot even enjoy the beauty of nature without thinking about 'darkness' of India. They lack even basic common sense. This guy was on a mission trip recently and says he is in "spiritually dark India." This schoolgirl wants to go on the mission trip to help Dalits because "dalits aren't even recognized as citizens by [Indian] govt." See these two guys talking to each other(One of the guys is involved with Harvest India which was discussed here.) A guy named Charles Rich Jr comes regularly to India for these conversion trips. Also his wife got medical treatment in Bengaluru recently. When another American tweeted something, he said "radical Hindus are MORE dangerous than Al-Q." See the word MORE in caps. Apparently people responsible for 9/11 attacks are less dangerous than radical Hindus. I asked him why he thinks so and where he gets the information. He never responded and deleted the tweets later. Honesty is not a top priority for missionaries. Missionaries thrive on hating other religions and promoting this hate, on ignorance of fellow missionaries and building bogus persecution narratives. 

They teach Creationism to kids. They claim miracles. These people are routinely mocked in the USA for their fundamentalism.

Aggression

Not only they hate 'other', traditions, the missionaries are aggressive. See this guy taking pride in preaching the gospel on a temple door mat. This is not a one-off case. See some other examples here, here, here. I doubt whether the people these missionaries are preaching understand what they are trying to do. Are the missionaries taking advantage of gullible Hindus? 

Mini industry

Mission trips form a mini-industry within the multi-billion dollar soul harvesting industry. There are companies which sell packages for these trips like a tourism package(I am not giving the links because I don't want to give advertisement for their business. Even if a missionary reads this blog, I highly doubt he/she reflects upon the questions raised in this blog.) There are websites which prepare you for the mission trips. There are websites which tell you how to raise funds for air tickets etc., There are websites which tell you how to maximize your time during your trip(i.e, preach as many people as possible.) There are websites which connect you to Indian evangelical NGOs. There are even Christian universities which offer courses on mission trips. It is like a doing practicals in a laboratory after studying theory.

Summary

Next time you see some Americans in a remote village in India, do not assume they are tourists. Do you think people who hardly go out of the Bible Belt go visit remote Indian villages for pleasure? What happens when you do not understand what the mission trips are? A Hindu would donate money to the mission trip to convert other Hindus.

Note: I focused on mission trips by Americans in this post because the highest donations for Christian conversion from the USA. Similarly people from UK, Germany, Norway etc., come to India on these mission trips.