Making Mission Teams Work For You — Not Against You with Jesse & Andrea Kroeze

Ever hosted a short-term mission team and wondered, Was that really worth it? Or maybe you're gearing up for your next one and already feeling the weight of logistics, expectations, and exhaustion.

In this episode, Jesse and Andrea Kroeze—leaders of Touch the World and seasoned missionaries—offer a fresh take on how short-term teams can become a strategic blessing instead of a draining burden. Having lived both as hosts and senders, they bring hard-earned wisdom, practical tools, and bold encouragement to help you align teams with your long-term mission.

If you've ever questioned how to make teams work for you (and not the other way around), this episode is for you.

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Chapters

• 0:21 Meet Jesse and Andrea Kroeze
• 1:39 Challenges of Hosting Mission Teams
• 3:56 Setting Expectations and Communication
• 5:50 Designing Effective Team Visits
• 13:33 Balancing Personal and Team Needs
• 34:14 The Value of Hosting Teams
• 39:30 Conclusion and Resources

Transcript

Stephanie Gutierrez: Welcome to this episode of the Modern Day Missionaries podcast. Today's conversation is for every missionary who's ever hosted a short-term team and thought, This was way more exhausting than helpful. Or maybe you're gearing up to receive your next team and you're already feeling the tension, trying to balance hospitality, ministry, logistics, and your own sanity on top of it all.

So today we're joined by Jesse and Andrea Cruz. They're the leaders of Touch the World, which is a missions organization that really mobilizes and equips the next generation of goers, and what makes their insights so powerful is that Jesse and Andrea don't just send teams. For years, they lived in Uganda as missionaries, receiving and hosting teams on the ground. So they get it from both sides of the issue. 

And so we ask a bold question with them today: how do you make mission teams work for you instead of draining you? And Jesse and Andrea are here to help us really rethink how we engage with short-term teams, from setting good expectations, communicating assertively about what it is we need, and incorporating what they do into our long-term vision partnership. So many of the questions that you most likely have, we will talk about today. So whether you are somebody who finds yourself dreading your next team, or somebody who feels excited and hopeful, and you want to plan and do teams better, you'll have some great takeaways in this episode with Jesse and Andrea. 

So with that, let's dive into the conversation. Hey, Jesse and Andrea, it's so good to have you guys with us today.

Jesse & Andrea Kroeze: Great to be with you. Yeah, nice to see you, Stephanie.

Stephanie Gutierrez: Okay, and we're talking teams today, and what I love about you guys as we've been chatting about is you guys are now on the sending side of teams, and you were on the sending side of teams beforehand, and in the middle, you were missionaries for five years in Uganda. So you've been on this receiving side.

You guys know from personal experience of sending teams and receiving teams that mission teams can be the hugest blessing or a total nightmare, and honestly, sometimes they're both; they're a ton of work and a big blessing, but I think we also know how important they are. We wanna learn how to host them in a way that's great for them and sustainable for us.

I just would love to hear from you guys when you were on the field. Did either of you have that moment after the team left, where you collapsed and exhaustion and thought, Why are we even doing this?

Jesse & Andrea Kroeze: There's always that moment, right? Everybody, anyone who's hosted teams has had that let-down moment of thinking, Why are we involved in this? Why does it matter? Is it really even making an impact? You know the team that's coming is going home. Are they really gonna live this out with the new perspective that they have now that they've seen what they've seen, and was the host ministry that is bringing them into impact in a real and relevant way? So we've absolutely fallen into exhaustion, saying, Why are we doing this?

Stephanie Gutierrez: And that's real. I know when we served, we had teams coming down all the time. We're really an active church. I know the church where we served; right now, they have 32 teams coming down this year. So they're like mission team cit,y and where we lived hosted a lot of the teams in our home, because we had some apartments kind of behind the house, and some teams were phenomenal. I mean, we wish they could stay. They were so helpful, so present, so engaged. And then we had a few teams that, it was so bad that it was the type of team that makes you almost think, I don't even know if we can ever even do this again. I'd love to hear from you guys, like, what do you think it is that makes some of those teams be such a blessing and some not? 

Jesse & Andrea Kroeze: I think the best teams have the best expectations for coming into the experience, and so what really makes the difference is teams that know what the purpose is, and that the purpose is the same for the host. So a big part is having that connection between the host setting an expectation and the team being aligned in that expectation.

Some of our worst experiences, I would say honestly, we didn't really have too many nightmare situations, which we're really grateful for. And I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that our organization always required training before teams came. And I'm sure we'll get into that later onof how important that training piece is.

But I think some of the most difficult teams that we've had, as we've been reflecting on our experience of hosting teams, were the times where teams came and they just wanted to follow their own agenda. And they had really set expectations on their end of what it was going to be like, and that there wasn't enough communication between us as the hosts and whoever was leading the team or the organization that was sending the team, kind of beforehand. And so there was that misalignment of expectations.

Stephanie Gutierrez: That's so key that you mentioned that, because when I think back on our teams, I'll say the majority of our teams were actually phenomenal. There were only two that were not. One was pretty bad, and one was a true nightmare. And you're exactly right, Andrea. It was because they didn't come down through the traditional way. I won't get into the details. I don't wanna reveal names; I never know who's listening. All I can say is that they came down differently, invited differently, and they had their own agenda, and it was what really made it so difficult this like, we are here to do what we wanna do and bring back the pictures we wanna bring back. Okay. The whole point of today is really helping missionaries think through how we can host teams better. So how can missionaries improve that communication with those team leaders to help align those expectations?

Jesse & Andrea Kroeze: Yeah, there are so many answers to that question. It could go in a lot of different routes on this. I think, for us, we would say the missionary needs to understand what they actually need and not bend to the desires and wishes of just what the team is looking for. So, like Andrea said, this comes back to level-setting expectations. Do we truly understand what our community needs? And I think the answer is yes. If we're living in these communities as long-term missionaries, we do understand our local context. We understand the needs of the gospel, the needs of the ministry that we're doing. But oftentimes, I think we're slow to communicate the real needs that are on the ground and how short-term teams can fit in.

And unfortunately, I think we're quicker to just assess the team for what the team is looking for. So, for instance, what I mean by that is I think a lot of times a church is contacting us and saying, Hey, we're thinking of coming to you and bringing a team. Can we come? What dates work for you? And we work out the dates, we work out the trip team comes, they're a little bit of a disaster, and they go home, and there's not much impact on either side. 

I would wonder if there's a better strategy for the host missionary on their side where they're doing long-term ministry to say, you know what, we're only gonna take highly strategic teams and fit into what we're doing, and teams that understand that they're coming to actually encourage us as long-term missionaries in addition to doing some practical work on the ground, whether that's construction, evangelism, church planning, whatever it is in your local context.

But I think oftentimes we're too quick to just assess a team at face value for hosting a team's sake. Or maybe it's an income. The question of this is part of our budget, and we just need to have teams. I think we need to scratch that and go back to ground zero and say, How are we as the long-term missionary, setting the expectations of what would actually be helpful in our context, and making those expectations fully known, and then filtering out and actually saying no to some teams if it doesn't fit?

Are we willing to say, I'm sorry, that doesn't fit into our ministry, and that doesn't fit into our vision of where we're moving. Here's another ministry that you can connect with that I know of that does this. Right? Yeah. I think, too, it's establishing a shared purpose for a short-term team. So it's more than just setting the expectations, but having a shared idea of what the end goal of this is. 

So I think where some of the misalignment often happens is the team itself might have an end goal of we want to go to such and such place and we want to accomplish X, Y, Z. We want to help the ministry there, right? We wanna be a part of the ministry there. Whereas for the missionary host, that may not be the main purpose per se, right? The missionary host may have a perspective of, I want to be able to share with this team what God is doing here. And so it's more of a show and tell rather than like a come and do.

And so we have to find alignment on the shared purpose of of short term. And I think this is how short-term has gone wrong for a long period of time is that it hasn't been connected strategically to a long-term vision because short-term trips have been seen as we're just gonna go and accomplish something and get something done, and it's about a task that we can do, rather than seeing how can these short-term experiences actually be part of the long-term work that's going.

 So, for example, we tell all of our teams, if you don't finish the project, if you don't accomplish any specific task, that's okay. The most important thing that you can do as you're going to serve is to bless and encourage the missionary or the local ministry so that they can continue to do the work that they're doing. And in that way, you're actually helping with this long-term work. And being a part of this long-term work, you're stepping in for such a short period of time. And I think sometimes when the short-term team might have this expectation of like, we're gonna accomplish so much, you might be there for seven days, right? Like, really, how much are you going to accomplish? Not that much at all. But what you can do in that short period of time is see the work of God happening in that place and get to share in that and get to participate in that. Witness what God is doing so that you can come back and tell the rest of the church, right, and encourage those back home. Hopefully, what you've seen and how you've been impacted by seeing the way in which the missionaries are living and serving God will also impact the way that you're gonna serve and live for God in your everyday life.

Stephanie Gutierrez: Yes. And all the missionaries said, Amen, Andrea, because that's it. That's what you really hope: that a team will come and be a part of that larger vision. But I do think there are a lot of teams, and there are a lot of great teams that get it. But there are a lot of teams still coming over from earlier years, where this was more the modus operandi of like, this is about our agenda. This is about how many salvations we come back. Well, we do street evangelism, so we need you to create a street evangelism opportunity for us. And so the missionary, like you were kinda saying, Jesse would kind of customize and change what it is. They were trying to fit the team, which is disingenuous because it burns everybody out on the ground. And then it gives this team, this false sense of they've accomplished so much when in reality they've just strung burnout missionaries and not really left much to come back with. So it's that whole adage, teach people how to treat you. 

I think sometimes it's a financial thing, like we need a team to come down, or we need our supporting church to send a team down, so they continue to support us. And not that it's just that, but it's a part of that. We need supporters, we need finances to be able to do what we do on the ground. So, of course, we wanna create those spaces for particular churches, but if we betray who we really are and what our calling actually is to receive those, to your point, it's better not to do them. And I think that if you're with a church that really gets you, who really loves you. They're gonna respect the fact that you say, this is not the right fit for us right now. Or, I was talking to somebody who plans teams the other day and. And it was all these churches wanted to come at the same time or go to all these different places and she was saying, okay, we have to think things through next year and say, we can only do this many per month and set this out and only go to these particular places and figure out what's best for us so we don't fry out.

And I think that that is a critical piece is what's going to burn you out if you're setting yourself up for failure to make a team happy. That's not really what the Lord's calling us to do, so how can we set ourselves up for success? And really maximize the value of these incredible teams. I mean, we, it's so good to have them down. They get so energized and excited when they get to go back and share the stories. So let's give them an actual, real, meaningful experience that's beneficial to us as well.

I'd love to ask you guys, because you did this as a couple, as we talk through some of the stress points that teams can have on us, even a good team, there are challenges, it's hosting, and some people more naturally host than others. What do you see as being some of the most common stress points, whether it's in your relationship, emotionally, or physically? What were those for you guys?

Jesse & Andrea Kroeze: Yeah, I'll jump in with maybe one or two here. I think to start, the biggest one is simply that as a missionary, you feel this expectation if you are hosting and you're kind of like this spiritual giant for the week, right? So you're, you know, missionary, I think, oftentimes are even put on a pedestal above pastors and viewed as these spiritual elites. And so you have a team coming out to you and you're dealing with everyday messes, right? You're dealing with life, you're dealing with junk, whether it's in your marriage, whether it's in your family, your kids, relational issues in the community, whatever it might be. The team is entering into that. So you do have to put up a level of protection to some degree, right? They're only coming in for a week. And so I think every missionary struggles with how real can I actually be? Right? How much can I actually let people in? 

And I think that is determined by the degree to which you're partnered together. If it's the elders of your home church coming. And they're truly coming as a care visit to check up on you and pray for you, and just be with you and see where the ministry's at. Then you can probably go deeper and ask for prayer in some of those things. But if it's just simply a team from a church that you know vaguely well, but you're not necessarily fully partnered with them, you're not gonna share any of that.

And so I think there, there is that family dynamic where you're almost laying everything down for a week. And saying, I'm just gonna put all my personal stuff aside. I'm gonna put all of our marriage stuff aside, all of our family stuff, and I'm gonna be with this team 24/7, and then we'll get back to real life when the team leaves. And that's, I think, unfortunate that we have to do that or even feel that we have to do that. And it can be a real detriment to both our family, the ministry, and the team. And it also perpetuates this kind of stereotype or ideal of the romantic version of being a missionary, living overseas, right?

And so you have a team come for one week, and they're like, This was the best experience of my life. I loved it. You know, I got to do so many things, and God worked in my life, and I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, and I got to experience a new culture. And so they go for one week, and then they're like, I wanna move there. And you're like, You don't know exactly what it is that you're saying. Right? And so in some ways I feel like, because missionaries may have to feel as though they can't fully be transparent about just the hard parts of everyday life that they still have to deal with. When a team comes and kind of puts on their best face, it perpetuates this idea, this romanticized picture of what it looks like to live overseas.

And I think that that's really detrimental as well to the body of believers because if someone's really responding to the call, they need to know that there's gonna be a lot of sacrifice and suffering that's associated with that call. Right. But if they're responding based on the fact that I had this amazing time on for seven days and I just wanna live my life that way, they're gonna be sorely disappointed.

So I think there's holding that tension of the stress of the emotional side of saying, How do I be transparent enough with this team so that they have an understanding of, like, this is hard work that God has called us to, and it's not always easy. And even though we might be showing you some of the best parts of the culture and our ministry over the next seven to 10 days, the reality is it's still really hard, and we need you to be praying for us when you go home. To not just go home and say, This is incredible. You know, like, let's say all the great stories of the ministry, but to really also go home and say, we need to be praying for these missionaries who are doing this work. We need to remember them and the sacrifice that they're making. But just for the conditions that they're in, that can be really hard, just everyday life being so stressful for many different ways, depending on where you're living and what the cultural, you know, implications are of that. But I think that's definitely a tension for sure.

Stephanie Gutierrez: Yeah. And that's a great point that you guys bring up about that transparency, about letting them into your lives. And as you said, Jesse, you can't let them all the way in. Not every team gets to know everything, but there is a degree to which, like you were saying, Andrea, you want them to get to see some of the realities of your life. So it's this equal mix of like positivity and excitement, and we are making a difference, because you want them to be fueled up and giving them a little dose of reality too. Like, here are some of the challenges we're up against. Here's a place where we've been serving and we haven't seen a lot of fruit, but. Join with us right now in this faithful act of doing what we're doing. And so today, team, it's not about numbers. We're not gonna see numbers here today. Today is about doing a hard, dirty task that we're not even gonna finish. But this is a part of what missionary life is. 

So, what great thoughts are there, kind of designing that week? What recommendation would you give to them as they're designing that week of things to do with the team? Obviously, for each person, it's very unique depending on their ministry, but what would be some really important things that they could build into that week to give a team an exciting and authentic experience?

Jesse & Andrea Kroeze: Yeah, there are a lot of elements that we could list as we go down, and I think just a bird's-eye view on that answer. I would say first and foremost, you need to fit into whatever the local ministry is doing and not demand as a team that, Hey, we'd love to come into a VBS. Is there a possibility of that? Because that's a leading question, and many missionary hosts are going to say, yes, unfortunately, even if there's not a great fit in a plugin for a VBS, they'll say yes because maybe they don't wanna lose that church partnership or that church is a supporter of theirs, and they just are afraid to say no.

And so we have to be careful. On the short-term side, we're on the church partnership side to not ask leading questions, but simply to say, How can we come and serve the long-term missionary? But likewise, that on us is kind of on the long-term missionary to say, Hey, we're looking for people to do these things because they fit into our ministry initiatives right now.

And so if you're looking to come do these other things, that's not gonna line up with us right now. But unfortunately, again, this all comes back to those expectations, right? If we're not level setting those expectations and having honest conversations with our partners about what we need, and we're okay saying no to a team wonder how many long-term missionaries are really willing to say no? I hope they are. Because that's where you start to really see the fruit of good teams coming out and partnering for the right reasons rather than just saying yes to everyone. 

Yeah. I think along that line, for us now that we're on the side of sending, again, like a red flag for us is when a host that we're talking to, maybe that we're gonna be serving for the first time, just comes back and says, Well, what does your team want to do? Right? That's a red flag we want to work with and send teams to host, those who are very confident in saying, This is what our ministry does. This is what a normal week looks like, right? These are the things that we're doing, or we have a dream to do this particular program, and we know we can't do it alone. We know we need extra hands to do it, so could you come and do this program?

So with that in mind, when it comes to kind of planning the trip. In some ways, it should be just inviting them to do what you're doing on a regular Tuesday, right? Like, what are you already doing in your regular week? Like getting them to see the everyday ins and outs of the life of the ministry, whatever the ministry context is that you're serving in. And so, not necessarily planning tons of extra activities that are outside of that. Another huge thing, at least for us and our experience when we were living in Uganda and we were in a pretty rural area, was giving the team the best taste of the culture as possible, and to get as close to the culture as possible.

So for many teams, they might have a very small, limited view story, even stereotype of where they're going, and we want to break that down. We don't want them to come experience the same thing that they thought that they were gonna experience, and then go home and reiterate that the story of all of Africa is like this, right? We wanna break it down. 

And so one of the things that we were really conscious of in our trip planning when we had teams coming was getting the people as close to the ground as possible. So that involved actually staying in our remote village, not staying in the hotel, you know, 20 minutes away in the bigger city. Working alongside people in their daily livesbut also getting to see both the beauty and the brokenness of the culture, right? So being able to experience. Maybe the poverty or the brokenness, whatever it is that exists in that place that you, as a minister, are kind of trying to address, but also getting to break down the fact that not everybody is like this, or it's not all hopeless, right?

It's not all despair, it's not all poverty. There's actually incredible beauty. So being able to kind of give them opportunities where they're experiencing various elements and sides of the culture so that they don't return home with just a single story of what that culture is like. Those were some of the things that we would really intentionally weave into our schedules for our team, in addition to just inviting them along to whatever was happening.

One practical that I'll add to that, just to finish off that question, was that we would always make a meal with a local family that we're already ministering to. That's already in our network, part of the team experience, and we would usually build that into the budget. So we're giving this local family that we know in for us, it was in a rural village in Uganda, and Northern Uganda, we're partnering with this one family, saying, Hey, we'll give you a hundred dollars to go out, get everything you need to host a feast for a team of 20, and they'll get so, and this is the greatest thing they've ever experienced, to be able to tell them they can host somebody, which number one is like an honor in the culture. But also you're, you're providing the funds to be able to do that. And then they're able to make it so uniquely cultural, and they invite us so into their home. And for us, in that context is usually just a mud hut. And so the teams are sitting around in a mud hut, and we're eating with our hands, and just really beautiful, and a lot of times, those were some of the more impactful takeaways that the team had out of that whole experience.

Stephanie Gutierrez: I bet, I bet these are some great ideas. I bet these are generating a lot of new thoughts for people who are maybe thinking of different ways of doing teams. And I wanna jump back to what you said a minute ago, Andrea, too. How does it make you nervous when a visionary is like, Whatever you want, we can just design it to meet your guys' needs. I think that's challenging for people, and I'm glad that we're challenging missionaries in that way to say no. What do you need? What is best for you? How can the team come alongside what you are already doing again, at that church? 

At the church we served at coming to De Vida, who still does teams, one of the best comments that they continue to get and that we got when we hosted teams down there is that we love that we get to join you guys in activities that we know you're doing week in and week out, even if we're not there. So they might be a part of food distribution, or part of wheelchair distribution, or all these different activities, and there was a team of people at the church of volunteers who did this week in and week out, and so they came in and plugged into what was already going on. 

And so, from the missionaries, think about what I am already doing? If you're a new missionary and you're just getting established, that might be more difficult to think of, but there's gotta be something that you can get going where you're doing a regular type of service that the team could be a part of. And maybe even when the team is down there, they can help you generate and think of some ideas. But when it's not meaningful, is when an idea is invented for a team. Like, oh, let's all go pass out water bottles in the middle of downtown or something, that's just not going to be impactful. I'm not saying it's never impactful to give out water bottles. There are times when that might be very impactful, but is it a part of what you already do? Is that something that you've seen make a difference already, and so that's why you wanna do it? But yeah, when it's these flash-in-the-pan activities, I gotta think that the really perceptive team member is gonna pick up on that. 

I think for some people, they're like, oh, this was so fun. But for somebody who's really perceptive, they're gonna observe, This doesn't feel normal because you're even gonna see the missionaries, and they're going to look like they're out of their element. 

Authenticity, which you guys brought up earlier, is so huge in all aspects of our ministry, including when we host teams, you know, so these team visits, they impact. Not only you as a person, as a couple, as a family, but they're also impacting the team of people that you serve with. You know, if you're at a church, maybe you're a volunteer if you're in a ministry down there, the people who are part of that team.

 So how can missionaries not only set themselves up, but also set up their teams around them to thrive during a visit from teams? 

Jesse & Andrea Kroeze: That's a great question. I'm imagining this team that you're talking about, handing out water bottles, right? And thinking about it, it's really important, I think, for the missionary who's hosting to be thinking, Am I setting up something so that this team can walk away, kind of getting the glory and looking like the hero?

Or are we gonna have the team involved in things that's going to have the people in the community recognize that it's the ministry that's supporting this, right? Because we want and we wanna communicate that expectation to the team to say, for the long-term impact of this trip. The ministry or the missionary, or the church right on the ground needs to be the hero because if you are building any kind of connection, they're not gonna find you here next week. They can find this ministry that you're saying you're a part of. And so I think that's one thing, even in the way that we're preparing the rest of our team that might be working with us, our family, the staff that we might have working alongside us, like we want the team to know that these are the people that we wanna point people to, right?

When it comes to any sort of relationship building, we have to recognize that the team is only gonna be able to do something in the short term, but any long-term follow-up is gonna happen with the team that's on the ground. And so we want to be utilized in the short-term capacity to build the bridge to the ministry that's there on the ground. So I think that's one thing that we can do. 

Do you wanna share maybe about our local staff and how we would prepare them for teams? So I think anybody who's working in an international setting, especially with a team of people, the visiting team, it would be a cross-cultural exchange, right? For our local team members who are not Americans, but are from the local culture that we're serving in. I think we do want to have training on what it is like to deal with Westerners. Hopefully, we're already training them on that because they have to deal with us every day. 

We are Westerners and have some Western values that just come out in all sorts of ways, and certainly different contexts and different cultures and countries, that's gonna be more extreme and exacerbated than others that are maybe closer to a culture, you know, an American culture, but we need to be training our staff on, Hey, team members, when they come over, they are just coming for one, two weeks, maybe a month. And this is an experience where it's gonna be hard for them as much as we're asking them to fit into the local culture, act in a way that would not do any harm to you and the way you believe, and the culture that they're serving in. We do want to make sure that we are training them on what it is like to deal with Americans, training them on how to ask questions. So we would train our local Ugandan staff on, Hey, if you see something that just confuses you, I simply ask them. 

And we had a lot of funny moments where our local, you know, national staff would be like, Hey, you Americans do things like this. We, you know, Ugandans, do things like this. Like, tell me why you would do this as an American. And just really funny exchanges. But I think curiosity is really the key there, right? Asking questions and curiosity. Are we having a curious spirit? Whether we're on the receiving side or the hosting side, and I think for those of us hosting teams, we need to be quick to teach our team members, our national team members, to also have those values of curiosity. And asking before, assuming, because Americans who are coming into our host context are going to say things that are dumb, do things that are dumb. And our national kind of host ministry leaders can help them navigate if they know, oh, they don't necessarily know any better. So let me ask them questions to lead them towards, Hey, that's not really the best way to do it here in our local context.

Stephanie Gutierrez: Yes. So good. Okay, I wanna come in here for a second. We've talked a lot about the difficulties of teams, because it's real. But what would you say to the missionary who's listening to all this, and they're like, See, this is why I don't have teams. It's like harder than doing the ministry myself. I don't even wanna have teams. What would you guys say to somebody like that? 

Jesse & Andrea Kroeze: I think there's so much value in having teams because. Let me back up and say this. The question may be or the statement is probably the wrong starting point for saying, I can do this ministry better. Right? Of course you can. You have been prepared for this. You are living in the context, like you know the people, you know, all of the things that these visitors don't necessarily know. That goes back to the purposes of the trip. And if the purposes are just to accomplish the ministry of doing X, Y, Z, then yeah, it's probably not worth the time to do it. But if we can come to a common shared understanding that the purpose of the trip is for us to collectively, as the global body of Christ, witness what God is doing, then it changes the perspective of how we're receiving those teams.

So if there's a missionary out there who's like, I don't know if I should be hosting teams, I would encourage you to say, Without hosting teams, you are neglecting parts of the body of knowing what God is doing here, right? For us, when we received teams, there were times when we felt so discouraged. We had gone through months and months of just really hard things that we were navigating in ministry, not seeing progress, not seeing fruit, not seeing results. At least that's what it felt like to us, right? When you're stuck in it day after day, it's hard to notice the progress. 

But it's kind of like seeing a family member, a young niece or nephew who you haven't seen in two years, and then you see them again and like they're all grown up, and you notice the differences, right? That's what teams can provide. They can provide for the missionary, a new kind of fresh set of eyes, to say like, Wow, look what God's doing. and we had some teams where there were a lot of people who returned. A year, two, three years later, and they were just blown away by the things that they saw and the changes that they saw that sometimes, for us, we just couldn't recognize in the day in and day out.

So one of the greatest blessings of teams is having somebody come and help, just give you fresh eyes as the missionary to say like, Oh yeah, God is at work here. And I've just kind of taken my eyes off of that. I've gotten stuck in the day-to-day. And, I need to actually step back and celebrate what God has done. So I think that's one piece of it. And then the other side is being able to go home and tell those stories to other peopleand to provide a larger network of support for you to keep doing the work that you're doing. 

Stephanie Gutierrez: Yeah. And you know, with teams too, it's working with your personality. I know for some people they're like, I love having teams. They're just extroverted and excited, and hosting is their jam. And then you've got other people who are just, maybe they're more introverted, or maybe they love people, but groups can feel overwhelming, and I feel like God sees you. God knows you, and there are ways to do it that are sustainable. So figure out what those are for you. 

Is it pulling in, as you guys have mentioned, some of the team there on the ground who may be our awesome hosts? Is it taking terms? I know when we had teams, I couldn't go every single day on a team like Danny and my husband and I, we would take turns sometimes, or we might bring in one of our other missionary team members to host them for a day. So feeling like you need to do every moment of every day is where I really see people burnout as well. So work with your personality, work with your ability, as you guys have talked about today. So, work with the ministry that you're already doing, there are ways to do this and ways that are sustainable so that we don't fall to either of those two extremes.

The likes, No way, teams are the worst, or, We need to have teams 24/7, you know, burn myself out till I can't even do my regular ministry anymore because I've become all about teams. There's a way to do it that's sustainable. And so, hopefully, this has given them some ideas. Maybe if they don't know how to do it, it's connecting with another missionary who seems to enjoy doing teams and finding out some of the ways that they're doing it. But I believe that, as you guys have said, teams are important. I mean, so many of us became missionaries because we went on a short-term mission trip when we were younger, and so how can God use us to help fuel missions in other people? Whether it's having them become missionaries, become a part of what we're doing, or becoming a part of advocating for missions in their church. 

So yes, I believe God has it for us. As you said earlier, Jesse, I think it's seasons, I think it's times. I think it's being specific. Andrea, you mentioned communicating your needs, which I think is huge, and you setting the terms, this is what we can do. This is what we have to offer. And not being pressured into being something other than who we are to make it work for a team. So much of what you guys shared today. Thank you for all that you mentioned. 

How can people learn more about your ministry and what it is that you guys are doing?

Jesse & Andrea Kroeze: Yeah, so, our ministry has touched the world, so you can find us@touchtheworld.org. Today, what we primarily do is we equip and train in pre-trip, short-term missions training for youth trips specifically. But we have taken our curriculum that we have developed, and most of that curriculum was developed from our side when we were living in Uganda and hosting teams, so when we were hosting teams, we found that even though our teams were coming trained, there were some major gaps in what they were trained in. And so we just started developing a curriculum as to what we would want our teams to know when they get here.

And so that now forms the basis of our training curriculum that we use with groups in person before they go out on short-term teams. But we also have a curriculum available online. That's probably the best place for your listeners to go. And that's at the missionsacademy.com. So we have online courses that they could encourage their teams to go through before they come and serve with them. 

And we also have group training curriculum as well for youth and adult teams, or mixed teams of any kind andd I think that they would find that really helpful in just preparing teams well for those expectations of really what is the purpose, right, of this experience, and how to really partner together and how to have some cultural understanding and even just a recognition of, I might encounter material poverty in a way that I've never experienced before. How do I make sense of that? And how do I not go into that situation just with my wallet open and saying, I wanna fix all of these things, right? How do I partner with the missionary on the ground who's trying to alleviate some of that poverty or brokenness, however they're experiencing it in their context, in a way that will actually be sustainable and really helpful in the long term?

Stephanie Gutierrez: So good. So a missionary who has a church says, We wanna send a team down. They can be like, Hey, I know where you should go first as you get ready to send your team down, so that you're all set to come serve with us. I love that you guys. Thank you for all that you do. Thanks for being with us today. Absolutely love what you shared, and I really do believe this is gonna give missionaries some fresh ideas and fresh hope that teams can be great and they can host them and host them well without losing their selves in the process. So thank you, Jesse. Thank you, Andrea.

Jesse & Andrea Kroeze: Yes. Thank you.