By Don Johnson — After short-term missionaries have been properly screened and trained, one might expect that they would have little difficulty maintaining their sexual purity during and after their mission trip. But research and experience show us that this isn’t always the case.

In their article “Stressed Beyond Measure,” Dodds and Dodds, counselors who have worked with missionaries for many years, share a case study about a “single missionary who went to South America, met a national on the bus, and within two weeks of landing in the country was wooed into landing in bed with him.”

A two-year study of more than 100 short-term mission participants shows that most experienced a “significant decline in personal purity both during the mission program and the year following their return home.”

And one leader in the Child Safety and Protection Network—a collaborative network of mission agencies, faith-based NGOs and international Christian schools focused on issues of child protection—reported that short-term missionaries have proven to be a concern, as several have been caught smuggling child pornography back into the US on their laptops. What is going on here?

Changing cultural norms

Today’s typical short-term missionary from North America comes from a more sexually saturated and permissive society than previous generations. The book unChristian includes studies showing that a significant number of evangelical Christians under the age of 40 consider certain sexually based behaviors to be morally acceptable—like cohabiting with members of the opposite sex, viewing pornography, having sex outside of marriage, and engaging in same-sex relationships. In fact, viewing internet pornography has become epidemic among young evangelicals, with 25-33% of Christian women and over 90% of young Christian men admitting to viewing online porn.

Lack of accountability

Short-termers are away from “normal.” The accountability structures they have in North America, such as family, church, and schedule, are no longer in place. To make things worse, short-termers may find themselves reluctant to be transparent about their struggles and to ask for help, fearing that field leaders or team members might consider them bad Christians if they admit to having sexual struggles while on the field.

Emotional intensity

There is the “pressure cooker” aspect of being part of a team with intense relationship dynamics that develop over a period of weeks or months and that culminate in an emotionally charged ministry in an exotic or possibly even frightening location.

Craving in a new culture

The new culture may offer increased opportunity for short-termers to engage in behaviors they wouldn’t consider doing “back home.” Also, working with nationals can lead to cultural miscues that result in short-termers engaging in relationships more quickly and more intensely than usual, as with the single missionary cited above who went to South America.

Struggles with self-esteem

The sudden change of status or self-identity that short-termers experience in a foreign culture sometimes leads them to seek reassurance in inappropriate relationships. This change in perceived status may manifest as low self-esteem because they can’t function as highly or contribute at the same level they could in their home country, or as inflated self-esteem because of their “rock star” status as Americans or because of the sudden increase in their attractiveness due to their possession of an American passport.

Ultimately, all these factors could be part of a spiritual attack. As Randy Friesen says, “ There is a battle for the purity of young adults serving in short-term missions programs and most seem to be losing.”

So what can we do to help fight this battle? Is it enough to be forewarned and, therefore, to be forearmed? Significantly, Friesen reported that “the quantitative data related to personal purity indicated that, regardless of whether programs focused on this concept in their extensive pre-trip discipleship training or not, participants declined in their experience of personal purity.” This observation suggests that short-term team leaders and field leaders need to constantly reinforce their teaching on this topic throughout the entire short-term experience, including during the debrief and the follow-through period after the return home.

But how does a church, agency, or short-term team leader do that? Here are some suggestions:

If we know that our short-termers potentially come from a background of sexual temptation, and that issues stemming from such a background can be exacerbated by the stresses inherent in a short-term trip and exposure to another culture, we are being derelict in our responsibility if we fail to give them clear warning along with the necessary tools and support to help them navigate these dangerous waters.