CONTACT: Kelly Hughes, (312) 280-8126 Phone: (630) 260-6200 x4248 E-mail address: kelly@dechanthughes.com

CAROL STREAM, IL, February 12, 2009 — Almost two million Americans go on short-term missions trips each year, sponsored by the more than 40,000 American churches, schools, and other organizations that send teams around the world. Round Trip, a documentary-style DVD and curriculum produced by Christianity Today International, aims to help these travelers embark on global missions trips better prepared, more culturally aware, and equipped to build lasting change and relationships.

In a twist on the expected scenario of Americans going out into the world to help people in need elsewhere, Round Trip emphasizes the increasingly reciprocal nature of missions efforts. Today, a missions team may be Africans serving in India, or, as the documentary shows, in the U.S.

The film follows teams from two churches that have pioneered this new kind of short-term missions: one group travels from Chapel Hill Bible Church in North Carolina to Nairobi, Kenya; and a team from Mavuno Church in Nairobi arrives to do their missions work in North Carolina. The two churches have built the kind of deep and lasting relationship that Round Trip advocates.

"The future of missions is multi-directional," says Andy Crouch, executive producer. "Many short-term mission trips are undertaken with outmoded assumptions about developing-world needs, and without enough genuine partnership with those who will 'receive' Westerners' 'help.' Especially lacking is awareness that the church in the global South is just as committed to, and capable of, engaging in mission around the world as the churches of the North and West."

Oscar Muriu, senior pastor of Nairobi Chapel, adds in an interview for the film: "We can not afford as the African church to only receive, receive, receive. The African church can give back."

The film follows the two teams as they prepare for their trips, at work in the U.S. and Africa, and afterwards as they process the experience.

Both teams express a mixture of excitement and anxiety about going, but are passionate about their desire to serve. Members of the African team worry that they may experience racism in the U.S., and are eager to change perceptions about Africans. "It is our turn to come and be missionaries to the rest of the world," one says. Members of the American team voice their wish to respond to the call to serve the needy and express their trepidation about seeing the slums of Nairobi. They are warned by their team director that when they get back to the U.S., "the abundance can be disturbing."

The DVD and the accompanying curriculum walk teams through the major stages of preparation and planning for a short-term missions trip, a process that takes about 3-4 months. It includes direction on practical and spiritual preparation, and includes commentary from experts on missions and cross-cultural relationships.

The program is founded on key values of partnership, learning, and sparking lasting change. The hoped-for result, as reflected by the two teams featured in Round Trip, is that Christians will begin living with a broader perspective, asking themselves, "how should we live at home in light of what we saw over there?"