Question 9: How do I debrief my team when the project is finished?

Answer:

Work with your field supervisor(s) to develop a time of debriefing for your team, preferably on the last day or two of the project. Topics for debriefing include:

• What God has done in and through the students
• How they adapted or struggled to adapt to the culture
• What they learned about themselves while on mission
• Reverse culture shock they might experience on their return to the United States
• How to tell their story when they return to the United States
• How to mobilize others for international missions.

A second round of debriefing comes from a pamphlet called Back Home, Now What?, which focuses on re-entry and debriefing. This pamphlet is sent to students after they return to the United States.

Along with the Back Home, Now What? pamphlet, the Student Mobilization Team also sends each student and team leader an evaluation to complete and return to our office. Please encourage your students to complete this evaluation not only for the sake of improving collegiate missions but also as a means of personal debriefing.

Another debriefing experience is available to all students at Collegiate Week at Glorieta Conference Center in New Mexico at the end of each summer. National and international student missionaries are assembled during this conference week for an afternoon of debriefing sponsored by the IMB and NAMB.

Other suggestions for helping your student debrief include:

• Listen, listen listen. Many Americans will not listen to the student missionaries’ stories very long and certainly not long enough to help the students say all they feel needs to be said about their experience. As a team leader, taking a student to lunch or for coffee and simply listening to their full experience can help their catharsis.
• Help your students hone their entire experience down to two or three expressive vignettes that depict their experience and God’s work. Each story should be about three to five minutes long. With a repertoire of these brief but expressive stories, students will be able to share their experience with others in a meaningful way and feel that they have been heard.
• Give the students as many opportunities to share with others in a group setting as possible. Encourage return student missionaries to speak at your collegiate gatherings and help them to make contact with churches, WMU groups, RAs, GAs and any other groups that would be interested in hearing about their experience.
• Introduce student missionaries to international student ministry on their campus. Students from the people groups among whom your students served are likely to be on your campus. International students are the future leaders in their home countries. By reaching out to international students on American university campuses we can reach the world through those who have come to our doorstep.
• Help student missionaries mobilize their collegiate group for international missions by
  1. leading Bible studies on God’s heart for the nations
  2. coordinating a team to serve internationally in the next year, and
  3. encouraging fellow students to consider giving a spring break or a summer to international mission service.