The perfect spaghetti sauce

A friend asked me what the perfect mission trip looks like.

A fumbled through some ideas but basically said, there isn't a perfect mission trip.

What's perfect for me isn't perfect for you.

My answer was later validated by a youtube video of Malcolm Gladwell talking about human diversity and the perfect spaghetti sauce.

It seems on more than one occasion, though attempts to discover the perfect food or drink item, it becomes apparent that there is no perfect food or drink item. You can come closer to making people happy by offering the perfect food items.

Another interesting note. People don't know what they want or like until they try it.

For mission trips: people don't know what they want. They think it should be about saving souls or giving people stuff they don't have, maybe. Cause we have it. And they should have it. And they should have it like we have it.

And so we start there.

And we try offering people ways to understand what is missing in their lives (this includes the people going on the trip as well) and how they can fill these voids.

Can a mission trip be about increasing the quality of life for a specific community of people?

Or can it be about righting a wrong? Helping victims of war get an education or job training or small business development training for instance.

Maybe at the end of the day people will change the way they see the world or their relationship to God and to each other and ultimately change the way they see themselves.

Who knew 1/3 of the people liked chunky Ragu? People who make spaghetti sauce just always thought the perfect spaghetti sauce was thin.

And who knew what people prefer on mission trips is to make a difference in the lives of people and to be a part of finding out that the world can be a better place.

We always thought it was about making people more like us.