{"id":1626,"date":"2012-03-24T12:30:53","date_gmt":"2012-03-24T16:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/activistfaith\/?p=1626"},"modified":"2012-03-23T12:31:29","modified_gmt":"2012-03-23T16:31:29","slug":"how-to-take-your-whole-church-and-the-world-on-a-mission-trip-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/activistfaith\/2012\/03\/how-to-take-your-whole-church-and-the-world-on-a-mission-trip-4.html","title":{"rendered":"How to Take Your Whole Church (and the World) on a Mission Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Great story from ActivistFaith.org<\/a> co-founder Dan King<\/a> on how to take your friends on the journey with you on a mission trip. I would love to hear similar stories from any of you in the comments below.<\/em><\/p>\n

As always, thanks for reading and sharing!<\/em><\/p>\n

-Dillon<\/em><\/p>\n

+++<\/p>\n

For me it started out as a way to
\ndocument thoughts, observations, and memories throughout the trip. But
\nthe cool part about it was that others back home would be able to read
\nmy notes. The idea of taking our whole church<\/a> on our mission trip to Haiti wasn’t fully realized until much later.<\/p>\n

The concept was really pretty simple: I tweet, they read.<\/p>\n

I never expected to experience what ended up happening.<\/p>\n

Let me start by telling you how I set everything up. It’s an important part of how this whole thing worked itself out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

First I had to make sure that I had a mobile<\/a> phone that would work down in Haiti. I could’ve gone with a pay-per-use phone from one of the local carriers like Digicel<\/a> or Voila<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Using
\nthis approach would have guaranteed that I’d have phone service that
\nworked down there, but would’ve required me to a great deal of ‘set-up’
\nonce I got the new (temporary) phone from a local dealer outside the
\nairport.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Luckily
\nmy provider (Verizon Wireless) has a cool global plan that I was able
\nto get with unlimited data for about $20.0o (prorated for the time I
\nused it). And since my DROID (unfortunately) didn’t work on the GSM<\/a> network, I even got a loaner Blackberry for only the cost of shipping (about $10).<\/p>\n

The Power of Twitter<\/h2>\n

Then the key to the whole plan was centered around Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After installing a Twitter app (UberTwitter<\/a> worked best for me)\u00a0on the Blackberry, then I was well on my way to sending the updates and photos (via TweetPhoto<\/a>) to everyone back home.<\/p>\n

Everything
\nelse was about how I streamed the updates to people who wanted to
\nfollow along. Here’s a quick list of the various elements involved with
\nmaking it as easy as possible for people to connect:<\/p>\n