Two months ago, I (Kara) was part of an inner-city Los Angeles weekend mission trip with teenagers from my church.

We had a surprise for the students: It was actually a poverty simulation. We had told their parents ahead of time; but to students' shock, they showed up on Friday night and were told they had to surrender all of their possessions. They could keep two items, and their sleeping bag counted as one of those items. So most everyone kept their sleeping bag, and then they each chose one toiletry item. One girl kept her toothpaste, another her toothbrush, and then they shared. It made for interesting community.

Next, the kids relinquished the clothes off their backs and chose clothes from Goodwill to wear instead.

The students slept outside that Friday night—until 4:30 a.m. on Saturday, at which point they were awakened because an ordinance in Los Angeles prohibits sleeping outside after sunrise. Their breakfast consisted of one-half of a saltine cracker and a few sips of lemonade. They did manual labor Saturday morning, cleaning bathrooms and kitchens.

By the time lunch rolled around, they were tired, grimy and starving. The only way for them to get lunch was to beg for money from strangers (one of the many reasons I was glad we had obtained parents' permission), which we did 10 minutes away at Staples Center (home of the L.A. Lakers). After about 45 minutes, our small group of six had $2.25.

We were thrilled to discover that our $2.25 could purchase a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter at a nearby 99 Cent Store. As we sat on the dirty sidewalk, getting peanut butter all over ourselves and our clothing, our kids kept repeating, "These are the best peanut butter sandwiches ever."

Later that evening, the local leader hosting our group of students said they have groups experience this poverty simulation almost every weekend.

Apparently, our group was the first group of high-school students who didn't cry when their stuff was confiscated.

I love the kids at our church, but I don't think of them as particularly tough. Afterward, I asked our youth pastor why he thought the students did so well. His answer was immediate and simple, "We trained them ahead of time." It was their training about what it's like to experience poverty that helped them dive in immediately instead of reject or resent the justice challenge facing them.

A Process, Not an Event

During the past few years, we at the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI), in collaboration with Dave Livermore of the Global Learning Center at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary and Terry Linhart of Bethel College (Indiana), have helped convene two summits of experts in short-term missions. A major theme in our discussions was that we need to reenvision our service experiences not as events, but as processes that have a before, during and after.

Let's be honest—our preparation before the usual short-term mission trip usually consists of "M&Ms": money and medical releases. Our reflection during the trip boils down to a few minutes of prayer requests before our team tumbles into bed, exhausted. Our debrief after we get home is little more than organizing the media show and the testimonies to share in "big church." If we want greater transformation, we need a completely different timeframe for our service.