by Peter Armstrong

Five years ago this December M-DAT launched ShortTermMissions.com. The website addressed the growing need for internet based resources offering practical assistance to people seeking to develop deep, lifelong mission involvement. It was specifically aimed at helping people take the step of serving on a one week to three year mission trip.

From the beginning our goal has been to build a quality website that met real needs, became widely used, and stood the test of time.

The “thank you” notes we receive from the people and agencies we serve confirm that we are meeting felt needs. One large agency shared with us that apart from word of mouth (every agency’s primary source of participants), ShortTermMissions.com was the best producer of new participants and groups.

The traffic and scope of the service steadily grows. We launched ShortTermMissions.com with 20 agencies and 200 trips. Today we help people connect with nearly 1,000 trips from 64 mission agencies! About 5,000 to 7,000 individuals visit the website every month, an ever-growing number.

And we’re still here! Five years is quite remarkable for a website. We’re thankful for God’s provision through churches and individuals to make ShortTermMissions.com a reality and keep the service available to tomorrow’s missionaries.

This article is part of the January 2006 issue. It is filed under Choosing a trip, M-DAT, Mission trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Share this post on Facebook.