I still remember my good high school friend returning from her two-week service trip in Africa. She felt great about herself for two days, and that was the extent of her experience. She never kept in touch with those she had described as the best people she’d ever met, and a month later her trip was but a dim memory she rarely spoke of. That was when I decided short-term service trips were a waste of time, or at least not the life-changing experience they’re normally made out to be.

Seeking to gain more knowledge in order to have an educated – negative – opinion, I spoke to fellow students who had just returned from various VISION trips, but what I saw and heard opened my mind and heart and rid me of my skepticism.

I used to believe that the aid provided by short-term service trips was inconsistent and unhelpful, if even present at all, but I discovered that the tangible support provided by the VISION groups is generally appreciated by the sites. VISION also maintains relationships with its sites through the years.

Most importantly, though, in speaking to VISION students I saw manifested a fundamental truth about life — the pull of human desire for goodness, justice and service. These desires, vibrant in everyone I spoke to, guide the program but are also alive in those on the receiving end.

Those signing up for a VISION trip – or any service trip – do so out of a desire to see their need for justice and goodness met in a tangible way. This innate thirst to know one’s presence is impactful is partly quenched when attending to the fundamental needs of others, which is exactly what had bothered me about short-term trips in the first place. But I discovered this to actually be the seed for encounters to blossom. I found that VISION does this well, as its multiple trips make a tangible impact on the sites and people visited, so much so that relationships are formed where parties still keep in touch. I was incredibly surprised hearing about students Skyping with people they’d met on trips and even setting personal time aside to work on projects that might assist the sites visited. Those students were alive, excited and full of love — things I could not overlook.

In addition, residents of the receiving sites are met with material help – which is necessary – but also with care and love, which is what people ultimately live for. All the physical help is needed and appreciated but, most importantly, seeing a multitude of young people from another state or country taking time to help is touching and comforting. Students and residents, then, truly encounter each other when the former learn to care for others, and the latter receive that care.

The economic impact of short-term trips may not ultimately be huge, but something deeper happens: an exchange that is not only cultural, but deeply human, in which people from different cultures learn to care for one another and come out of it changed.

At the end of the day, then, I must humbly admit that I was wrong. I was stuck on the idea that a trip would only be helpful if the volunteers fixed the site’s problems. The most valuable experience, however, is the discovery of what one lives for, which happens when two cultures collide and find that their hearts all need the same thing.

Letizia Mariani can be reached at mari8259@stthomas.edu.