(Asia)–As severe acute respiratory syndrome continues to spread, at least one mission agency is moving forward with plans to send volunteers on short-term trips to Asia. Send International’s Dave Tucker. “We got in contact with our people mainly in Hong Kong and asked them to evaluate the situation and make a projection for us. And, together we decided that if people were heading in that direction we would not discourage them at this point. If they felt they wanted to pull away, we would allow them to do that and we’d be happy to help them find another short-term opportunity in one of our other areas. To this point, none of the people have taken that offer.” Tucker says they still need up to 50 volunteers. He says their short-term program is important to their outreach. “We could continue our ministry without ‘short-termers’, but they have done a tremendous amount of good for us. One example: our missionaries in Ukraine told us last year that between 400 and 500 people came to salvation in Christ mainly because of short-term teams holding camps last summer.”
