Mission Direct: Sending volunteers and resources to help the world’s poor

Mission Direct is an interdenominational charity that enables teams of volunteers from the UK to show God’s love in practical ways by participating in local projects that benefit children, families and communities in some of the poorest countries of the world.

Our Vision

We enable thousands of individuals and families to make a direct personal impact on the worlds poorest communities to help them escape physical and spiritual poverty.

Our Mission

To enable both the volunteers and the people in the communities in which we work, to be transformed through their partnership and motivated for future acts of service.

Our Values

All that Mission Direct does is underpinned by its values. They shape our culture and ethos and impact every activity. At Mission Direct we value:

• Christian faith and ethics – our Christian faith underpins all our decisions, actions and activities. We help people in practical ways and we share the message of God’s love.
• God’s provision and generosity – we trust that all we have comes from God and that we are stewards of His resources. We seek to exercise generosity, integrity and responsibility in how we use the resources entrusted to us.
• People – we seek to value each person, the poor we are helping, in-country partners, staff, volunteers and donors. We work actively against poverty, discrimination and suffering and seek to help everyone reach their God-given potential.
Empowerment and pastoral care – we empower our staff and partners to make decisions that benefit the communities they serve. We also take care of our staff, volunteers and partners encouraging them to grow in spiritual maturity.
• Teamwork – we believe that each staff member, partner, volunteer and donor has God-given gifts and abilities. Each person within our staff team and wider network has a unique role to play and a contribution to make. Together we are Mission Direct.
• Partnership and strategic alliances – we seek to work in partnership with donors, churches and local community organisations to maximise the effectiveness of all we do. We seek to empower, resources and support our partners, joining them in what they are already doing well, rather than run our own projects in different countries.
• Excellence and accountability – whatever we do we aim to do it to the best of our knowledge and ability. We aspire to achieving excellence, efficiency in all our activities and to showing commitment and honesty in all our dealings, being accountable for our outcomes.

  The ethos of Mission Direct is best summed up by the story of the little boy and his mother who came across thousands of starfish stranded and dying on a beach. He started to pick them up and throw them back in the sea one by one.

  “What are you doing?” his mother asked. “How can you hope to make any difference here?”
  The boy looked in his mother's eyes and said “Well, I made a difference to that one and that one...”

  Like this little boy, every Mission Direct volunteer has a real opportunity to improve someone’s life in significant ways. During two life-changing weeks, whether it is building a home for a poor family, a classroom for poor children or, a shelter for a disabled person - one by one, different acts of kindness make a huge difference to hungry and hurting people in some of the poorest countries of the world.

  Our Primary Goals

  Mission Direct’s primary goals are reflected in the acronym LITE as follows:

• Linking churches to missions – (Bring workers to the harvest field - Matt 9:38)
• Impacting communities – (Helping the poor practically - James 2:22)
• Transforming lives - (See all involved changed by God’s love - Rom 10:11-15)
• Excitement for missions – (Bless and motivate church teams and donors -1 Chron 29:1-20)

 

Mission Direct is a member of the Evangelical Alliance UK and its basis of faith can be found in the Nicene Creed.

The starfish principle