Can a one-time crosscultural experience truly be life-changing? Veteran trip leader and intercultural guide Cory Trenda says yes―if we let the trip launch a journey of integrating the experience into our ongoing life. In After the Trip Trenda provides a unique guide for individuals and teams to make the most of a crosscultural trip after returning home. Readers will find help with navigating the crucial reentry process, remembering and sharing key stories, interweaving new insights into everyday life, and engaging in continuing learning and service. Combining practical tips, reflections, and stories from Trenda's own decades of crosscultural travel, this is an essential resource for organizations, churches, schools, and all travelers who want crosscultural trips to be a catalyst for lasting good. The trip itself is just the beginning; real life change happens after the trip.
"Cory Trenda writes with compassion, sensitivity, clarity, and passion. He has a great gift for communicating complex matters with simplicity and grace and for making a challenge seem like an invitation. After the Trip is an important book that addresses a critical gap in our approach to crosscultural ministry. I love Cory's clear challenge to infuse the overused cliché 'the trip was life changing' with true meaning. This book has blessed me, and I believe that it will strengthen myown ministry."
James T. Birchfield, senior pastor, First Presbyterian Church Houston
"Cultural, ethnic, and language diversity is our future as a society, and it's God's vision for the church. In his important new book, Cory Trenda aims to turn those who have been blessed to go on international mission trips into ambassadors for diversity at home. How do we bridge our real or imagined differences, hear one another's narratives, overcome our innate suspicion of the other, and discover the true reality and joy of our unity in Christ? After the Trip shows us all the way."
John Harvey Taylor, bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles
"Cory Trenda describes the blueprint of my life. When I was seven, my single mom took my two brothers and me to live in Mexico for six weeks with a family of fourteen. That summer changed the trajectory of my life. I went on to resettle refugees, host international student Bible studies, coplant a Cambodian church and lead various global projects. Threads woven into the tapestry of my young life significantly altered my journey. Trenda rightly emphasizes the importance of integrating crosscultural experiences after we return via humble intentional reflection."
Alec Hill, president emeritus, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
