A very wise man once told me to, ‘make your vacation your vocation.’ In other words, you should be doing something with your life that you are passionate about. I think that this is some of the best advice that I have ever gotten! So I love to see when people pursue things that they are passionate about.

Recently I made a new friend on Twitter named Kristeen Hudson. Kristeen is a senior at Purdue University studying Computer Graphic Technology. She’s also the founder of MissionMixUp.com. I recently had the chance to chat with Kristeen about how she has been able to combine her passions for technology and for helping people through MissionMixUp.

BibleDude: What exactly is ‘missionmixup.com’? 

Kristeen: MissionMixUp.com is a fundraising and resource website for people interested in mission trips.

Individuals can create a customizable fundraising webpage that can be easily emailed out to friends and family in replacement of the traditional ‘snail-mail’ letters. Users can also upload images and write blog posts about their mission trip which helps make the financial supporters feel more involved. They can see the impact of their donations as fast as the individual shares with them!

Sponsoring organizations (such as churches or other organizations that host mission trips) can also benefit from our site. These organizations can list their trip in order to recruit more participants, monitor the groups fundraising process, and even use the trip page as an online advertisement for their organization or community. Trips are put into a searchable database for all MissionMixUp users to view or even join.

BibleDude: Where did you get the idea to do something like this?

Kristeen: I went on a mission trip to Jamaica a little over 2 years ago and had to do fundraising by mailing out support letters. This process was time consuming, expensive, and not fun! I decided there had to be a better way, and after searching unsuccessfully online for an automated process that fit my needs, I decided to make the solution myself. With the idea in hand, an awesome business partner, and a very supportive professor MissionMixUp was born!

BibleDude: What do you hope to accomplish with the website?

Kristeen: There are currently 1.6 million Christian Americans that go on mission trips each year and I’d venture to say a large portion of those individuals still go through that horrible traditional fundraising process.

Our goal is to provide an effective and easy to use solution that helps more people successfully participate in mission trips!

BibleDude: How has it helped people so far in finding and/or preparing for mission trips?

Kristeen: I personally used the website to raise money for my most recent mission trip to Haiti. Just by sending out a few emails to friends and family and directing them to MissionMixUp I was able to raise almost double the money that I needed to go on my mission trip! When using the traditional fundraising process (mailing out support letters to friends and family) for my previous mission trip I spent significantly more time and money doing the fundraising process, and still didn’t raise all the money I needed.

BibleDude: What would you tell people who have never been on a mission trip before about what it means to go on one?

Kristeen: A mission trip involves individuals going somewhere with a specific goal of benefiting others in mind. Normally, mission trips are directed towards people of a different culture and are sometimes referred to as service trips, service projects, or outreach works.

For me personally, all of the mission trips I have gone on have been an amazing experience! I’ve done things from building homes in Kentucky to helping children in Haitian orphanages and bringing medical supplies to people in Haiti. Each trip I have learned about a new culture and it has been a humbling experience. Not only do you get to help people that are much less fortunate then yourself, but it also puts things into perspective. You realize how fortunate you are to have the resources, opportunities, and at times even freedom that others may lack.

My advice for anyone thinking about going on a mission trip would be to go! There is nothing more rewarding personally and to human kind.

BibleDude: So what’s next for Kristeen Hudson?

Kristeen: As far as the site goes, we are very excited to be adding a new member to the MissionMixUp team! He is helping us upgrade the site as we begin to tackle site presentation and usability areas of improvement. We have a lot of great changes coming that will help make MissionMixUp the leader in customizable online fundraising for mission trips. So check back on the site soon and there should be some significant improvements! J

For me personally, I’m a senior at Purdue University and I graduate very soon. I will be starting a full-time job in Indianapolis, but am very excited to continue developing MissionMixUp for mission trip participants around the world.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Jesus… “Go!”