Policies

What a trip costs, and what that covers

The trip price covers every in-country cost for the full length of the trip: lodging, meals, ground transport, translators, and the ministry and service projects your team takes part in.

It does not cover your flights. You are responsible for booking and paying for your own airfare to and from the trip, along with your passport, any visa fees, immunizations, and personal spending.

We may adjust a trip price after it is published if airline or fuel costs move significantly before departure. If that happens we will tell you in writing before we ask you for any further payment.

How you apply and pay

Applying is the first step, not a commitment. You fill in the application for the trip you want. We read it, and if it is a fit we send you a payment link. Nothing is charged until you have been accepted onto the team.

• The first $300 you pay is a non-refundable deposit. It holds your place on the team.
• The balance is due 60 days before departure.
• Payments go through the link we send you. We do not accept cash for trip payments.
• Most people raise their trip cost through support letters rather than paying it themselves. Ask us and we will help you write one.

If we have to change your ticket after it is issued, or if your documents reach us late because they were sent late, the airline change fees are yours to cover.

Refunds

Money given to Nations in Love is a charitable donation, not a purchase. Under IRS rules governing tax-exempt organizations, we cannot refund a completed donation, including money raised toward a trip.

That sounds harsh, so here is what it means in practice. If you raise support and then cannot go, the money does not disappear and it does not become ours to spend on anything we like. You can:

• hold it toward a future trip you go on;
• put it toward another team member on the same trip who still needs support;
• or release it to the general work, most often clean water.

Tell us which you would prefer and we will do it. If we do not hear from you, we hold the funds for a future trip.

When a project is funded past what it needs, the surplus goes to the area of greatest need, as set out in our Gift Acceptance Policy.

Canceling your place

Tell us as soon as you know. The date that matters is the day we issue tickets for your team, not the day the trip departs.

• Before tickets are issued. You lose the deposit. Everything else you have paid is held for a future trip, or redirected as described above.
• After tickets are issued. You are responsible for the full cost of the ticket, which the airline will not return to us, plus a $200 cancellation fee. What remains is held for a future trip.

If we cancel

We may cancel or reroute a trip for safety, for a visa or border closure, or if too few people come. If we cancel a trip, everything you have paid is held in full toward your next trip, or redirected to another purpose at your direction. We cannot reimburse airfare you booked yourself, which is one reason we ask you to wait for our go-ahead before buying a ticket.

Giving, tax deductions and receipts

Nations in Love Ministries is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit. Gifts are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law.

• Make checks payable to Nations in Love Ministries, not to an individual. A check written to a person is not tax-deductible, even if that person is going on a trip.
• You may note a preferred use in the memo line. We honor preferences wherever we can, within the terms of the Gift Acceptance Policy.
• We do not accept cash donations. We have no way to receipt them, which means the donor cannot claim them.
• Online giving is handled by Zeffy, which issues your receipt by email at the time you give.
• Annual giving statements are available on request from admin@nationsinlove.org.

Because we are a tax-exempt organization, the IRS requires that we retain full control and discretion over every gift. Practically, that means a gift given toward a person or a project supports that work, but the ministry remains legally responsible for how it is used.

Passports, visas and health

Passport

You need a passport valid for at least six months beyond your return date. If yours is expired, or you do not have one, apply the day you decide to come. Expedited processing costs considerably more and is your expense.

Visas

A passport lets you leave. A visa is separate permission to enter a particular country, and some of the places we go require one. We will tell your team which are needed and help you through it, but the application and the fee are yours.

Immunizations

We do not require immunizations. We strongly recommend you talk to your doctor or a travel clinic well ahead of departure. Depending on the destination, Hepatitis A and B, Typhoid, Tetanus and Yellow Fever are commonly advised.

Medication and medical needs

Bring prescription medication in its original labeled container, with enough for the whole trip plus several days. Tell us on your application about any medical condition, allergy or device that your team leader would need to know about in an emergency. It stays between you and the leadership.

Travel insurance

Buy your own policy, and buy it when you make your first payment. Most insurers will not cover an event you could already see coming, so a policy bought the week you decide to cancel is worth very little.

What you want it to cover is trip cancellation, medical treatment abroad, and medical evacuation. Your domestic health insurance very likely does not travel with you. Check before you assume it does.

Conduct on a trip

You are representing Jesus, this ministry, and the local church that invited us. In many of the places we go, the church stays behind and lives with the impression we leave.

Drugs and alcohol

There is no alcohol and no recreational drug use on a Nations in Love trip. Not in the hotel, not on a free day, not at the airport. This is not negotiable and it applies to every member of every team, including adults on a family trip.

If you break it, you go home. You will be removed from the team and sent home at your own expense, and no part of your trip cost is returned.

Everything else

• You travel with your team on the team's dates. We do not arrange early departures or extended stays. It is a safety protocol, not an inconvenience.
• You go where your team leader says, and you do not go out alone.
• Dress and conduct follow the standards of the local church we are serving, which your leader will explain before departure.
• Photographs of children are taken only with the permission of the adult responsible for them, and never in a way that identifies where a child lives.

We reserve the right to remove anyone from a team, before or during a trip, whose conduct puts other people at risk or damages the ministry's standing with the church that invited us.

Teenagers and children on trips

Level One trips are family friendly and children are welcome on them with a parent or guardian. Our annual Cusco trip after Experience Youth Camp is a teenage team. So this section matters more here than it does for most ministries.

• Anyone under 18 needs their own application, signed by a parent or guardian under the agreement on behalf of minors, plus a medical release. One form per minor. No exceptions, including when a parent is on the trip.
• A minor who is not traveling with their own parent must be assigned to a named responsible adult before departure.
• We hold a ratio of at least one adult over 20 for every four to five minors on a team.
• Adults who supervise minors on our teams complete a background check before departure.
• Minors room with minors, and adults room with adults.
• A parent or guardian is given the full itinerary, the accommodation details and an in-country contact number before departure.

If you have a concern about the safety or conduct of anyone on one of our teams, tell the team leader immediately, or write to danny@nationsinlove.org. We would far rather hear it early and be wrong.

Privacy

What we collect

We collect what you hand us: your name, email address, phone number and the details you enter when you apply for a trip, give, or sign up for the newsletter. This site sets no cookies of its own and runs no analytics or advertising trackers.

What we do with it

We use it to run the thing you asked us about. Trip applications go to our trips coordinator. Giving details go to our finance coordinator. Newsletter signups get the newsletter. We do not sell your information, and we do not rent or trade our list.

Services we use

• Zeffy processes online giving. Card details go to Zeffy and never touch our servers. Their privacy policy governs that transaction.
• Google Forms receives trip applications.
• Mailchimp sends the newsletter. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and it works immediately.
• Google Fonts serves the typefaces on this site, which means Google sees the IP address of anyone loading a page.

Children

We do not knowingly collect information online from a child under 13. Information about a minor coming on a trip is provided by their parent or guardian on the consent form.

Your information

Ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it, by writing to admin@nationsinlove.org. We will act on it. We keep giving records for as long as tax law requires us to.

Changes to these policies

We review these policies periodically and may amend them. The version on this page is the one that applies. Where a change affects a trip you have already paid a deposit on, the terms you signed up under are the ones we will hold ourselves to.

Questions about any of this go to admin@nationsinlove.org.