FAQS

We encourage you to read our Cross Exchange Statement of Faith.

A work exchange is a type of travel where you exchange your skills and time for accommodation and other benefits (usually meals and cultural immersion). You find a host who is looking for a certain kind of help, such as gardening, teaching, cooking, or cleaning, and offer them your assistance for an agreed-upon number of hours per week (or an agreed upon set of tasks). In return, they provide you with a place to stay, usually provide meals (or the groceries needed for meals) and sometimes other perks, such as transportation, language practice, or cultural activities. Work exchanges provide an excellent way to immerse yourself in a different culture, travel on a low budget, learn new skills, and make new friends.

Not really! Cross Exchange is designed to target an underserved segment of the work exchange market - Christian hosts and volunteers. We strive to partner and work alongside secular work exchanges - recognizing that together we can build a more vibrant and diverse work exchange community, allowing more people to take part in the benefits of work exchanges!

Hosts are required to sign our statement of faith (see above). Volunteers do not sign a statement of faith, but volunteers should be Christians or genuinely interested in learning more about Christianity. Volunteers opposed to the Christian faith will very likely not find this a suitable service.

Creating the Cross Exchange platform is a large undertaking with many challenges and considerations that need to be worked through before we are ready to launch. While a firm date is not yet available, we encourage you to sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date as we progress. As this is also a costly process, donations are always greatly appreciated ;)

Eventually, Cross Exchange intends to charge volunteers a subscription fee for the ability to contact hosts. This is the standard business model in the work exchange industry, and our fee will be commensurate to other other work exchange platforms. This fee will be far cheaper than traditional Christian missions programs.

This is a question each individual needs to decide for themselves. It’s important to remember that hundreds of thousands of people - the majority of whom are solo men and women - have completed international work exchanges, with relatively few issues along the way. Your level of maturity, familiarity with the area, your sex, and your level of risk tolerance are all important to consider beforehand. If you are new to traveling alone, it’s often a good idea to invite a friend to come with you or start with a work exchange in a different part of your home country. Please read our Safety page for more tips on how to have a positive work exchange experience.

Neither hosts nor volunteers are employed by Cross Exchange. All hosts have signed up at their own volition and gain no financial benefit from Cross Exchange International, LLC.

Volunteers must be at least 18 years old and hosts must be at least 28 years old. 17 year old volunteers are allowed to sign up and contact hosts, but are not permitted to partake in a work exchange until their 18th birthday. There is no maximum age for volunteers or hosts!

This is a big question with many different aspects to consider. See our blog post here for more information on this question. In brief, we believe CEI is a better option for people who are interested in pursuing their own path, prefer flexibility over rigidity, are interested in observing the global church, prefer to have control over how their money is spent, and are interested in having an adventure over a cookie-cutter experience.

We strive to operate in a space between the work exchange market and the global missions industry and bridge these two worlds. While we hope to foster relationships between missionaries and volunteers, we are not a traditional Christian missions organization.

Some hosts offer payment for all or some of their work (i.e. extra labor beyond the agreed upon work exchange). However, Cross Exchange strongly discourages work exchanges to involve monetary payment for two reasons: 1) It turns the work exchange into a business transaction, which can lead to both volunteers and hosts harboring ill-will that is rarely present when no money is involved, and 2) it can create legal issues, as many countries require a special visa in order to be employed there. Therefore, in an effort to discourage work exchanges involving payment, Cross Exchange has decided not to have a profile section for hosts to state if they offer payment.

In a typical work exchange, the volunteer pays for their transportation to the host’s home, and the host provides lodging and meals. Volunteers typically pay for their own purchases beyond these things (ex.: if the volunteer decides to purchase snacks from the store on their own, the volunteer should NOT expect this to be paid for by the host). However, each work exchange is slightly different, and it is the volunteers responsibility to find out what is and isn’t provided.

NOTE: Hosts are NOT allowed to ask for payment for a work exchange. If a host does ask for payment, please contact our team immediately.

A Christian work exchange resembles a traditional work exchange in many ways, but with some key differences:

Talking About Faith. Whereas sharing in detail one another’s faith is sometimes considered taboo in a traditional work exchange, Cross Exchange is designed to foster these kinds of conversations.

Type of Work. Some of the hosts on our platform are missionaries. Work exchanges with a missionary host will vary from host to host, but will often involve volunteering in a capacity where you are either directly or indirectly sharing the gospel with others.

Live with Believers. While some hosts on secular work exchanges are Christians (see our About Us page to learn how CEI started!), the large majority are not. With CEI, each of our hosts have signed our Statement of Faith (see FAQ #1).

Be Part of the Global Body of Christ. Every CEI host also agrees to make access to church available to their work exchange volunteers. In some locations, volunteers may find that there aren’t any church services available in a language they understand; in which case, an online service may be the best option. We highly recommend discussing church availability with your host before you agree to their work exchange.