Life (and Work) Updates!
A lot has been happening here at Adventures since the turn of the new year. First, let me share some milestones from 2021:
- From its founding in 1989 to 2021, Adventures has trained and sent over 130,000 missionaries to over 70 countries.
- In 2021 we sent our first groups of people out since the start of the pandemic and each group successfully completed their trips. Praise! It was awesome to see the work God is still doing abroad in the midst of the pandemic.
- Though it took a lot of extra work from our staff to pivot with all of the different regulations in so many different countries, we made it work and saw fruit from ministry worldwide. We were able to help support ministries in Central and South America, Southern and Eastern Africa, and Eastern Europe while also playing a part in discipling and “fanning into flame the gifts” (2 Timothy 1:6) of hundreds of young people choosing to pursue God’s calling for their life.
While statistically we see that younger generations are turning away from God, our participants are writing a different narrative. Here are some encouraging quotes from one of our surveys from people who recently came off the field.
On Community:
I desire to love on the community that I have more than I ever did before as I go home. I now understand the importance of a true Christian community and will value it in my future college/career/etc choices.
On Missions:
I think we all learned that you can do missions anywhere including home. For me in a college atmosphere, it will look like being a light for Christ on campus and in every opportunity I’m blessed to be in.
On Intimacy:
On this trip, I grew into a much more personal relationship with God. I was able to see how He loves and cares about each of us in such a unique and personal way. I changed my view of God as more of an authority to more of a loving Father.
My favorite stat from their survey:
100% said that going on Semesters was a beneficial experience for their life and relationship with the Lord.
The perfect in-summary quote:
I now have a greater view of God’s character and His great power. I experienced the Bible come to life in a new way and have seen how purposeful God is. I learned more about the importance of living missionally.
I hope that is encouraging to you! This is just a small snippet of what I have the honor of being a part of here at Adventures.
Now moving on to some of the new things that have been going on! In the past few months we have been working on revamping all of our programs. The focus of this has been to make things more sustainable both for our participants and for our hosts in the field. What do I mean by this? The trip I went on 3 years ago I went to 11 countries in 11 months. While this was an amazing experience and provides opportunities to get young Christians connected to a lot of different ministry experience, it is not practical today both because of travel restrictions and because of the short amount of time a team would have with a host.
Now we have separated our programs into different lengths: 1-4 month trips, 9 month trips, and 11 month trips. The minimum amount of time a team will spend in a country on any of these trips (aside from those that are 1 month) will be 2 months. I’ll be attaching a map of where our teams will be most active with either our bases or ministry partners we’ve been supporting for a long time. Spending more time in a country both allows hosts to invest more time into training and discipling our teams and it allows our teams to have a longer time to build connections with the people they’re ministering to. Some shorter trips also gives more opportunity for people to go. All around it’s a win win! Please take some time to look at the map and pray over the countries we are working in. Also, if you know of anyone interested in missions please send them our way!
Here’s our website: https://www.worldrace.org/
And here’s a video about the new stuff going on: World Race Outreach
Updates about me:
Nothing too crazy has been going on personally. I do have some prayer requests though:
- I am getting close to my more long term fundraising goal. I’m about $250/monthly away! I’d love to get connected to some small groups and more churches to share about what I’m doing.
- I’m hoping to visit at least one of our bases this year for a week or two. Fundraising also helps fund my tickets to go! I’m thinking of either going to our base in Guatemala (which focuses heavily on discipleship and church outreach) or our base in Swaziland (which focuses heavily on medical missions and has its own orphanage).
- I have transitioned into a new role at Adventures. Now I am in admissions where I walk alongside our participants from the point they apply up until the time they leave for the field. I help them with which trip fits what they feel the Lord has called them to, encourage them as they fundraise, and disciple them for the months leading up to their trip. I love this position so prayers for continued fruit!
