Updates: Steadfast After the GOAL!

Hello Family and Friends! 

Praying peace and joy over all of you as I write this update. The world has changed. Many hard things have sprung up but also many good things. I hope that you all are clinging hard to the Lord. He has been the only thing sustaining me nowadays. (As it should be.) I pray that each of you is consuming yourself with prayer and reading the Word of God. It truly is a light unto our feet! 

Y-Squad & E-Squad Closeout! 

As I mentioned in my previous update, I had two squads return to the USA mid March due to borders closing in responses to the spread of COVID. We spent the last few months debriefing and transitioning them off the field virtually. Even though technology is an amazing tool that allows us to connect easily at a distance, it still doesn’t compare to face to face intentional interaction. We decided it was finally time to regather as individual squads in order to fellowship, spur one another on into more of Christ and say proper goodbyes and closing statements to each other that we were unable to do during their hastened return to the US in March. 

Early August I headed to Colorado Springs to meet up with Y-Squad (my August 2019 squad)! One of our team members was getting married there so we decided to meet a few days earlier to connect. We helped each other process our last few months, worshiped, dug into the Word together, and just enjoyed each other’s company. It was a very refreshing time together for those who could make it! 

Y-Squad Hiking in Colorado Springs!

Looking good at a Y-Squad wedding! (Except me with my eyes closed! Go figure!)

The last week of August I set off to see E-Squad (my January 2020 squad) in Dallas! Since this squad was only three months into their eleven, many of them are choosing to go back out internationally in January 2021 (our first aim to launch internationally). However, since not everyone will be relaunching we wanted to close out well and spend time fellowshiping and celebrating all that God did while we were together and has continued to do in our lives while we have been apart. Even though many things have been hard. God has been moving BIG time in their lives: family members accepting Christ for the first time, friends getting to hear the gospel, people being healed and much more all right here in the USA! It was a wonderful time of celebration and refocus for all! 

Worship time with E-Squad. Such sweet time together! 

The Last Hurrah of E-Squad in DALLAS!

Ministry Shift- International to Domestic 

Obviously COVID-19 makes international mission work difficult right now. However, we have seen such an incredible enthusiastic drive within Adventures in Missions to be creative and flexible in order to continue to share the good news of Jesus and disciple His church unto Him!  Over the summer we have launched first ever month long domestic trips for college students. We had two groups working with local ministry partners to help in COVID feeding programs and much more in both Wisconsin and North Carolina. Even though these trips were only one month long and in the USA, we still saw tremendous fruit from their experience! The participants still grew in a lot of the ways we desire to see while on the field. Here’s just a few of their feedback comments from their ministry time:

“I didn’t believe Christianity could be this good.”

“I heard God’s voice for the first time.” 

“Life-changing.”

“This changed my perspective on what it looks like to love and follow Jesus.”

 

Domestic Ministry Trip in Wisconsin- Feeding Program

Domestic Ministry Trip North Carolina- Community Outreach

Another shift has been with our Gap Year World Race program. This program is nine months long for 18-20 year . Instead of launching them internationally in September as we normally do we brought them onto our campus in Gainesville, Georgia for a 3.5 month discipleship program! There are a lot of COVID regulations we have to follow in order to do it but as I said earlier, we are willing to do whatever it takes to remain active in the great commission! We are very excited to host our Gap Year participants on our campus and teach them how to connect and know God more for themselves in order to be better equipped for when they do serve internationally in January! 

Our Gap Year Leaders Ready for Action! <3

COVID Regulation Training for Gap Year to be on Campus

Adventures in Missions Shifting and Restructuring

There have been two pretty big changes within Adventures in Missions during the last few months. About mid-April it was announced that due to financial difficulties we needed to reduce staff. We launched into one-on-one virtual meetings to find out if we were being offered our jobs or if we were being let go. If we were offered a job then we had a few days to decide if we were ‘opting in’ or not. 

The ‘opt in’ was due to another caveat that meant we were saying ‘yes’ to increasing our fundraising amount for our salaries. The previous structure of Adventures in Missions was that employees fundraised a portion of their salaries, while the other portion came from the ‘revenue’ our programs bring in. (Aka the participants fundraising amounts as a part of our overhead costs.) The idea is that if we are supported by our own fundraising amounts then the organization would be more stable as a whole. This way we will not be reliant upon how many participants apply for our trips. It won’t matter if there are 50 or 10 people who sign up, we will be stable and will all have jobs. If God sends me a squad of 12 people instead of 30, then great. Let’s go change the world with 12 people! We all know that has happened before!! 😀

Fortunately, I was asked to remain on staff. I took the few days to pray about it but I knew pretty quickly that God was telling me to stay. The few days in prayer only confirmed that direction.  I have been working with Adventures in Missions since 2015. In those almost six years I have been transformed and have seen transformation in hundreds of lives all around the world. I never would have dreamed to be in a position in the body of Christ that gets to solely focus on advancing the Kingdom of God here on earth. I am blessed and honored to remain a part of this ministry!

Partner with Me!

As I say ‘yes’ to continue to serve God through working with Adventures in Missions, please ask the Lord in what ways you are to partner with me in this ministry! There are many ways to partner with me. 

Pray: Pray for the heart’s of the youth to be gripped by the Lord! That they experience His love in a way that propels them into a life of loving and serving Him. Pray that our presence abroad will be fruitful to speak the truth of who He is to all! 

Follow: Subscribe to my blog to receive updates from the field. Journey along with me as I follow God to many distant lands! 

Financial Monthly Partnership: Reap the heavenly treasures of the harvest with me as a financial monthly partner!

Monthly partnership allows me to focus on the task at hand instead of constantly needing to fundraise to keep my job. For the ‘harvest is plentiful but the workers are few’! Rather than ‘worrying about what I will eat, and what I will wear’, I get to rely on the Lord and see His Kingdom come! This is the biggest gift I could receive: to see others go farther and deeper with God! Thank you so much for your prayers, encouragement and financial partnership to make this possible!

I pray that you will also say your ‘yes’ to whatever partnership God lays on your heart!