How Lives Were Changed on a High School Mission Trip by Listening to God During a high school mission trip last summer, a team in Guatemala spent an entire day listening to God in prayer.   Since listening prayer is a core value of our ministry, we place a strong emphasis on discerning what God is saying  before we attempt to meet a need. Because this group of students took time to do just that, lives were changed.   The group discussed ways to know that you’re hearing from the Lord and how to test it. Then, they spent the rest of the day going out into the community to...

Five years ago, in Swaziland, our missionaries spent Thanksgiving day in ministry.  Bethany and Keith, who is Canadian, taught some children at the carepoint in Mihlanga about Thanksgiving then asked the students what they were thankful for.    Here are a couple responses from the students, first in this trip report (under the section by Katy Howry): One twelve year old boy answered, “I am thankful for my grandmother.” His grandmother is blind and bedridden, and he cares for her. She is his only living adult relative. He is thankful for her, [even though she] cannot...

Here’s a story of heartbreak by Naomi Skeltis from a mission trip to Mexico this summer:       I hadn’t seen her in two years. The last few months she had been popping in my head so I really wanted to visit her. My team and I showed up at her door. I yelled and she came out. The look on her face told me something was wrong. I went up to her and she fell into my arms crying.   She started weeping, so I asked her what was wrong. She said her husband was gone. In my mind, I thought she meant he had left her for another woman or something. Then she continued on...

Kelly Chadwick recently posted the following to her blog:   On a Saturday afternoon in 1806, five college students from New England met to pray for the people living in Asia.  People who didn’t know Jesus.  And when it started to rain, they simply moved behind a haystack and continued praying.  They asked the Lord for direction and vision; they cried out on behalf of people who had never heard his name.  And so “The Haystack Prayer Meeting” began the modern mission movement.  It was the first documented time anyone in America ever made a...

As the calendar changes to September and schools settles into routine, the summer mission trip season draws to a close for another year.  It was an amazing time, filled with stories of adventure and life-change.  To give the summer season a proper goodbye, we wanted to highlight some of our favorite stories from the field.  Here is a list of the Best Blogs of Summer 2009!     Short Term Mission Trips (The Edge):     Trip Reports from Costa Rica Costa Rica, Central America     Door to Door in Lomo de Corvina Peru, South America     Child...