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Featured story:
Taking One for Missions
Over the years, thousands of students have sacrificed many things to
serve as summer missionaries .
They have given up lucrative summer jobs, summer classes that would have
allowed them to graduate early, the comforts of home, mom’s home
cooking (after two semesters of cafeteria cooking, or their own) and many
other equally note-worthy items and opportunities.
They have suffered through…Montezuma’s revenge, heat and
humidity…cold and wind… slimy, hard or itchy and strange and
weird - and that’s just the food. The places where it’s eaten
are sometimes hard to stomach, too.
Their beds have ranged from…hammocks…mattresses too hard…mattresses
too soft…no mattresses…to the floor…in one star…two
star…no star and a million star hotels (the last ones had no roofs).
Transportation---from taxis, combis (vans where you can always “fit
one more”…that’s how many you can get in one), buses
(of all sizes…with or without live animals on top) to two- and four-legged
modes of mobility.
All of this with only one thing on their mind…to do ”whatever
it takes” to get the Word to those who have no access to the Gospel.
So, the question is, are you willing to “take one for missions?”
Oklahoma Baptist University student Jennifer Kennedy was this past summer
when she served on a research team in southern Peru. During her team’s
“mid-summer debriefing/r & r” time she followed through
on a challenge issued by a friend back home.
“On the streets in Tupac there were small stands with little aquariums
of frogs that they blend with papaya and other herbal things and it supposedly
helps your brain somehow,” Jennifer wrote. “I picked out my
frog and downed two glasses - which I think now ‘I deserved 2 pizzas,
Rebecca!’”
What Jennifer did was, basically, outrageous, but that is the attitude
summer missionaries need to have to ‘get the job done.
My team was responsible for identifying the “unreached” areas
of southern Peru, Bolivia, northern Chile and northern Argentina and then
advocating for them. Once “identified”, these areas are then
made available to churches and associations in the U.S. and Latin America.
After being adopted by churches, these areas are then engaged by the REAPartners
who evangelize, disciple, train leaders and start churches with an aim
to see a church planting movement born.
Mike Weaver, IMB missionary in Peru said that the REAPSouth Team has chosen
to take a “student volunteer-intensive” approach. "Over
the past five summers (and several semesters) we have used over fifty
student missionaries and there have that many requests for 2006-2007 alone."
Projects are listed on the task website at thetask.org/students/projects.
Jennifer was one of 17 students that served this past summer for REAPSouth.
Her research team of three traveled throughout the area around Lake Titicaca
identifying “fields white unto harvest” while the other 14
students lived on-site serving in concert with stateside partners. Their
“homes for the summer” were small Andean villages where, for
most, the Gospel had never entered. The Lord did many wonderful things
to and through these valiant summer servants.
“As most of you know,” Jennifer shared, “we didn’t
have too many comforts down there; well, pretty much the only familiar
thing I had all summer was my backpack. Most of the other summer missionaries
would probably agree that you experience God in a way that you never have
before when you are forced to give up the things that you hold dear and
those that you think you need. After two months there…I have come
to a better understanding of what it means to rely completely on God for
everything...and from that I have realized my need for Him more and more
everyday.”
For more information on REAPSouth summer missions’ opportunities,
visit www.reapsouth.org. To learn
more about similar ministries contact the International Mission Board
at (800) 999-3113 or visit http://going.imb.org
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