Schools exist but the quality of education is low. Churches exist but the pull to voodoo worship is strong. An underperforming clinic makes it hard to treat the medical needs of the community. Clean water is virtually nonexistent.

One of our partners, The 410 Bridge, has stepped into this community and is hoping to help community members develop a plan to meet their physical and spiritual needs. Throughout the year our church attendees will be able to go and work with the community to start a water project, implement teaching programs, and more.

Our small team of eight students will lead the way for our trips to Haiti in 2012. Led by Carly Westcott, they are each stepping out in faith to raise the $1900 needed to get there, preparing their hearts for what they will see, and asking others to support them as they go.

George and Dorothy Juzdan are some of the people that are coming alongside this team, not only financially, but prayerfully as well. After attending a globalX orientation in the fall, they were considering the three ways they could get involved with globalX this year. Give, go, or pray. Unable to go themselves this year, they decided to see what teams they could help, not knowing anyone specific going on a trip. Through a series of conversations we were able to connect George and Dorothy with Carly and her team.

We believe people who give financially and pray for our team members are part of our teams. Without them the “goers” could not go, and without them the people we have the privilege of serving would have less hands to help them accomplish their goals. George and Dorothy are helping the community of Bohoc gain access to clean water. George and Dorothy are helping eight students get involved in personal ministry, one of the five things typically mentioned that grow a person’s faith (http://www.northpoint.org/messages/five-faith-catalysts).

Below is a photo of the team’s leader, Carly, with George and Dorothy, who represent the rest of the team that are supporting the students financially and through prayer, anxiously waiting to hear what their team experienced and the lives that were changed, so that they can all celebrate together. Their team still needs others to come alongside them. Will you join George and Dorothy?

To give, visit GOglobalX.org/give. To pray for them, pick a person in the picture and commit to praying for them in the following ways:
1. To complete their fundraising
2. For physical health during the trip
3. For healthy relationships among the “goers”
4. For them to experience spiritual growth as a result of being part of the team and this trip
5. For them to meet some of the physical needs of the people of Bohoc, in order to remove any barriers to the community members experiencing growth in their relationship with Jesus Christ

http://vimeo.com/29534581

We can’t wait to fill up every available spot in 2012, so act now, because we have less than 1000 spots to fill!

My name is Rachael Walkup and I have just returned from an 11-day mission in Battambang, Cambodia. I am 29 years old, married, and have an almost 2-year-old son. I have been to Cambodia once before, three years ago. I knew this trip would be different, but I was blown away with all God taught me.

Just to give you a brief overview of Cambodia—the country is predominantly Buddhist, with a growing percentage of Christians. The most recent figures show the country as 2 percent Christian. It is a very poor, third-world country; 30 percent of the people there live on less than $1.25 a day. When I close my eyes, I can still see the faces of people living in dirt on the side of the road, kids running around naked, and most people without shoes. During many long bus rides, there were rice fields as far as your eyes could see. It’s so interesting to me that God made the land perfectly flat and rainy in order to grow the rice well.

This trip was planned as a justice and mercy trip to an orphanage. The plan was to take the kids to the beach, put on a businessman’s dinner, take the kids out to eat, put on a carnival, teach four days of curriculum, play games, and make some awesome arts and crafts! God put together a team of eight, including me, in January. Once we started meeting in February, the plan began to unfold. God prepared each of us for the trip. We even did a 21-day Daniel fast together to prepare our hearts and minds for the mission. Crazy to think we had almost six months of training for an 11-day mission trip!

Okay, this leads me to the point that we leave our families and friends behind to travel over 24 hours to Cambodia. Some people may think this is a big sacrifice, but life is about walking on a balance beam, not clinging to it. Who wants to live a boring life? We are to depend on God completely and spread the name of Jesus around the world! That’s what the call of missions is all about. Jesus’ final words were to “go and make disciples of all nations,” (Matthew 28:19). While in Cambodia, that’s what we did.

We spent our days with the kids—praising our Father in heaven. We let our lights shine in Cambodia, no matter where we were. We saw how bold the kids were in their faith. Many days were spent sharing Jesus with other kids in the community, sharing and serving others, and praising God nonstop. What an encouragement it was to the whole team and to me. Even in a 10-½ hour bus ride, there wasn’t a single complaint from the kids. I saw Jesus in each and every one of them.

To sum up the trip in a few words, it would be “life-changing.” It’s impossible to be the same after a trip like that. It’s physically difficult, emotionally challenging, and heart-changing. God taught me to trust him through the difficult seasons because he has put me there. He also taught me to be BOLD in my faith. Why am I so concerned about making someone uncomfortable? I love the Lord with all my heart and I want others to see that.

God also showed me how incredibly rich I am. I just didn’t realize it until my eyes saw and my heart felt what it’s like to live in Cambodia—babies without diapers, kids eating only rice for dinner, adults walking around in dirty clothes and without shoes—just to name a few.

I wanted to go on a trip to the farthest place from home where I might be the most uncomfortable. God chose Cambodia for me. And he changed my life. Step out on the ledge and let God chose somewhere for you. You never know what is on the other side. But I can say for me, “It’s life-change.”

2012 trips departing between January and August will be posted online (www.GOglobalX.org/go) the last week in September of 2011. After that you’ll have just four weeks to apply for a January through April trip, so if any of those trips are for you then make sure you get online right away to apply! For summer trips you will have until mid-January to apply.

Wanna know how we pick our teams?

Team members are picked by each team’s leader. Once the deadline for applying is reached, they comb through all of the applications and create their teams based on various factors. For example, a construction trip will need to include skilled laborers, and a trip to train group leaders needs to include… well… group leaders who have several years of experience.

What happens if you aren’t picked to be on a team?

If a team fills up we will redirect you to other trips that have space and see if any of those peak your interests. Last year one of my team members had applied for a trip to work at an orphanage, and she was not selected because there were way too many applicants. Fortunately, she was redirected to my trip, since she is a group leader and that’s what my trip needed. The dates of the two trips were the same, so we asked if she would be interested in joining our team and we are so glad she said yes. We are so glad that the first trip she applied for filled up, because she would not have been on our team if that had not happened.

What types of trips do we do?

In 2012 we will be sending our trips that help churches who are trying to be places that unchurched people love to attend, and we will be working with improving the lives of children, both physically and spiritually, in various places around the world.

We hope you’ll join us!

I went to Brazil with a team earlier this summer. We just got back together on Sunday night to catch up with our team since the trip, but we made it a family affair. I loved watching spouses connect with the other team members and with each other, and seeing the kids play together and develop new friendships was awesome. Going on a trip isn’t just about the preparation beforehand, or the process while you are overseas, but it includes that and everything that happens after you return. Our kids are more aware of what is happening internationally now, and our spouses have made connections that would never have happened without this globalX trip. It’s one more way to make a church, or even five campuses, seem smaller and all part of one big family.

Part of our Brazil team family (minus our teammate Sarah!)

The Problem: How do we start small groups at Metro, the high school environment of God’s Design Church in Chisinua, Moldova?

Contributing Factors: 60% of the students are not believers.

A Solution: Alyona, the Service Programming Director, came up with an idea for the summer.  Metro divided the students into 5 teams of 20, each led by a staff member, for an 8-week competition called “Love, Fun, Rock and Roll” to teach them to express love while experiencing community. The five groups discuss questions given to them at Metro after Andre speaks, and during the week they do loving things for others, sending pictures of what they do, such as passing out balloons or ice cream to kids. Points are given based on how the students serve others, and at the end of the summer the winning team gets to spend a weekend at a huge house with a pool, a DJ, and food!

The Outcome: Three weeks ago they launched this at Metro and it was the best Metro they ever had, and the next week was even better with energy and excitement from giving the teams assignments for the competition and discussing what they had been doing so far. Students who were not friends are becoming friends!  This living room environment is changing Metro. When the competition is over, they will take the teams and form small groups out of them this fall!

This entry is written by a guest writer. Kris recently led a trip to Estonia to help with a camp for students. We love this story because it reminds us that relationships are key and can be a catalyst for change. (Listen to the message on Providential Relationships in the Five Things to Grow Your Faith series for more about this. http://www.northpoint.org/messages/five-faith-catalysts)

I want to tell you about a 14-year old Estonian named Sander.

I met Sander the day before we headed off for camp.  Sander wasn’t really the quiet type, but seemed a little reserved at first because most Estonians don’t really open up around people they don’t know that well.  As the day went on, he got more and more comfortable around some of us Americans.  We all ended up playing soccer that day with a bunch of youth in Tartu and even took them for dinner after the game.  Sander joined us for dinner and was really starting to come out of his shell.

He mentioned how he wanted to come to summer camp, themed Recycle Your Life, but he had prior commitments.  He had to be in Tallinn, the capital two hours away, for a soccer camp for the whole week of Recycle Your Life camp.  He seemed a little bummed that he had to go to soccer camp instead, but knew he would see us again before we left Estonia.  I hear he is a phenomenal soccer player!

After camp, we returned to Tartu and had the rest of the day to just relax, explore the city, or do whatever we wanted to do.  Sander ended up coming around just for a short bit that night to say hello and see how camp went, but it was nothing serious.  The next morning we had our debrief, where the American team meets with the Estonian church leadership team to discuss how camp went, etc.  We all had lunch after debriefing and then had free time until that evening when we would have the camp after-party.  Sander met up with me after lunch and asked if he could join in hanging out until the after-party (even though he didn’t attend camp).  So, he did.

It was just Sander, Hanna and myself walking around Tartu.  I asked them to take me to a chocolate store so that I could buy my supporters some chocolate … because we all know that Estonia has the best chocolate, EVER!  He helped me pick out chocolate for my supporters and I even bought him a bar just to show my appreciation.  After that, we went to the mall to kill some time so that Hanna could shop and meet up with some friends.  While the girls shopped, Sander and I just sat on a bench in the mall hanging out and talking.  We talked a little bit about everything and were really just getting to know each other.

Sander came to the after-party because he had some classmates there.  He had been to the church in Estonia a time or two, but wasn’t committed.  The after-party ended and I grabbed a guy that was in my group in camp to pray for him (his name is Rauno).  We came out from a room from praying and Sander was standing there in complete tears.  I was actually very shocked to see this because Estonians don’t show that much emotion and I had not gotten to know him as much as I would have liked to.  There was even a girl that is a part of the church leadership team that saw this. She knows Sander and asked him if he was seriously crying.  Sander got down and begged me to not leave.  It was a huge blow to the heart (and mind).  This was my third trip to Estonia within a year and it gets harder and harder to leave that place every time.  I explained to Sander that it wasn’t that I wanted to leave at all, but told him I would definitely be back to see him.  I then asked him if I could just pray for him.  He said yes.

I took him in a room where it was just the two of us and no noise.  He was still in tears and I was pretty teared up myself as I prayed.  As soon as I was done praying, I put my arm around him and told him how much I was going to miss him.  Sander then looked me square in the eyes and told me how he is not a Christian and how he is really unsure about what he believes, but asked me if he could pray for me.  I thought … uhhh … YES!  Of course you can, dude!  In that moment I felt God working in Sander’s heart.  God met us where we were.  Sander got real open and honest with God in his prayer.  He prayed to God telling him how he felt purpose for mine and his relationship.  He told God that he knew there was a plan for our relationship and how amazed he was that there was someone across the world that had so much in common with him.  He then prayed for safe travels for our team and to bring me back safely to Estonia to see him.  It was a real honest and open prayer from a 14-year old who even started his prayer by telling God he wasn’t exactly sure what he believes.

We said our goodbye and Sander asked me to try to get him some jawbreakers if I could.  He saw them in a movie once and wanted some really bad.  I told him I would try to get him some, somehow.

As soon as I stepped off the plane back in the States, I had only 1 voicemail and it was from Sander.  He had gotten my phone number when we were hanging out in the mall just for fun.  He left me a voicemail saying that he really missed me, that he loves me and that if I was still in Amsterdam for a layover, to hop the next plane back to Estonia.  He then called me the next day and we briefly spoke.  He just wanted to tell me about his favorite band he was going to see in concert in Germany.  He called me two days later and I told him when his parents see the phone bill, they are going to kill him, so he told me it was real quick.  Sander, in that moment, got real serious and told me how much he loves me, misses me, and how he has been praying for me every since I left.

It’s amazing how much I’ve learned from Sander.  A 14-year old boy that says he isn’t a Christian, doesn’t know what he believes, but makes a point to tell me he loves me, misses me, and is praying for me …  that’s a beautiful thing!  And … I’ve already sent jawbreakers! And … I only mention Rauno’s name because he is getting baptized in a few weeks, which is a majorly, awesome deal!

Praying for Sander.

kris