Adventures in Missions

Heartbreak in Mexico

October 14, 2010
Adventures
Mission Trip Stories

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...

New Resource for Youth Workers

October 11, 2010
Adventures
Youth Missions

“Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20, The Message) Missions and discipleship go hand in hand, like peanut butter and jelly. What is it about spending a week in the mountains of southern Mexico, sleeping on a dirt floor of a church, singing and listening in a third...

Sight to the Blind: a Real Life Story

Below is an excerpt of Nick Hindes’s account of the Real Life: Kenya team’s encounter with a Maasai man named Mussa: Two weeks have passed since our initial emigration to a country that we previously knew so little about. Eleven days have been spent visiting two very distinct and different tribes: the Maasai and the Turkana. Both live off the beaten track of “normal” civilization, and forgo many modern conveniences in order to preserve culture, heritage, and history. Much of the time has been spent visiting homes and “evangelizing” to those who...

Real Men Go to Matamoros for Missions

September 30, 2010
Adventures
Mission Field Reports

Thirty men – ten young men and twenty not-quite-as-young-anymore men – from Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia went to Matamoros, Mexico with AIM last week. This brotherhood spent five days in Mexico and didn’t waste a minute. They hit the ground running soon after they arrived; their first day, half the group painted while the other half assessed the site where they would build two houses in the squatter community. Early on during the trip, it had been raining but praise God for answering prayers for sunny weather! The men...

AIM Newsletter | Surfing, Perseverance and Wyclef

September 28, 2010
Adventures
Missions Newsletters

In this month’s newsletter: • Thoughts from Our Director • Feature Story • Upcoming Trips • Field Stories :: Surfing the Tension Between Rest & Ministry | Seth Barnes People talk about finding balance in life. I’m not sure what that looks like. It conjures up an image of a tightrope walker carefully moving across a wire. My life doesn’t feel like that. My life feels more like a wave that I’m surfing that curls behind me. I can’t see it, but it’s carrying me...

An Interview: AIM and the NFL Team Up for Swaziland

September 9, 2010
Adventures
Mission Trip Stories

NFL Agent Phil Williams took several NFL players, including Anthony Hargrove (New Orleans Saints), Cornell Green (Buffalo Bills) and George Foster (Cleveland Browns), to Swaziland with AIM. Phil answers some of our questions about the vision trip they took. How did the group come together? Whose idea was it to go Swaziland? Why did you go? It was my idea [to go to Swaziland] but I also knew NFL players, some of African descent, who were interested in going to Africa. I looked at places that would make the most sense; I waited until my wife went there and she said...

Human Trafficking | Three-Year-Old Turned Sex Slave

Written by Marisa Banas (Rodriguez) in 2008, “Three-year-old Turned Sex Slave” is a glimpse at the horrifying nature of human trafficking. Mothers, fathers, and children all across the world are mislead, misguided, and deceived into believing lies straight from strangers. There is a huge importance to educating people on the dangers of human traffickers. What do you see when you look at this picture? Obviously there are four feet, two from an adult and two precious little ones from a toddler. I bet that you would never see or assume the truth behind...

AIM August 2010 Newsletter

AIM August 2010 Newsletter Word from the Director Featured Resource Upcoming Trips Stories from the Field :: Word from our Director – Seth Barnes :: The Faces of Sex Trafficking Statistics and numbers only do so much for me. I know that over a billion people in the world live in extreme poverty, but that does little for my heart in terms of daily life. I need a story to relate, a face to remember. But once I have that face, once my heart breaks for a single person, I can’t forget it. It’s no longer an issue; it’s a human life. ...

My Summer as Seth Barnes’ Apprentice

August 30, 2010
Adventures
Missions (General)

My father, Douglas Drevets, graduated from Wheaton College. His freshman year of college he reconnected with an old friend from middle school summer camp, Seth Barnes. They quickly became fast friends. During their stay on campus, along with a motley crew of companions, they staged a noble and prolonged effort to liven the other students’ quality of life with colorful antics such as disrupting chapel, covering toilet seats with plastic wrap (my dad’s idea), and engaging in other acts of public menace. They eventually graduated, were employed at various...

Costa Rica: Building a Stronger Relationship

We send out thousands of young missionaries across the the world every year. Summertime is our busiest season and typically comes with a powerful batch of testimonies. Arnold Lee shares his testimony from his trip to Costa Rica this summer. The original article, pre-translation, can be found here: Korean UMC website: Hello, my name is Arnold Lee and I recently returned from a 2 weeks missions trip to Costa Rica. I’d like to share some of my experiences as well as some of my new found feelings coming back from an international missions trip. Prior to...

Gwapa Ka: You are Beautiful

August 25, 2010
Adventures
Missions (General)

Cora Healey traveled to the Philippines this summer, with AIM’s Ambassador program. They got the opportunity to work in slums of Manila and she shares some of her experience below. Our team had the opportunity to go with Cebu City Alliance Church (CCAC) to feed and teach a Bible story to a group of children in a village in the city. Once we were done teaching, the kids lined up to be served food and I stood off to the side to watch. There was a little girl kneeling down in the dirt next to me and I knelt down and attempted to ask her what her name was....

The Sex Trade in the United States

At AIM, we talk a lot about the sex trade. With trips regularly going to India, Thailand, and other locations in Southeast Asia, it’s an issue we encounter quite regularly. So, we try to prepare our participants for the heart-breaking situations they’ll encounter — how to minister to young girls and boys who have been sold into prostitution, how to bring healing to little ones who have been forced to perform unspeakable acts. Just this last week, our friend Tom Davis, president of Children’s HopeChest and author of the book Priceless, visited a...

Author: Adventures