In 2022 the AIM S. Asia base was able to move back into the country to continue leading on the ground.  We started a new discipleship method training amongst all of our church plants (around 900) called Discovery Bible Studies (DBS) to help people read the Bible for themselves.  We also launched our first Child Care Point which has started helping 25 children in an impoverished tribal village.  We are giving them one quality meal, tutoring, and mentorship daily, using our church structure as a shelter.  We have two more centers ready to go as soon as we get funding.  Our National Missionaries have continued discipling and ministering in the rural villages of our district, baptizing 1,668 new believers and dedicating 40 new church buildings!

1,376 Child Sponsorships

Children are the future leaders of their country. They are best situated for success in stable families and thriving communities. In 2022, we were blessed with 135 new sponsorships which include 8 sponsored children in the recently added program in South Asia. The child sponsorship program in Eswatini and South Asia is not only transforming the lives of children, but strengthening families and communities as opportunities for personal growth and practical skills are available to them. The beauty of these programs is every child that attends receives all the CarePoint or after-school facility has to offer, regardless of sponsorship status. We have many children who would love to have a sponsor, or Special Friend, to encourage them along their journey. 

Our child sponsorship programs include almost 1,400 kids that have a Special Friends sprinkled throughout the United States and Canada. This program allows for sponsors to not only invest in the child’s basic needs, but provides an individual avenue to write letters of encouragement to these beautiful children. This ministry opens up a world of possibilities for children and their families and helps them to find hope for their future. Through the discipleship lessons and family strengthening programs at the CarePoints in Eswatini and the after-school programs in South Asia, hundreds of people have come to know and follow Christ. Our prayer is they will share their experiences with their friends and become connected to their local church to continue growing spiritually within their communities. 

After years of investment into our Eswatini ministry, we are seeing the fruit of the next generation rising up to give back to their CarePoints and communities. 

Sponsorship is not an end product, but a first step toward self-sustainability.

Semesters had an incredible year and saw some amazing ministry fruit!. Our 2022 participants have been more eager than ever, and they’ve carried a resolve unlike any we’ve seen before.

For the first time, in January  Semesters launched an alumni trip to the 10/40 window. This group was on fire for God! They saw many salvations and healings as they traveled from Montenegro to Kyrgyzstan, Jordan, Egypt and Romania. 

We  increased the length of Semesters  training, bringing in the team for a full two weeks of training before Launch and we saw lots of fruit with this change! This Semester’s group was more unified and focused on the overall ministry vision of Adventures in Missions more than ever before! 

On February 24th Russia invaded Ukraine, and Adventures in Missions sprung into action,  partnering with our alumni serving the Ukrainian orphan crisis and  with trusted ministries in Eastern Europe  to provide assistance & financial aid to the vulnerable Ukrainian people.

We raised more than $84,747 for our brave brothers and sisters in Ukraine, taking many truckloads containing multiple tons of food and supplies to the front lines. 

The initial funds went to the most urgent need: fuel to help evacuate refugees, supplemental food for the orphanages, food and supplies for vulnerable families and IDPs, and bandwidth to mobilize human resources and teams from Adventures in Missions to serve in every way God leads.

The headlines from Ukraine forecast a war that is going to continue for some time. So many Ukrainians are going through this winter without heat or a reliable source of food.

But, despite all of this, we believe that the future is bright in Ukraine and will continue to invest in it. Thanks for partnering with us to bring hope to a nation that so desperately needs it.

Every Spring & Fall, Beauty for Ashes hosts Facilitator Trainings – and this year our trainings were hosted in the USA, Guatemala, Italy and India!

Beauty for Ashes shares God’s restoration with women through ministry, discipleship, and training. The depth of God’s redemption in their own story at our retreats compels women to come to our training to acquire new tools and skills that enables them to host their own retreats in their communities. In the words of one of our alumni, “It’s too good to keep it to myself! I must give away what God has given me at the retreat!”

We hosted 28 retreats in Lesotho, Honduras, Costa Rica, Rwanda, Haiti, Albania, Colombia, Guatemala, South Asia, Italy, Romania, Greeley, CO, Gainesville, GA, Clinton, MI, Meeker, CO, Bloomfield NM, Winder, GA, Hammond, LA, Waxahachie, TX, White Plains, NY, Gaithersburg, MD, Dothan, AL, Bradenton, FL, Phoenix, AZ, Cumming, GA, Okeechobee, FL, Alpharetta, GA, and Henry, IL

Beauty for Ashes by the numbers:

2,719 Women impacted by Beauty for Ashes

216 Women facilitates a Beauty for Ashes Gathering

74 Women trained

283 Retreats & Gatherings

In May, we welcomed back our 2021 participants to our campus for a final debrief. This was our first time having a final debrief at our headquarters in Gainesville, GA and we saw huge success. We were better able to transition them back to American culture and were able to provide them with higher levels of support and training for their transition into their next season. 

We had this same group back to our campus in August for another event called R&R (Reunion and Revival, formerly called Project Searchlight). During R&R, we check in after a few months of reentry off the international missions field. This is when the alumni are really in need of some soul care and encouragement to continue to align their lives with Christ and spur them on for Kingdom living! 

Later in the Fall,  Gap Year launched 110 Racers and leaders to the nations after six weeks of training at our headquarters in Gainesville, GA and serving with our domestic partners in Kentucky and North Carolina.  We have seen great fruit with our extended training model! Through teaching, team building, debriefing, and discipleship, Gap Racers are more equipped to serve than ever before.

It’s been an amazing year! We’ve been aggressively working to partner with God, while at times, practicing caution with our participants. It’s an art that we’ve grown well acquainted with.

Between making adjustments due to COVID, responding to the tornado in Mayfield, Kentucky and Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers, Florida, God has been using devastating circumstances to establish His Kingdom. We are thrilled that we get to be a part of what He is doing!

Last year we were able to invite over 1,100 people into His movement as we supported communities in Hilton Head, Mayfield, New Orleans, Chicago, North Georgia, Bismarck, Springfield, New York City, Manchester, Asheville, New Mexico, Rural Mississippi, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.

Our volunteers helped in a variety of ways including, disaster relief, working in homeless shelters, native american ministry, refugees relief, prayer ministry, evangelism, addiction and recovery support, sports outreach, vacation bible school, serving adults with disabilities, construction, senior adult ministry, feeding the hungry, community development, and urban ministry.

During our time in Mayfield, Kentucky, we had 300 volunteers respond and dedicated 4,134 hours of disaster relief to this hard hit area. Our teams saved the city $57,800. In Fort Myers, we are planning to mobilize over 1,000 people in that city alone to aid in the rebuilding efforts!

Thank you for joining us in this work. The world is a better place because of it.

Short Term Missions By the Numbers:

27,700 total hours of service

48 mission trips

1,108 people mobilized

41 project leaders – 13 sent for the first time

What an amazing year for the ministry in Eswatini! We continue to serve thousands of orphans and vulnerable children in forty different communities through feeding, discipleship, medical care, and school fees. Our staff works tirelessly to bring the love and word of God to strengthen these children’s bodies, souls, and spirits. 

Our Whole-life Sustainability Campus, Umdoni Farm, is one way we build sustainability into our ministry. This 70-acre farm is committed to training young leaders and families to be the change their country needs. One large project we completed was the building of student classrooms and housing. We can house up to 20 leadership students in their Year One course and train them in self-leadership, servant leadership, and spiritual formation. Along the way, they help manage the farm and learn practical skills for a sustainable life. 

Family Strengthening is an outreach program we started this year for the families of the children who attend our CarePoints. We are blessed with a new missionary to our staff who moved full-time to Eswatini toward the end of 2022 to help us invest even more deeply into these families. We plan to help them become physically, spiritually, and emotionally more sustainable. Many families suffer from the effects of poverty and disease. There is a lot of work to do – but we are confident in the vision the Lord gave us to address these complex issues of poverty. The family pictured is an example of just one family we work with.

We are so grateful for the love and support from our friends in the US and Canada who faithfully give and our committed staff on the ground in Eswatini. We deeply desire to join God in what He is doing in the lives of our friends in Eswatini. And we believe He is doing a work in us as well – to heal broken lives and to bring glory to himself. 

September 28th Hurricane Ian hit Fort Myers, Florida as a Category 4 Hurricane with 150 mph winds. When we first arrived in Florida, the situation was chaotic. Traffic lights were out, power was limited in areas, and cell service was spotty. There were trees on top of houses, houses blown apart, and flooded furniture and debris littering streets. The scale of the devastation was overwhelming.

We focused disaster relief efforts in Harlem Heights, located 4.5 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. It has never flooded in the 70+ years it’s been a community, so almost no one had flood insurance. FEMA money will help but isn’t nearly enough. We established an Adventures Base and the first phase focused on tarping damaged roofs, cutting downed trees, removing debris and belongings from houses, gutting the homes to above the water line, and mold remediation. This left homes and residents outside of imminent danger as their houses would not be consumed by mold. The Base is currently starting phase two in Harlem Heights: restoration and rebuilding. 

Partnerships and teams are developing daily and it is exciting to see how God is going to meet the needs of our community here as well as those who are faithfully answering God’s call to serve. Our rainbow board has 28 tangible needs written on it and of those, 21 are crossed off as being answered through prayer! Each day we add new things and each day we cross them off! We currently have 391 volunteers committed to serving in 2023 and that number is growing.

Adventures Fort Myers by the Numbers:

• Assessed 314 homes
• Helped 136 families
• Mobilized 150+ volunteers
• 391 volunteers coming in 2023
• Partnered with local authorities and organizations to scope relief across the entire Harlem Heights community

In October  2022, our World Racers traveled back to India – the first time  since March 2020!   Over the course of the yearn our participants served alongside our long-term strategic partners in 19 different countries: Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Peru, India, Turkey, Romania, Albania, Georgia, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Jordan, Kosovo, South Africa, Eswatini and Lesotho. 

These World Racers are finishing their year-long journey with a deep desire and passion to reach people for the Kingdom of God wherever they go next. Many of them are continuing their journeys with us by leading new World Race squads and Semesters teams, or joining us at Center for Global Action (our discipleship training program). We are also seeing an increase of desire within our alumni to go back on the field as long term missionaries. 

In 2022, Adventures Guatemala discipled Guatemalan young adults, training them for ministry and long term missions. In August, we hosted a Young Adult Mission and Ministry Camp for our ministry partners and their leaders and 50+ Guatemalan young adults attended. For 48 hours we were privileged to pour into these leaders talking through forgiveness, intimacy with God, team unity, and commissioning, and calling. What a powerful weekend we had just loving and pushing these Guatemalans into more of what the Lord is calling them to be and do!

In September, we held a 1-month discipleship and mission training intensive for anyone who felt called to missions. With the help of several partners and churches, 20 Guatemalan young adults came to our base for the training. We are now intentionally discipling 15 of them with plans to send them into the world in the next two years.

In November, we held a worship and mission weekend event inviting all of our Intensive students, our ministry hosts leaders and staff, as well as pastors and their staff. We hosted 115 young adults for 3 days. It was incredible. God is raising up Guatemalan young people to be the next wave of missionaries, and we will begin to see this come about in the next few years.

Together with our World Racers and their supporters, we raised more than $8,000 for Christmas packages for Cambodian students – almost double of our goal! We were able to distribute Christmas gifts to every child in the village who came to our Christmas party! They received a drawstring backpack filled with school supplies, a water bottle. personal hygiene items, two school uniforms, and treats.

The Cambodia base is active in four rural villages about 50 km outside of Siem Reap City. Our Khmer staff have completed social work training are teaching English and Bible, visiting house to house to determine family needs, and feeding the people in the village a nutritious meal once a month. 

We have baptized 8 new believers since September! We also hosted a World Race Squad from October to January. The squad helped teach 5 day clubs in each village where we presented the wordless book daily. We ended the club by hosting a movie night and showing the Jesus film for Children. The children were so excited to see the Bible stories they have been learning come to life on the screen. Several children prayed to accept Christ after the presentation.

During 2022, we also held two health/dental clinics and were able to provide free checkups and medicine to over 500 people!

We are also excited to be starting a fish farming pilot project to help families become more sustainable. We are partnering with a family by helping them develop a business plan, budget the finances, and give expert advice. The goal is to have a successful fish farm in each of the four villages where we serve. This will provide a food source for the area, but also provide jobs to help sustain income for families.