Every year, the Mid-Atlantic Global Missions team sends 60-100 staff and students overseas to do ministry in our six partnership locations. Part of that ministry experience is a briefing weekend where we train them how to do cross-cultural ministry well, encourage them in the preparation process, and introduce them to their summer teams. We are sending 72 laborers this summer!
The briefing is a lot of work, but my team is passionate about what we do and where we send to, so it is a busy but really fun season. My roles as the conference coordinator included connecting with the camp and handling the contract and payments, coaching the Summer Missions team leaders as they prepared for the weekend and led their teams, setting the schedule and communicating with all of the speakers, preparing fun interactive elements for the few moments of down time, and organizing mounds of information and notes and details. And I got to share my own experiences with crossing cultures during one session. I loved every minute of it!!
One of my favorite responsibilities was my silly little cultural advice spots throughout the weekend. Because we spend the weekend telling our students what to expect in the cultures they will be entering and helping them learn about their own culture and how it may conflict with their host culture, we wanted to share the reverse advice. I gathered information from guidebooks written for people from other cultures who will be traveling to the US. They were pretty funny! I’ll post some on my blog for you.
On Friday night, major storms made travel difficult for almost every one of the attendees, coming from distant locations. The camp flooded, and the only road in and out was covered by rushing water. It was a logistical nightmare, but we prayed and did our best to get the students into the camp. Everyone was tired and soggy that first night. Saturday was a fourteen hour day and Sunday was a five hour day, and almost every moment was jam-packed.
In the end, the students and staff thanked us for helping them prepare well for the summer. We are excited to see God move!
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