An Encounter With Missions

Testimonies from the 2022 Encounter Trip.

In July our team of 18 headed to Chihuahua, Mexico. Chihuahua is home to the Bible school and missionary training for Mexican nationals. Our team went to learn, serve and experience what it takes to reach an unreached people group in Mexico.

A highlight of the trip was the last weekend [we were there]. We sent two teams to two people groups who have been reached with the gospel. All the participants had the opportunity to see the church that God had planted though Ethnos360/Global Partner missionaries and to experience the challenge that there are still around 100 unreached people groups in Mexico who need to hear God’s story of redemption for the first time in their mother tongue. Pray that God would use this trip in the lives of the participants as they ask God to show them where they fit in reaching the unreached.

— Josh and Karen Clark

We just got back from an Encounter trip to the Amazon where we went to help our Brazilian friends receive and host more than 150 young people from all over Brazil for Wayumi, a cross-cultural missions exposure camp. It’s funny how we went to serve, but I think we all were helped in various ways during our time there.

On the Enneagram scale, I am a 6. To those who may not be familiar with Enneagram personality types, it means I am loyal, protective and cautious … in other words, little Miss "Is it safe?” Nothing about the Encounter trip we just took was safe. For my boys and others, it was their big adventurous hearts’ dream come true! For a 6 on the Enneagram scale, it was an exercise in learning to “not be anxious about anything but pray.” If it’s not the large creatures that could eat you, it’s the microscopic bacteria and bugs that you can’t see but feel their effects for weeks. I think of David’s prayer in Psalm 67:7, “God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.” We all want God’s blessing, don’t we? But how often does He bless us, we grow comfortable and then we fear going to the ends of the earth!

I’m thankful to have been a part of this Encounter Trip, for the prayers answered and the chance to step out and see that truly “By awesome deeds in righteousness You will answer us, O God of our salvation, You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of the far-off seas” (Psalm 65:5). There is nowhere in the world we can go that He is not already at work! And when God is with us and for us, we have nothing to fear.

— Sara Royer

We led a group of Ethnos360 Bible Institute students and grads along with our family to help with Wayumi in Brazil. Wayumi is a camp designed to give a glimpse into church planting in a cross-cultural context. The camp took place along the banks of the mighty Amazon River. We worked hard prepping the base, serving tables, cleaning bathrooms and engaging campers.

Many people were challenged to missions, including our own team. I asked most of our team what their favorite experience of the trip was. I was surprised by a common theme in their answers. It wasn’t swimming in the Amazon or shopping in the marketplace in Manaus on our sight-seeing day. Although those were fun things we got to experience, it was the people — the Brazilian and American missionaries, volunteers and campers we met and interacted with. The point of these trips is for participants to encounter new realities and new scenes and to ask the question, “Could I see myself doing this?” The answer from our team was: “If it means linking arms with these guys, then yes!”

— Andrew Royer