My Summer 2007 Team

Here are one of the overall directions we are moving towards for this summer. I am leading a team to Hungary and Austria this summer. Not to brag or anything, but I think this is one of the most innovative mission experiences around.

GCC supports a family that are ministering in Italy. Their mission organization does an annual staff conference where all of their staff come to a central location for some relaxation off the field, some investment and some downtime. This summer, my team is going to travel to this conference - happening in Hungary - to assist with all the activities centered around the missionary kids. There is also a possibility that some of our team will split off and assist with the activities for the high school missionary kids, which will be located in Vienna. The distance between Sopron, Hungary [where the staff conference is] and Vienna is only about an hour by car.

I say this is innovative because:
- A local *student* mission team connecting with some missionaries of a world wide missions organization.
- Our students are going to get to impact some families that are out in the field. I suspect some families are going to be fine and some other families are really going to need this break. For them, our students could fill a vital role of encouragement, blessing, a break from their kids, and speaking into their lives. Not only that, but having our students be able to spend time with missionary families is going to be so valuable.
- This missions organization is very cool. Tell you more about them later.
- It's part of our strategy to be connected to our extended body all around the world.
- This is an invite only team. Students that are invited to this trip have significant missions experience, have heavily invested in SPACE and are serious about considering a lifetime in cross cultural ministry.

With regard to another aspect of the trip, D and I have decided to move in the direction of all of us going as a family. Yup, call us either deluded, crazy, all of the above. We think that this is going to be a great experience for our kids and this specific trip is a great environment for our kids to actually assist and play a vital role in the team. Of course, we both know it's not going to be easy. Heck, we have a hard enough time getting them ready to go to the beach, much less Europe. But we believe that the difficult investment now is going to be worth it - the trajectory of their lives will see this summer as a major boundary event.

Leader invitations are en route as are the first round of student invites. Like all of the past teams, this team is slated to be a great one as well. Traveling across the world to hold up some people that are fighting to rescue humanity. I guess we shouldn't expect this to be super easy.

D and I are off for a night - computer free. As always, CourtK, her black belt and our watch dogs are home. Have a great weekend!