Summer Experience Improvements

Here's a few ideas that have been cooking in my head about how we improve our summer experiences. Some of them may come to fruition and some may not.

+ Teams do a bit of language study as part of their prep. Seems obvious but we totally missed this one.
+ Require reference letters for leadership roles. Another duh. Related: press our network for info on leaders that our weak ties might know.
+ Adjust applications to visit the area of humility.
+ Get a filled out application and reference letters for people we send to partners. Send these documents to the partners.
+ Each team has someone that prays. That really really prays - and that helps the team pray.
+ Each team also has someone that is in charge of logistics - where do we need to get to and when and how. If you have traveled with me, you know the gap I'm talking about is mine. I'm easily lost and this summer, I got lost trying to find a park that was 50 feet in front of me [to my credit, those were small European streets] My wife is a huge help in this area but sometimes, combined with everything else, it's a lot.
+ And from a process improvement evaluation in the Fall of 2007 - a Post trip debriefing packet - every student gets something to ponder at 2, 4, 6 week intervals after they come home.

The low water mark for emerging global student leaders gets higher every year. This type of kid gets smarter, more experienced, more passionate and has a greater bias for action every year. What doesn't change is their desire to be engaged in areas such as cross cultural leadership, calling, vocation, and the personal journeys of world class global leaders. They push us to be better and that is a good thing.