RICHMOND — Sponsored by Baptist Collegiate Ministry, GO (Global Outreach) Teams not only provide short-term summer mission immersion experiences for college and university students, but also develop leadership skills and build community through an intensive five-month training process.
Each GO Team is composed of members from multiple schools. This past summer, Virginia Baptist GO Teams traveled to Italy; London, England; and South Africa.
University of Mary Washington student Melissa Shepherd with South African children at the South Africa GO Team's mini-Bible School at Emmanuel Baptist Union Church.
The nine-member Italy GO Team spent one week working with local youth groups throughout southern Italy and a second week creating stained glass windows for a Baptist church in Arricia, a town near Rome.
During the first week, the team met with Italian youth groups in several towns to discuss youth ministry. Through this discussion, both groups were able to compare experiences and to offer support for the challenges each faces in their respective countries.
The second week at Chiesa Cristiana Evangelica Battista of Arricia was organized in response to the church's request for help in decorating their sanctuary windows to look like stained glass. Graphic designer Tim Cook, whose brother Darrell is the Baptist Collegiate minister at Virginia Tech, donated his time and expertise to design the art work and to create full-sized templates, which he and the rest of the team used to transfer and paint the designs onto the four windows.
Tim Cook (center) helps install one of the windows that he designed for the Chiesa Cristiana Evangelica Battista church in Arricia, Italy.
According to Tim Cook, the team had to overcome a number of challenges. “The project ran behind schedule, the initial templates disappeared, and the painting process proved more difficult and more involved than we had planned,” he said. “But the students rose to the challenge. They are a talented bunch and, for me, they were a joy to be around.“
While the Italy GO Team enjoyed warm hospitality and developed new friendships with Italian Baptists, the five members of the London GO Team encountered curiosity, skepticism and even hostility as they witnessed to Muslims on the streets of London. Working with a team of South Africans, they distributed packets containing Arabic New Testaments and the Jesus film in Arabic In preparation for this ministry, team members were coached on how to handle conversations that might arise, taught key Arabic phrases (such as “Free Gift!” or “Free New Testament!”), and reminded of the importance of relying on the Holy Spirit.
Laura Jones offers copies of the Jesus film to Muslims on the streets of London.
“It was incredibly intimidating to stand on busy street corners in a foreign city speaking words in a language I had never spoken before, while fielding stares and questions from Muslims and other Londoners alike,” admitted Laura Jones, a second year student at the University of Virginia. “But Christ granted me a deep abiding peace and strength that opened my eyes to the miracles he was performing on those streets. We passed out many packets, had numerous spiritual conversations, and were given the privilege to stand for Christ.”
One evening Jones and Leanne Sanders, Baptist Collegiate minister at the University of Virginia, had the chance to sit and drink Arabic coffee with an Arab family, talking with them about their lives and exchanging email addresses. “Though we never spoke about Christianity,” said Jones, “I believe simply sitting and talking was our opportunity to show Jesus to them. That is what this trip was ultimately about — allowing Christ's love to speak for itself, both on the streets and in the conversations we had.”
The South Africa GO Team, comprised of four students and team leader Rhonda Nash, the Baptist Collegiate minister at the University of Mary Washington, worked with the Emmanuel Baptist Union Church in the township of Maokeng in the Free State province. In the mornings they visited local primary schools, where they had opportunities to give testimonies in student assemblies, and they accompanied pastor Jeremiah Dube on community visits to the local hospital, a prison, and a day-care center for handicapped children and adults. Each afternoon they taught a mini-Bible school, which included crafts, music, games and Bible stories. Attendance grew from 40 children on Monday to 110 by Friday. Pastor Dube was especially grateful for the team's help in raising community awareness of the church.
For the 19 members of this year's three GO Teams, these summer mission experiences provided opportunities to grow in their relationship to each other and to God as they shared the gospel and the love of Christ with people in other cultures.
In 2008, GO Teams will be traveling to London, South Africa and Macau, and possibly also to Leipzig, Germany, in conjunction with the Baptist World Allliance's Youth Conference.