Thursday, June 6, 2013

Orientation prepares 177 students to go

This year's Nehemiah Teams participants -- 177 students from 25 different states -- gathered in Rainsville, Alabama for a five-day orientation to prepare them to go abroad.

This is the largest group of students for NT ever, going to 16 countries across the globe and four areas in the US. 

Orientation gathered students for security training, evangelism training, team building exercises and language learning. Participants attended small country-specific seminars to get information on cultures and religions in addition to generic large group sessions. 


Teams attended a team building training day at a local ropes course that presented teams with a variety of challenges to test team chemistry and collaboration. For example, for one of the challenges the entire team had to fit on a tarp, which was halved in size for each additional round. 

On one of the final nights, local church and family members were invited to a night of praise and worship. 


The Lottie Moon offering was taken up to support IMB long term missionaries, one of whom shared how donations have directly impacted her, her family and her ministry. The night concluded with a powerful message on the salt and the light of the gospel from Matthew 5, encouraging students as they prepared to go on their mission assignments. 

Please pray for these students as they "go, make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19) and find out more about the individual teams by reading the "Meet the Team" posts.