College Student or Missionary??

Bekah Gulledge first sensed a call to missions as an 18-year-old. She believed that meant she would get the training she needed then head overseas to start her missionary work. Little did she know that her involvement in international missions would start right on her college campus in Little Rock. Read more...

A Few Awkward Seconds...

Laurel (left) with Donald & her team mates.

Laurel Carter is one of those who plans to bring a new gospel intentionality to her campus this semester. She spent her summer serving in Rochester, New York, doing ministry in the community and helping a new church plant build relationships.

One day she and her team prayed God would give them someone to talk to, and a little later they started a conversation with a man named Donald who was crossing the street at the same time they were. He invited them to have coffee with him,which led to a nearly four-hour conversation about life and faith.  “We ended up meeting up with him every week,” Carter said.

But God didn’t stop with Donald. He introduced them to some friends, and one day he insisted on giving Carter’s team a monetary gift. After refusing the money at first, they accepted it reluctantly, and almost immediately met up with someone on the street who had come to a local church for food distribution and found it closed. “We gave him the money Donald had given us and found out the man had been to church one time when he was younger and hadn’t been in 52 years,” Carter said. “We got to talk to him and pray over him right there, and he ended up coming to church with us on Sunday. Now he’s joined the church.”

When Carter’s team arrived at the beginning of the summer, there were 10 to 15 people attending the church plant each week; when they left there were 30 to 35.  

Carter, who is a student at UAH, said she feels a burden to pursue friendships back at home the same way she did in Rochester. “It showed me how unintentional I was being back home in Alabama,” she explained. “I feel like a lot of people — they struggle with those awkward moments (of approaching someone to start a new friendship), but it only takes a few awkward seconds to change someone’s eternity.”

--Laurel Carter

True North Interns, Rochester, NY

(Excert from The Alabama Baptist,  8-26-21 edition)

Amazing!!

Where do I even start, this
summer was amazing. The Lord was so faithful this summer. I learned so much this summer about what the next step is for me after I graduate. God is so good!

-Grace
Reaching the Nations, Georgia

Faithful to Provide

the words i could say about this trip and these people... my favorite people.. and the work that the Lord is doing is innumerable, so i’ll say this instead: 

the Lord is faithful to provide

He has shown His provision in these people, in the places and in the work. 

He has proven Himself time and again this summer. from the simplest of requests to make it rain to fully showing us during our last week that we are never going to be useless while doing the Lord’s work, and that we were placed with purpose.

this summer was hard but it was also so dang easy. being away from the american ideals of  what a christian should be... and how i am failing at that every day... and seeing that real-life long-term missionaries are regular people who love God and are simply serving Him somewhere else was good for my soul. 

the Lord is GOOD. & faithful. & our provision. & our rainmaker. & our joy. 

-Karys
Incarnational Missionary Team, Uganda