From August 13 to 18, 385 young missionaries from America gathered in Chicago for one week of training before heading out all over the world. We call their adventure a “STINT”, for “Short Term INTernational”. 133 of these STINTers are going to East Asia.

With this opportunity comes a huge responsibility as well, to train and equip these young missionaries to serve well, so their time in East Asia is fruitful. In addition to the regular conference that all Stinters going to any location attend, the week was also divided into five “Area Times” where each area of the world trained Stinters on specifically working in that area. They attended sessions including:

• “Why Asia, Why Now”
• “A Balanced Perspective on Security”
• “Movement Building Principles and Practices”
• “Learning a New Language”
• “How does the Gospel speak into your Stint year.”

preparing laptops

We were also able to make sure that every Stinter was equipped to securely operate in a closed country. This is where I got to participate. I joined Keith and Scott (to the left and right of me in the group photo above) in Chicago to prepare each Stinter’s computer for ministry. Each computer was fully encrypted, a secure internet connection was set up, and they were trained how to access their secure email account. We worked crazy hours to get this done – some days we worked from 8am to past midnight. Keynote also sent a team to lead worship in the main sessions, but I barely saw them because of long hours in the tech room.

It was a privilege to serve these missionaries! Please pray that they have a safe and fruitful year of ministry.