GLOBAL IMPACT

Participants will get the opportunity to work alongside International Friendships (IFI) to engage with and serve people from other religions and cultures in the greater Chicago area. The team will spend time learning about the foundations for missions, grow in their understanding of other cultures and religions, and come home with practical tools for engaging in cross cultural spiritual conversations in their every day lives.

Cost
$750-$1,000

Team Size
10

Who Should Apply
Adults 18 and older

APPLY TO GO

*Please note that there is a $250 application fee. Additional details and specifics surrounding this fee are included within the application.

Application deadline is April 1, 2025

On this trip, we’ll partner with BrightStart Learning Cambodia – specifically their Roots of Grace ministry. The objective at Roots of Grace is to break the generational cycle of living on the streets through expanded opportunities for spiritual investment, education, hygiene, physical and emotional care, and vocational training.

This trip will focus on providing hands-on learning experiences and instruction for young men who are part of a vocational training program with Roots of Grace. In the past, teams have taught carpentry, motorcycle repair and welding; however, the training program is open to other areas of hands-on training.

While there, we will also have additional opportunities to support the local staff and missionaries in a variety of ways.

Cost
Approximately $3,000 – $3,500

Who Should Apply
Adults 18 and older who either work in a skilled trade or who have an expertise in a skilled trade.

APPLY TO GO

*Please note that there is a $250 application fee. Additional details and specifics surrounding this fee are included within the application.

Application deadline is April 13, 2025

Encounter Columbus is a three-day missions training experience in our own backyard – the growing and increasingly diverse city of Columbus, Ohio. On this trip, you will not only learn about other cultures, but you will also spend time with people from those cultures, learning how to share your faith with others from all backgrounds.

Experiencing Columbus’ diversity gives you a glimpse of God’s heart for the nations and reveals that there are people who don’t know the Lord right in front of you—you don’t have to cross the world to cross cultures.

Encounter Columbus provides you with a new understanding of multiple world religions. You will learn how to cross cultural barriers with the hope of the gospel. While your passion and knowledge to live on-mission for Jesus grows, you will become more solid in your biblical worldview. You will also have the opportunity to get involved in local outreach through impactful ministry on the ground.

While participating in this experience, you will:

• Encounter beauty in the complexity of diverse cultures.
• Encounter major religions of the world.
• Encounter God’s heart for the nations, especially the least reached.
• Encounter how you can be part of God’s plan to reach the nations.

This cost covers your stay at Grace Polaris Church, your own copy of the book Discovering Global Missions, two daily meals, an Encounter T-shirt, and staff costs and administrative fees.

You can choose to participate in the whole weekend ($85.00) or Saturday ($50.00) only.

*Payment is required to complete registration. 

APPLY TO GO

On this trip, we will fly to Yuma, Arizona, and drive across the border to San Luis Rio Colorado in northern Mexico. While there, we will come alongside a sister church to encourage and support their current ministry efforts through hosting neighborhood activities to invite both children and adults to learn more about the Gospel. The team may also assist in minor construction projects to serve the church or community.

Final ministry details will be determined based on the skillset of the members of the team.

Cost
Approximately $2,000 – $2,400

Who Should Apply
Adults 18 and older.

APPLY TO GO

*Please note that there is a $250 application fee. Additional details and specifics surrounding this fee are included within the application.

Application deadline is April 30, 2025

BrightStart Learning, Inc.’s mission is to provide disadvantaged students in developing countries with educational opportunities and assistance to help them reach their full potential as productive adults and leaders. BrightStart’s board of directors are devout Christians with firsthand mission experience in Cambodia. Their core values are to honor God in the lives of the people they serve, their staff and relationships with sponsors and partners; equipping and changing lives; and partnering with like-minded organizations. BrightStart provides educational opportunities and assistance to over 500 children and young adults in the province of Battambang, Cambodia and the capital city of Phnom Penh. Their vision is “Brighter futures start today,” recognizing it is never too late to point lives in the right direction. Through education, BrightStart strives to break the cycle of poverty in Cambodia by equipping people with hope, morality, and wisdom for a brighter future.

Design Outreach (DO), headquartered right here in Columbus, OH, engineers life-sustaining appropriate technology solutions to help alleviate global poverty. DO has been working to help solve the world’s water crisis in developing countries by inventing the LifePump, a new hand pump technology that is able to reach year-round aquifers, last years between maintenance, and be monitored with a satellite based remote sensor. The first permanent LifePump, installed in Malawi, has been providing safe water since 2013, and the community has been transformed. DO serves around the world in Haiti, Malawi, Zambia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mali, South Sudan, CAR, Zimbabwe and Guatemala. DO desires to serve the millions of people in our world today whose basic needs are not being met. Tools such as the LifePump aid our missionary partners in building trust with community members to share the Gospel. We love because Christ first loved us, and it is this love that motivates our work.

There are a variety of areas within Northern Central Africa where being a Christian is rough, and being a missionary is nearly impossible. Despite this dangerous reality, groups of Christians have been able to enter these communities, along with their families, and begin adapting and making disciples. They’ve worked hard to learn the language and culture, establish relief projects, and become co-laborers within the communities. Given these realities, please pray for these teams and groups, for their faith and endurance, and for the communities in which they’re serving and reaching.

International Friendships, Inc. (IFI) is a non-profit community organization that partners with Grace Fellowship and other churches to promote friendship and hospitality for international students, scholars, and their family members at The Ohio State University and other campuses. There are opportunities for you and your church group to pray for and get directly involved.

For more info visit columbus.ifipartners.org or email recruit@ifipartners.org.

Momentum Urban Centers have been training followers of Jesus in effective hands-on evangelism for over 20 years with locations in Philadelphia and Los Angeles! Momentum Ministry Partners offers unique life-on-life training sessions on how to start conversations, how to tell your story, and how to share your faith in simple and life giving ways. They also provide practical, easy-to-use evangelism tools that make engaging with others simple. Their field experiences make our time together practical and profitable by immediately putting the lessons learned through the training sessions into practice!

Hands-on Ministry Field Experiences
Here’s the wide variety of “in-the-field” ministry you will experience at Urban Centers:

• Ministering to the homeless
• Participating in park and beach ministries
• Food distribution to families in need
• Children’s ministries
• Other peer-to-peer ministry opportunities

Roots of Grace Cambodia is a registered Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Cambodia began in 2015 that “Introduces Jesus into broken situations with the hope of changing generations.” The vision of Roots of Grace is to have the children living on the streets of Cambodia and their families (if present) become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. The strategy is to help break the generational cycles of living on the streets through expanded opportunities for spiritual investment, education, hygiene, physical and emotional care, and vocational training.

What started out as a shared burden by two Americans and one Cambodian for those living on the streets continues to grow and flourish. In 2018, with a staff of two missionaries and five Cambodians, the ministry started sending 6 children from the streets to school. Currently, Roots of Grace has six missionaries and 42 Cambodian staff that regularly minister to more than 1200 the poorest of the poor in Battambang, Cambodia. In 2020, Roots of Grace begin the process of merging with BrightStart Learning, a 501(c)(3) charity in the U.S. that focused on education in Cambodia. Now, all of Roots of Grace Cambodia activities fall under that charity and are overseen by an accomplished Board of Directors. Those activities are primarily accomplished through 8 different programs.

Those programs include Bible Studies on the streets and providing education for young children. The Bible studies are weekly and take place in 9 different locations across the city having more than 200 people attending every week. There are now hundreds of people that had previously never heard the name of Jesus Christ that are now devoted followers of Him.

Monday through Saturday, the staff of Roots of Grace picks up the children from the streets (66 for school year 2023-2024), takes them to the ministry center, gives them an opportunity to shower, helps them change into a clean uniform for school, gives them breakfast and takes them to school. School in Cambodia is half a day/six days a week. When the school day is over, the staff picks the kids up from school, feeds them lunch, helps them with their homework, teaches them the Bible and worship songs, teaches them English and gives them time to play and be kids before returning them to the place they stay.

SEEDNet is a church planting movement planting churches in spiritually, emotionally, economically, and developmentally oppressed areas. Through the Gospel of Jesus, we give hope to Spiritually, Emotionally, Economically, and Developmentally oppressed people. This type of ministry can be scary and feels risky to some people who want to help, so SEEDNet builds the bridge between you and those who desperately need hope and your help. By helping us give them a church of their own, you are helping give discipleship opportunities, a place for vital needs to be met, and a hub for personal growth and development over a lifetime. By partnering with us to plant churches, you are having an impact on future generations for Christ.