January and February were FULL of Disaster Relief team onboarding. This has become a primary part of my current role here at Adventures in Missions. It’s such a joy to share what God is doing and building in Black Mountain through many daily phone calls and emails with incredible leaders of the faith from all over the country. I can feel the ushering in of God’s army ready to rebuild His city. He’s preparing and already bringing in the first of many waves of energetic youth, churches, families, and others with a “yes” to be used to bring Holy redemption and restoration to this forgotten community. The people of Black Mountain and Swannanoa have watched as many rapid response teams have moved on to their next assignments and have left the community with small glimpses of hope and a lot more rebuilding to be done. That’s where we’ve chosen to cultivate a base and a space to be the hands and feet of Jesus through these teams over the next few years. I already envision the breakthroughs of redemption and hope restored as these participants come to pray, to build and to remind this community that God sees them and has led us there to serve.
As of the end of February, we have 76 scheduled groups still to come to Black Mountain, NC to partner in rebuilding homes and hearts drastically impacted by Hurricane Helene throughout the rest of this year. We’ve already seen some teams, including my home team from Maine, catch the vision, see the value and return again and again to help restore this community.
Here’s the latest video put together by one of our amazing repeating teams: Disaster Relief Video
On another note, at the end of February, we gathered at our headquarters in Gainesville, GA for our annual Mission Leader Training and Staff Days. We had over 60 mission leaders in attendance, half of which are new trainees this year! We are excited to be launching them into the field through over 150 one week mission trips worldwide this year! The weekend was packed full with leadership development, self-reflection and embracing our theme for the new year – to be Alive in Christ based on Ephesians 2:4-5:
“But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)”
We saw many set free from lies we tend to believe, others healed of past hurts and inward battles, and everyone left encouraged that OUR GOD IS ALIVE AND ACTIVE! We’re so excited to be sending more and more participants out to proclaim the love of Jesus this year! We’re anticipating sending over 3,500 participants on short-term missions trips!
We took the following few days to reflect as a growing core staff of 14 members! It was a great opportunity to discuss places we can make improvements and intentional steps to disciple our participants and leaders more and more. We all left better equipped, connected and organized to continue the work God is placing in front of us to facilitate and minister to our incoming teams.
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We’ve also been finalizing key updates from 2024 for you, our supporters and prayer warriors, so you can see the full picture of our entire ministry. Please be encouraged to view and share them!
As always, I thank you for partnering with us, praying, encouraging, giving, going and sharing what God is doing through this ministry. It’s because of your support that we’re able to see the victories of Heaven coming to earth.
Savanna
