The
Lord sent my parents to Argentina, August of 1977. They have served
in Argentina to this present day. Seeing the sacrifice of both American
missionaries and Argentine pastors, and witnessing the power of
the Word of God on the lives of converts filled my life with wonderful
examples of the beauty of God's global cause. Growing up on the
mission field was a wonderful gift of God that was used to mold
and shape my value system and world view.
My personal conversion came when I was seven years old. Since then
life has been a journey of learning about God and His commitment
of glorifying Himself. In January of 1996, I flew to the States
where I began my studies at Northland Baptist Bible College. I completed
my courses in the Fall of '99 with a Pastoral Studies degree. During
my sophomore year, some friends of mine and myself began a group
whose purpose was to promote the cause of missions on campus. After
many lessons that were learned by trial and error, the group organized
into what is now known as Open Eyes. Open Eyes is a student-led
mission group. In nearly three semesters it grew from twelve students
to over 150. After two years of its inception it averaged 200 to
250 students in attendance. The results we saw were students who
were becoming Global Students and a multiplication of the number
of mission trips taken by students. The summer following my senior
year there were over 25 mission trips taken by individual or groups
of students from NBBC.
What led to the growth of Open Eyes? First of all, students began
to pray. Following suit of the Haystack Prayer meeting, students
prayed for God to call out of the campus laborers for the mission
field. Second of all, students took ownership of mission promotion
on the campus. Dr. Ollila, the president of NBBC, attributes this
factor as a leading reason for the current missionary spirit that
is found on the campus.
What does this have to do with SGI?
In January of 2000, my wife and I attended Mission 2000, a missions
conference for college students hosted by Inter-City Baptist Church.
With an attendance of 500 college students and an overarching excitement
for the cause of missions, many began to ask whether God was initiating
a movement among the students for the cause of missions. Dr. Minnick
of Mt. Calvary Baptist Church, reminded us of the Student Volunteer
Movement and of a Robert Wilder who traveled to colleges around
America to challenge students for the cause of missions. That evening,
Dr. Doran, pastor of Inter-City Baptist Church, asked if my wife
and I would be willing to travel to colleges around America for
the same cause that led the founders of the Student Volunteer Movement
to travel. We accepted, and my wife Betsy and I joined the staff
of Inter-City Baptist Church the summer of 2000 to embark on the
journey of challenging our generation for the cause of missions.
Understanding that more than just a challenge was needed, a network
was established to open up the avenues of communication between
the student mission groups of our fundamental institutions. Colleges
that do not have a student mission group have invited SGI to train
their students on how to organize such a group. As well, we seek
to provide some resources that will help student mission groups
be better acquainted with the cause of missions from a fundamental
perspective.