Estie ministering in Kenya

Estie graduated from high school in spring 2003, with plans to become a missionary. She told us that she wanted to take a year after high school to go to Kenya, and to learn Spanish in Mexico. I struggled with her decision and did a lot of soul searching. When I looked into my daughter’s eyes, I saw a young woman standing at the doorway of adulthood, so hungry for more of God and to discover herself in His kingdom. Why would I possibly discourage that? What better time to see the world and build her faith than during the first year outside our home?

Esther wanted to deepen her walk with the Lord and discover more about her purpose on earth before she began studies to earn a living. But taking a year off from the college track flies in the face of society’s expectations. It’s not easy to swim upstream.

The Problem: The Current System Just Doesn't Work
The current system of higher education is failing Christian students and parents. Often, it transforms students in ways neither they nor their parents would ever want. Bright students get lost in a secular system that turns them into relativistic, materialistically-driven adults. Then it saddles them with a mountain of debt that requires getting a good job to pay it all off. Rather than reinforcing their faith, the current system calls into question everything that parents have worked hard to instill in their children!

Considering these threats to faith, you’d think spiritual training during the first year away from home would be normal. Instead, by following the “safe” path of sending our children to college, we parents fail to safeguard them. We entrust their minds and hearts to professors whose values are very different from our own. They’ve abandoned God’s command to “teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.” (Titus 2:1) Students are being tutored by people who are in many ways dedicated to undermining their faith! Who thought up that system, anyway? Perhaps when many colleges were faith-based, it worked. But now the system is badly broken.

A specific opportunity
I am not saying, “Don’t go to college.” The world has grown complex, and more education is required just to cope. College can be a wonderful, formative experience if your spiritual foundation is strong. But if you feel like your spiritual roots are shallow, or you don’t know where God is calling you, then you owe it to yourself to cement your walk with the Lord. Participants tell me that our First Year Missionary program is the best experience they’ve ever had. This experience – a single year of intensive discipleship – allows high school graduates to find intimacy with their Lord and purpose for their lives. Here’s a bit of Esther’s story:

"While I was in Kenya, God used a little boy named Mato to break my heart. Every time he'd see me, he'd call out, 'Mama Esta, mama Esta!' I was a mom to him and to a number of the street kids around our house. I came to love them so much. I gathered them together and regularly taught them, played with them, and laughed with them. And in the process, I learned about myself. The thing the Lord has really been teaching me is that He is the One who will always define me. Everything on earth will fade away—family, music, and friends. But God is the solid rock when all else fails."

Living in community with a small group of peers, you’ll have the adventure of your life. Whether it’s touching the poor in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, or planting churches among the Masai in the bush, you’ll develop your own ministry. If you stay stateside, you could reach out to addicts and prostitutes in the worst sections of inner-city Philadelphia. Along the way, you'll begin to grasp God’s call on your life and experience the abundance that Jesus talked about. You may find that your heart breaks along the way, but our experienced disciplers will be there to pour into you and help you grow through it. Along with a team radically committed to Jesus, you’ll find a cause worth dying for.

It’s not “safe” or comfortable, but then, neither was Jesus.

Click through these web pages to learn more. And then, please call to talk to one of the students who are in the program now: 888-884-2461.