The Season of Summer Interns

It's hard to believe that summer is almost hear, which means that our season of summer interns has almost arrived. I am excited about this season since I really do enjoy working with interns and hearing how God has called them to serve Him in a cross-cultural experience as well as to see how God will grow them and use them for His kingdom. I am excited because this year I have been able to put into place a more informative and hands-on training/orientation for our interns who will be serving this summer.

Some of you may be wondering why summer interns? Our purpose for summer interns is because God calls us each to "go and preach the Good News..." and this is one platform to be able to share the Good News to the kids in our ministries, our national staff and those who live in our communities. We are all one body but made up of different parts, which each part has it's unique purpose for the body as a whole. Summer interns help by assisting, teaching, and playing with the kids. They pour love on our kids, which is so very much needed. They pour love and encouragement on our national staff and missionaries as well. Summer interns bring energy, life and a fresh look on things. They enhance our partnerships; some become missionaries, some become child sponsors, some come on teams, and some become more mission-minded than ever before.

This summer we have 12 interns who will be serving in all 10 of our ministry sites. They will be arriving on June 9th. We will have three days of North American orientation/training before two days of everyone involved in the summer school program training. These are days that will be full of learning new information, learning about ourselves and one another, worshipping together, devotions together, hearing testimonies and team building.

A new change has been to have our interns do a videoconference with me prior to arriving to the Dominican Republic. In our first videoconference, I have had the pleasure to hear from the majority of our interns about why they feel called to do a summer internship with us. Some of their comments were because they feel God is leading them into full-time missions one day. Others have said that after being on a week long mission trip it just wasn't enough time, it was too short. I am looking forward to our next videoconference as we will be discussing spiritual warfare and staying healthy spiritually while living overseas. What does it mean to put on the full armor of God?

Stay tuned...

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