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God Still Hits Home Runs

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 26 Nov 2019 14:34:14 +0000

Gordon Govier

God Still Hits Home Runs

God spoke to Steve Tengan with a baseball analogy. An alumnus of ��ñ�� at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Steve was working full-time (40 hours) at an engineering job and volunteering with ��ñ�� almost full-time (30 hours). “I really liked being an ��ñ�� volunteer, but I knew it wasn’t sustainable to do both," he said.

He also felt strongly about justice ministry, particularly helping inner-city kids, and wondered if that was the kind of ministry he should be doing. Should he continue volunteering with ��ñ�� or was God calling him to another ministry?

As Steve prayed and pondered, he was reminded that campus ministry offered a unique window of opportunity: to be able to help redirect the lives of students who were being called by God to live a life of purpose, to redirect their lives as his had been. He realized that sometimes new circumstances meant changed priorities. God gave him the analogy of giving up the Giants to become a Dodgers fan when moving from the Bay area to Los Angeles. He left his engineering job and joined ��ñ�� full-time as a Campus Staff Minister.

A Miserable Failure

Steve met ��ñ�� his first day on campus at UCLA when student volunteers helped him unload the family minivan and then invited him to a Bible study. But for his first two years on campus he was apathetic and drifted spiritually. As his sophomore year wrapped up, he vowed to turn his life around, but realized he had failed miserably by the end of that summer.

“If I hadn’t known that I could get forgiveness from God and, with his guidance, make better decisions, I would have considered suicide,” he said. “It was very clear to me in that moment, I didn’t want to mess around anymore.”

Living in community with other Christians, beginning in his junior year, and helping with outreach for a Bible study on his floor, brought focus to Steve’s spiritual life. He was no longer living the double life that made him weary. “I went from ‘having fun’ and neglecting class to doing ministry,” he said.

As he approached graduation, Steve was thankful for how God had redirected his life. He wanted to follow the other five UCLA ��ñ�� students who were joining ��ñ�� staff, but to honor his parents he took an engineering job instead. However, he stayed involved as a volunteer until, through the baseball analogy, God called him to full-time campus ministry.

God continued to speak to Steve through circumstances about priorities. He met his wife Sherilyn on campus—she worked for another ministry—and they were married in 2003. At the time, he still felt that God might eventually call him to inner city ministry. But Sherilyn was drawn to ministry overseas and prayed God would also call Steve to overseas ministry instead.

One day, as he met with colleagues to talk about the challenge of supporting a ministry plant in a country in the Middle East, God revealed to Steve that missions was a social justice issue. “I’m all about the margins and now I'm on a campus with 40 Christian groups,” he thought. “Why not go to a country with less than that many churches?”

It took several years of discernment and preparation until finally, in 2007, Steve and Sherilyn moved to Paraguay as part of ��ñ�� Link. “It was good for my soul but hard to adapt to,” he said later, about their time in Paraguay. The first challenge was learning the language. Then came the challenge of replanting a campus ministry. By the time they left in 2014 there was a healthy and growing student movement.

From Paraguay to Portland

Steve and Sherilyn figured they would return to southern California after leaving Paraguay but were encouraged instead to check with Pauline Fong, who was then Regional Director for the Northwest. As Pauline explained the unique opportunity available in the position of International Student Ministry Area Director in Portland and how living there contrasted with living in L.A., both Steve and Sherilyn were on board.

International Student Ministry (ISM) has a long and rich history in the Portland area but it was time for some restructuring. Two of the top issues Steve is wrestling with are preparing converts for re-entry to their home country, so that their faith remains strong, and building stronger connections between ISM chapters and multiethnic chapters, to help international students develop more Christian friendships.

“I’m excited about God's expanding vision for us,” Steve said, citing successes such as an African student who has blossomed in leadership in a variety of contexts, including with African American students. However, some staff transitions away from ISM have slowed advances.

“We’re not in a big season of harvest right now but we are seeing noticeable differences,” Steve said. “Everybody who has stayed with us for the last five years owns the vision and is excited by it.”

What enlivens Steve most of all is being able to see students transformed by the power of the Gospel. Mark Camp, where students spend the whole week studying the Gospel of Mark, is his favorite week of the year, one of the times when he has the most contact with students. His family staffed the Tacoma Urban Program last summer and he praised God for the spiritual growth he saw in students’ lives. “I haven’t experienced seeing that quick and drastic transformation elsewhere,” he said.

Through it all, Steve’s reminded that God still hits home runs. “I’ve learned that I’m not as important as I think I am,” he said. “I can have all these plans but ultimately it’s not me, it’s God.”

Give to Support International Student Ministry

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“Ridiculous” and “Scary”: Bob Grahmann’s 40 Years of Ministry With ��ñ��

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 13:40:18 +0000

Gordon Govier

“Ridiculous” and “Scary”: Bob Grahmann’s 40 Years of Ministry With ��ñ��

The train stopped at the border between Hungary and Romania. Bob Grahmann was sitting in the last row of seats. He saw the glaring searchlights, the dogs, and the barbed wire outside. He watched as guards boarded the train with their machine guns and methodically rifled through the passengers’ luggage.

It was 1983, at the height of the Cold War. Bob was an ��ñ�� Area Director in New Jersey with four years of campus ministry experience preceded by four years as a local church pastor. A friend working in Eastern Europe had invited Bob to teach church history to Romanian pastors for three weeks during the summer. When they met in Vienna, the friend told Bob that his wife was sick and Bob would have to travel on his own.

As the Romanian border guards moved down the aisle, getting closer and closer, Bob didn’t like what he saw. “I have a whole suitcase full of Christian books,” he thought. “This is going to be really bad.” Bob knew that many people were praying for his trip. And strangely, as the guards got nearer and nearer, he felt at peace with whatever was going to happen.

“They got to the person in front of me and the train started to lurch a little bit,” he recalled. “They said to each other, ‘That’s it.’ They came over to me, shook my hand, and said in English, ‘Have a nice time in Romania.’ Then they jumped off the train. I was the only one on that train whose luggage they did not check.”

With that trip Bob was hooked on international ministry. “I thought, this was the hardest thing I have ever done. This was ridiculous. This was scary. And I want to do this the rest of my life.”

Within a couple years Bob and his wife Patricia moved their family to Vienna. They were invited by ��ñ��’s Missions Director at the time, John Kyle, to begin a Global Project in Eastern Europe. ��ñ�� students from the US came to Eastern European countries to assist evangelistic summer camps organized by the Slavic Gospel Association.

Soon they were also working with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). Student Christian movements were expanding as communism began to lose its grip on Eastern Europe—something Bob witnessed first hand. “I was there when the walls came down,” he said, referring to the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989.

In 1990 he returned to the US to succeed Barbara Boyd as director of the Bible and Life discipleship training. But he couldn’t stay away from Eastern Europe because the new student movements needed Bible training.

“They were coming out of seventy years of Communism and all of a sudden it disappeared,” he said. “I returned three or four times a year through the 1990s. I started Bible and Life in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Georgia.”

In August of 1991, Bob was in Vienna and took a phone call from ��ñ��’s then Missions Director Dan Harrison, asking him to go to Albania and set up a Global Project. Until that time Albania had been the most atheistic country in the world, and closed to most visitors. Within hours Bob was able to get a visa and a seat on the once-weekly flight between Vienna and Tirana.

He landed in the middle of the night and providentially met a recent graduate of the University of Tirana English Department, who had been led to Christ by a previous visitor two weeks earlier. He told Bob the English faculty at the university was meeting the next morning but advised Bob to watch out for the department chair, who also happened to be the chair of the Communist Party at the university.

Bob presented ��ñ��’s plan for the cultural exchange project at the meeting, including the fact that they would be studying the Bible. “The chairman looked at me and she said, ‘We have been without God for 50 years in this country, and we really need that. Where do I sign?” The next summer there was a Global Project in Albania.

At a conference in 1999 Bob was told by the leaders of the IFES movements in Eastern Europe that they felt they were suffering from lack of proper training. "We'd like you to come and start a training institute for us, for national staff in Eurasia, to train us in theology, Bible, skills of the ministry, and engaging the cultural and spiritual formation," they told him.

In 2002, Bob and his wife Patricia moved overseas again, this time to Kyiv, Ukraine to start what he called The Barbara Boyd Institute for Staff Development and Training in Eurasia. The program was funded for the first 12 years by an entrepreneur who had been mentored by a college professor who, in turn, had been mentored in Bible study by Barbara Boyd.

In 2010 Bob and Patricia returned to the US so Bob could become director of Link, ��ñ��’s program which sends staff volunteers overseas to partner with IFES movements in other countries. He directed Link for seven years and is now Senior Missions Ambassador, splitting his time between recruiting for missions, Bible study training, and Bible training overseas with IFES.

He also continues to work with the leaders of five IFES movement whom he first started mentoring when they were students. “Mentoring is one of my favorite activities,” he said. “When I was a freshman, an older student discipled me, really invested in me. Not a staff, not a pastor, not a missionary, but a student who taught me everything he knew about Jesus and really helped me. And that's a model I use.”

After becoming a Christian in college, Bob went to seminary and started pastoring a small church in New Jersey. But he was impatient and began to wonder if there wasn’t another way to change the world for Jesus. He attended Urbana 76 to investigate missions and sat in on a session with then ��ñ�� president John Alexander. Many of the questions had to do with what career people choose after they leave ��ñ�� staff. Some, of course, become pastors.

“I went up to him afterwards and I said, ‘Have you ever had a pastor come on staff instead of a staff go to be a pastor?’ He said, ‘It’s very unusual. But we’ll check with your church. If they’re really mad that you’re leaving, we want you.’”

The church was not happy to lose its pastor. But the lives of generations of students in the US and abroad have been changed because of Bob’s decision.

Following is the video that was prepared to celebrate Bob's first 40 years with ��ñ��. (Yes, he's not ready to retire yet.)

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International Fellowship Evangelical Students

��ñ�� Link: God Prepares the Way in Costa Rica

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 21 May 2019 14:34:34 +0000

Gordon Govier

��ñ�� Link: God Prepares the Way in Costa Rica

When Joel and Rachel Watters first visited the campus of La Universidad Nacional Pérez Zeledón (la UNA) in southern Costa Rica a year ago, they sensed that God was already at work, preparing the way to plant ministry there. Rachel and Joel are Link staff serving with IFES sister movement Estudiantes Cristianos Unidos (ECU) in Costa Rica.

One of the first students they met was Mariela who immediately started inviting her friends to get involved. She quickly became a local leader. “When you’re planting you’re always praying for a person of peace that the Holy Spirit brings, and Mariela has been that for us on this campus,” Joel said.

They also met a faculty member who showed them a meeting schedule on his phone. “Three weeks ago, three other professors and I began praying for a Christian group to come to our campus,” he told them, with tears in his eyes. “We feel like you guys are an answer to that prayer.”

Joel and Rachel spent three days on the campus, joined by a group of ��ñ�� students from the US Midwest participating in a Global Program. They did outreach with Proxe stations, coordinated several Bible studies, and told the students that they would return when the new year of classes started in February.

In 40 years of campus ministry in Costa Rica, ECU had never been able to expand out of the central valley and reach the southern part of the country. Now in their second year with ECU, Joel and Rachel have planted a chapter at the main public university in the southern region and are starting to turn their attention to almost a half dozen other area campuses.

Joel and Rachel spent their first year in Costa Rica in San Jose, brushing up on their Spanish language skills and working with ECU on campuses there. Now they lead Bible studies in Spanish but also meet with students who want to practice their English, since Costa Rica is a major Latin American tourism destination and many jobs require English proficieny.

“I love learning about Costa Rican culture, and I think people are interested in learning about our US culture too,” Joel said. “There’s a connection there, an interest in learning from one another, that opens doors and opportunities.”

Joel and Rachel met in a young adult group at a church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 2009. Joel had taken a year off from college and was living at home with his parents. Rachel had been on staff for five years and was working with the ��ñ�� chapter at Coe College.

After they married, Joel pursued a physical therapy degree at Creighton University, and Rachel worked with Eric and Stacy Rafferty to plant the first ��ñ�� chapters in the state of Nebraska. Joel volunteered to help lead Bible studies and, together with Rachel, helped lead students on Global Program trips to Ethiopia and then China.

“��ñ�� has always been a part of our marriage and our life,” Joel said. “As I got more involved I felt like God invited me to be open to staff work, and especially going overseas as a family and serving with Link.”

Each short-term ministry trip helped nurture their desire to live and do ministry overseas. “As we have taken our students overseas and experienced God in a different culture and context, we have seen their faith grow,” he said.

When they joined Link in 2017 they discovered their planting skills from Nebraska matched the needs of ECU in Costa Rica. Now, as they are enjoying starting something new they are also facing new challenges. When they arrived at the beginning of the school year and began talking with school administrators, they realized that la UNA had never had formal organizations such as ECU on campus.

However, as they built relationship with the administration and staff, and met and shared the vision of the ministry, they were given formal permission to be on campus. Even in this process, Joel and Rachel could see the hand of God working and opening doors through these relationships.

They also discovered that students at la UNA do not live on campus; instead, they ride the bus to class. It’s a major sacrifice to stay late or come early.

While they are working on finding the best times for meetings, they are still having life-changing conversations with students. One student, a self-proclaimed skeptic, has come to every single Bible study so far. “It’s so fun to watch his eyes and his heart be opened as we study the life of Jesus in the book of John,” Joel said.

Recently, as Joel met with Mariela for another Bible study, they felt the Holy Spirit lead them to sit by one particular student who they did not know. Her ears perked up as she heard them talking about Nicodemus in John 3. “My pastor just spoke on Nicodemus yesterday,” she told them. “I’m really interested in being a part of this group.”

The Watters are confident that they made the right decision to join Link staff. “We have hard days and challenging days,” Joel said, “but also days where you see the Lord has been going ahead and preparing the way.”

Find out more about how you can help Link staff like Joel and Rachel as they serve IFES movements in other countries.

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Praying for Peace in Ukraine

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 21:40:50 +0000

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Gordon Govier

Praying for Peace in Ukraine

The images from street demonstrations in Ukraine are striking, particularly the images of Orthodox priests carrying crosses and standing between the demonstrators and police. One image in particular caught the attention of Bob Grahmann, now Director of ��ñ��’s Link program, and formerly a resident of Kiev, Ukraine for nine years.

The photo shows ministry colleague Denis Gorenkov, in an orange jacket and holding a Bible, standing with Orthodox priests and several women on a street strewn with rocks which had been flung at police by demonstrators. Gorenkov is general secretary of CCX, ��ñ��’s sister student movement in Ukraine through the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES).

"It's incredible to see them standing shoulder to shoulder, with their icons and a Bible,” Bob said. “It's a miracle that they would allow him to stand with them because in most Orthodox countries the Protestants are looked down upon as heretics. In any other country the Orthodox would not allow it.”

A Reason for Hope

Bob and his wife Patricia are watching with deeply mixed emotions the unfolding of events in Kiev. "I'm worried politically, because this is just a repeat of what's been happening in Ukraine over the last 400 years,” he said. “But I'm hopeful because of the spiritual depth and vision of the IFES movement in Ukraine and the effect that they can have on the country."

CCX is one of the strongest movements in IFES. The Grahmanns attribute that in part to many ��ñ�� staff members who, like them, have invested years of work in Ukraine through ��ñ��’s Link program and Global Projects, along with staff from other IFES member countries who also spent time in Ukraine.

Twenty-five years ago an unlikely friendship developed between former ��ñ�� Missions Director Dan Harrison and Margarita Petrovna Dvorzhetskaya, the formerly atheistic Vice Rector of the Kiev Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages. ��ñ�� began sending groups of students on cultural exchanges to Kiev, the beginning of ��ñ��’s Global Projects. The Grahmanns’ nine year tenure, helping train Eurasian staff, was one outgrowth of that relationship. They saw Margarita frequently in Sunday morning church services.

Developing a Broader Vision

For the past ten years Denis Gorenkov has been engaged in reaching out to improve relations with the Orthodox church and developing a broader vision of Christian engagement for the Christian students he works with in Ukraine. Earlier this month he organized a meeting of evangelical leaders to discuss the current political crisis. They issued an appeal to the evangelical churches of Ukraine to take a stronger stand for peace, truth, and justice in Ukraine.

“What gives us the most joy is that as we helped to train and mentor them we also tried to help them see ��ñ��'s vision for engaging the culture,” Bob said. The idea of engaging the culture conflicts with the separatist attitude that is more common in communist countries. Protestant churches could expose themselves to unwanted government attention by taking political positions.

"The character of the Ukrainian says don't make waves, don't make trouble, things will always be bad, get used to it," Patricia said. “So you know it's a big problem when 250,000 people show up to protest something the government is doing and get beat up by police."

“Hope is not a part of their culture,” Bob added. “It only comes from the gospel. The hope of the gospel has transformed them." The conflict continues in Kiev. The Grahmanns, and millions of others, are hoping and praying for peaceful resolution.

UPDATE - JANUARY 28, 2014

In a letter sent today, Denis Gorenkov appealed for prayers for Ukraine:

Please, pray that the government would cancel the new “totalitarian laws” as they negotiate with the opposition right now. Pray that those who are missing would be found. Pray for the police to listen to their conscience more than to the illegal orders. Pray that the bloodshed would be stopped.

^{Photo: courtesy of CCX.}

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God Always Has a Plan

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:37:15 +0000

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Gordon Govier

God Always Has a Plan

Paula Puckett still finds it hard to believe that four friends on her dorm floor invited her to an ��ñ�� prayer meeting. It was at the start of the second semester of her freshman year at William and Mary. “I’m amazed because if I had been in their position I wouldn’t have thought someone like me would’ve wanted to come to a prayer meeting.”

Even though she was more interested in partying than praying she decided to go with her friends. At the prayer meeting she observed women who had a peacefulness and self-confidence that she had never seen before.

Majoring in ��ñ��

“Back in my room alone my simple prayer was, ‘God, whatever those women have, I want,’” she said. “I dove into ��ñ�� head first and never missed a meeting after that. I did everything, went on every mission trip, and to every chapter camp.”

After she graduated, with degrees in Spanish and Religion, she thought for a long time that maybe she should’ve devoted more time to her studies and less time to ��ñ��, to get the full advantage of her college education. But now, after being on staff for most of the past 20 years, she’s come to a different conclusion.

“I was becoming a staff worker, learning what it meant to follow Jesus,” she said. “I was getting in touch with what it meant to do campus ministry even as a student. I’m not as hard on myself now.”

Following God Overseas

Paula joined staff following graduation and worked on several campuses in New England, with her longest tenure seven years at the University of Rhode Island. After she married Blake, a friend from high school who had been her first donor, they explored overseas ministry with ��ñ�� Link.

In the fall of 1999 they moved to central Asia. “And that began the great adventure, the greatest adventure of our lives so far,” she said. After a year and a half, just when the ministry seemed to be going well, they were suddenly deported. They moved to another Central Asian country and enjoyed two more years working with students. “The Central Asian ministry was really beginning to gel,” she said. “We saw God doing some amazing things.”

One of the most amazing things was the first ever Central Asia IFES student conference in 2002. “It was the first time believers from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikstan had ever seen each other,” she said. “They had never met so many believers from outside their own country.”

The next six years saw several moves back and forth between the U.S. and Central Asia, related mostly to her husband’s career in law and the military and not with student ministry. In fact, Paula left ��ñ�� Link staff for most of that period as their family began to grow. She calls it her five-year maternity leave.

Returning to Campus Ministry

“The day I resigned from ��ñ�� was one of the hardest days of my life,” Paula said. “I feel like I was born to be on staff; not a day went by that I didn’t miss it. I have never been able to imagine myself doing anything else. God was faithful during those five years off staff even though it was hard.”

To other women on staff who are faced with a similar decision, Paula counsels patience. Changes come, but God always has a plan.

“I had this strong sense that He was going to give it back even sweeter than it had been,” she said. “And that has been my experience. The last three years have been the most satisfying ministry that I’ve ever had.”

Paula rejoined ��ñ�� in 2008 to work with the Graduate and Faculty Ministries at Indiana University. While there she saw the chapter grow from 10 to 40 students. Then when her family moved back to northern Virginia she discovered the campus of George Mason University (GMU) was just a few miles from her new home. She also discovered a GMU faculty member had just contacted ��ñ��, requesting ministry on campus. Paula is now working with graduate students and faculty on two different GMU campuses.

Reflecting on her 20-year career in campus ministry, Paula says the most important lessons she’s learned have been about prayer. “In my younger years I did my staff work based on what I thought I should do or based on training. And I prayed too. Now I pray first and my staff work flows out of that. Now I don’t want to set foot on campus until I have a sense that God goes before me.”

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Linking Italy to Greek

webteam@intervarsity.org — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 06:00:00 +0000

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Kate Yoder

Linking Italy to Greek

I wasn’t the typical ��ñ�� student. Or staff worker. My first chapter meeting was in Florence, Italy, in a drafty upstairs room of a cloistered medieval church, studying the Bible with Italians and student artists from South Africa, Sweden, and Canada. I entered the world of ��ñ�� as a Link staffworker in Italy. And now that I’m stateside, I can’t seem to get enough of ��ñ��.

After two and a half years as Link staff in Italy, I now teach eighth grade English in Indianapolis and continue to work with ��ñ�� as a volunteer for Greek Ministries. Serving as an ��ñ�� volunteer is a tremendous encouragement to me.

This past Greek Conference I was a small group leader in the World Changers track. As we studied the Bible together, I remembered how much I love discussing the Scriptures with college students. And it was a great gift to be able to share my experiences as Link staff in Italy and to talk with students who God may be leading to serve on campuses overseas. At the Alumni Reception I learned how the Greek ��ñ�� chapter got started at my alma mater, DePauw University, and found out how I can volunteer on my old campus.

Though I am no longer an ��ñ�� employee, my staff friends in Greek Ministries always make me feel very much a part of the ��ñ�� family. Late one night one of these friends listened to me talk about mourning the loss of my team and my relationships with students in Italy, and about the sorrow and loneliness I’ve faced this past year, adjusting to a new job and a new place. As he shared the story of his own journey in ministry with me, he helped me to identify gifts and passions for shepherding students that God will use whether in teaching or in ministry.

Most returning missionaries experience depression, guilt, and disconnectedness for some time as they reenter life in the US. So it’s a huge comfort to have an organization that keeps me connected and allows me to continue to share my gifts and experiences with students and staff as a volunteer.

Currently about 35 former Link staff are employed by ��ñ��/USA. Find more information on Link ministry here. Find more information about ��ñ��’s ministry to Greek students in fraternities and sororities here.

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Link

Greek Ministry

Trust is Everything

webteam@intervarsity.org — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 06:00:00 +0000

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Trust is Everything

Theresa, a former staff worker in Arizona, went overseas with Link, ��ñ��’s partnership ministry with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. While working in the Middle East, she discovered a talent for initiating new ministry. She’s now heading back to the U.S. to put that talent to work in a new location.

After three years serving as Link staff in a Muslim country in the Mediterranean, God is calling me back to ��ñ��/USA staffwork – in Utah! I trust that God has uniquely equipped me through my missionary experience to be in ministry in Utah.

Utah is a lot like the country I’ve been living in. The dominant culture is different from my own. There are a lot of ideological similarities between the two groups, Mormons and Muslims. The prophets, extra scriptures, emphasis on good deeds, and more of a communal instead of individual focus are just a few that I have noticed. It will certainly be an endurance race, not a quick sprint. If anything, the two places have that in common. And both places are spiritually needy.

I’m excited about the challenge that lies ahead as I move to work with Mormon students, international students, and also the Christian students that come and find us.

For more information about ��ñ��’s Link ministry go here.

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��ñ�� Link

webteam@intervarsity.org — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 06:00:00 +0000

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��ñ�� Link

��ñ�� staff who serve overseas with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students are serving longer. “A few years ago getting staff to think about a two year commitment was a challenge,” says Link director Becky Stephen. “In the last four years about one third of our current field staff have signed up for a minimum of five years.”

��ñ�� is connected to Christian student movements in 150 countries through its membership in the Evangelical Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). ��ñ�� has a direct connection to some of those movements through the more than 275 ��ñ�� Link staff who have worked overseas alongside other IFES staff in 44 countries over the past 20 years.

Overseas travel can be exotic and exciting. But living overseas as an American involved in ministry is challenging. “Emotionally and psychologically it can be very hard on people,” Becky says. Yet as ��ñ�� staff become aware of opportunities facing indigenous student movements in other countries those staff become more willing to use skills they’ve acquired working with U.S. students to work with students in those countries.

About five years ago, former ��ñ�� staff members Tom and Nancy Lin learned that the door was open to establish a student ministry in Mongolia. A couple from Korea’s ��ñ�� movement had already been there for several years. Tom and Nancy joined them. “This is not about Americans doing the work,” Becky says. “It’s about multi-national, multi-cultural teams, working with others. Tom and Nancy stepped into something that was already happening.”

This fall, after helping establish a growing student movement in Ulan Bator, Tom and Nancy Lin returned to the U.S. In the last four years, the Mongolian student movement went from one fellowship to three fellowships, with more than 120 students involved. Eight national staff are now leading the movement, and it’s officially registered with the Mongolian government. A video was produced to tell the story of Tom’s and Nancy’s Mongolian ministry.

“Increasingly, people coming back from Link service overseas continue on to work as ��ñ�� field staff in the U.S.,” says Becky. “Five years ago that wasn’t the case.” Tom and Nancy have decided to continue on staff with ��ñ��. In 2007 Tom will become regional director for the Central region, based in St. Louis.

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Missions

IFES

Link

God Still Hits Home Runs

God Still Hits Home Runs

A Miserable Failure

From Paraguay to Portland

“Ridiculous” and “Scary”: Bob Grahmann’s 40 Years of Ministry With ��ñ����

“Ridiculous” and “Scary”: Bob Grahmann’s 40 Years of Ministry With ��ñ����

��ñ���� Link: God Prepares the Way in Costa Rica

��ñ���� Link: God Prepares the Way in Costa Rica

Praying for Peace in Ukraine

Praying for Peace in Ukraine

A Reason for Hope

Developing a Broader Vision

God Always Has a Plan

God Always Has a Plan

Majoring in ��ñ����

Following God Overseas

Returning to Campus Ministry

Linking Italy to Greek

Linking Italy to Greek

Trust is Everything

Trust is Everything

��ñ���� Link

��ñ���� Link

“Ridiculous” and “Scary”: Bob Grahmann’s 40 Years of Ministry With ��ñ��

“Ridiculous” and “Scary”: Bob Grahmann’s 40 Years of Ministry With ��ñ��

��ñ�� Link: God Prepares the Way in Costa Rica

��ñ�� Link: God Prepares the Way in Costa Rica

Majoring in ��ñ��

��ñ�� Link

��ñ�� Link