Online Archives

BY MELISSA LAUBER
UMCONNECTION STAFF

More than 200 people interested in becoming short-term missionaries attended a Volunteers in Mission training at the Baltimore-Washington Conference Center Dec. 10.

Volunteers in Mission provides opportunities for teams from local churches to work at locations around the world,building churches, schools and medical clinics, doing disaster relief work, teaching and working with people whose needs might exceed their resources.

'Volunteers in Mission is a movement that personalizes mission,' said Sandy Rowland, who led the day-long training. 'No one goes on a VIM trip who is not totally transformed.'

VIM is not about being task-oriented, Rowland said. In fact, 'the most important thing you need to know before you set out on a VIM trip is that the project is not the project, the project is the people.'

In her mission trips around the globe, Rowland has been repeatedly thanked by people who were amazed that she and her teams came all that distance to help them. 'But then I tell them why we came. I tell them ?we are the hands and feet of Christ,?' she said.

The project is the bridge to build relationships. 'People don?t care how much you know, until they know how much you care,' Rowland said.

However, the knowing is also essential, especially for VIM team leaders, who must be trained and fill out a variety of forms that are filed with the conference and denomination. In the near future, team leaders will also be expected to have background checks.

But that?s coming, Rowland said. For now, leaders must be responsible, culturally sensitive, patient, flexible, knowledgeable of the ins-and-outs of travel and always have a Plan B.

At the training, future team leaders also learned:

• insurance is available from the General Board of Global Ministries for 75 cents a day;
• sweat is the great equalizer;
• walkie-talkies are important tools;
• it is important to carry Imodium and toilet paper in your backpack; and
• the host is always in charge.

To get started, Rowland advised, the church needs to first ask where its heart is, who wants to go and what skills they possess. Lists of opportunities to serve are available on the VIM Web site at www.bwvim.org.

The spiritual dimension of the trip is also important, Rowland stressed. Leaders are encouraged to ensure that daily devotionals are done, that the group?s prayer life is a healthy one and that the congregation is bound in prayer with the group.

'We go as servants of Christ. We go for a variety of reasons. But we go because God is sending us,' Rowland said.

She warned the group that VIM trips will take them out of their comfort zones. 'Go anyway,' she said. 'It will be a rich experience. You need to do it.'

At the training, Associate Council Director Sandra Ferguson introduced the participants to Ferlonda Evans, who had assisted her with the event?s registration that day.

Evans was evacuated from the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Rita and was living in her car with her two-year-old, five-year-old, 13-year-old. and her grandmother. In mid-November, she had reached the end of her rope and was out of money, she said, when someone suggested seeking assistance at the Baltimore-Washington Conference Center.

'It was a Friday afternoon. We walked in and within minutes Mrs. Ferguson was on the phone for us,' she said. Food and clothing were provided immediately.

Local churches have adopted the family, which now has a home in the area. Evans has a job and the children are in school.

'It?s been one blessing after another,' Evans said. 'When the government said it wasn?t feasible, the children of God stepped up.'