KARLA SHIRVANIAN | staff writer
After three months of watching the travel advisories and waiting for the official host invitation, the once abstractedly named Middle East Mission Trip has unofficially become the Morocco Mission Trip. The team working out of the Office of World Missions will be traveling to Morocco from mid-May to mid-June for approximately four weeks.
During the decision process the team was looking at several countries, including Jordan, searching for the one that would best meet their needs. It was Morocco that fit best.
The trip, led by senior youth ministry major Ryan Hernandez was something that had been on his heart for a long time.
“I had many Muslim friends in high school and I did not know that they were Muslim until they got to college. It was interesting to get their perspective on life, family and their view of God,” Hernandez said.
Reaching out to Muslims is what attracted the team members to apply for the trip.
“I think two years ago I had an interaction with a woman from the organization Frontiers and they work a lot with Muslims, when I saw the mission trip I thought it would be a cool place to go and it was a new mission which gave it an aspect of mystery,” junior math major Sammie Howell said.
Yet, the purpose of the trip remains the same. It is a trip designed to meet the needs of the people in a place that might not know who Christ is.
“At my church back home they have pastors come from Iraq and Afghanistan to talk about their persecuted church and those things really spoke to my heart and I was just thinking how could we partner with these people and support them in some way,” Hernandez said. “A mission trip that does not condemn Muslims but acts in love, that is something that made this desire possible.”
During the trip, the five students and their leader will be traveling to Morocco and working with a family that is already established in the area where there is a need.
The organization the team will be working with is the organization Frontiers. This organization is one that is long established and has much experience working with Muslim countries.
According to their website they are, “an international non-profit organization, recruiting, sending and serving teams of ordinary people for long-term service to the communities of the Muslim world.”
The APU team will be working with the family and doing anything they need to be done.
“There are long-term workers there that have been asking for people to either return or to begin to establish relationships with them,” Hernandez said. “That was my question that I presented to them, where can we go where there is a need, you know we want to serve with long term missionaries and Muslims and we were led to Morocco, we are waiting for the final word but right now we are unofficially [going to] Morocco.”
The logistics of the trip were not known until about January. They were not only looking at travel advisories, an invitation from a specific home but they were also looking where they can go that would be an open country where they would be able to be used fully.
Although it took some time for there to be a final decision there was never a point where they looked back or reconsidered.
“There is never a fear of not being able to go, there is never a desire to stop in our tracks,” Hernandez said.
According to Hernandez the biggest impact they can make will be by the Muslims observing the actions of the team members, and the differences between them and what presuppositions they may have about Christians.
“There is a difference between what Muslims have seen and what they have heard. I have been learning that through speakers and my own life,” Hernandez said. “Saying what you believe and acting it out has to be integrated. People are not going to be listening to what you say unless you are acting it out, so that is going to be our biggest testimony and impact.”
The Office of World Missions also expresses an optimistic vision for the trip.
“Our hope is that in some of these places that are a little more difficult and [where] fewer missionaries go, that our students would capture God’s heart for these peoples and nations,” Coordinator of Focus International Adam Carpenter said.
The team is going with the their reliance on God and leaning not on their own understanding.
“I do not really want anything from the trip but I would want to give as much as I can,” Howell said. “I would hope that God would be able to break me, give me a new perspective and remind me that it is not about me but it is about Him.”
The team can also see other ways in which each person will be impacted during this four-weeks of travel.
“I hope that we can minister to people, not just through telling them but through character and having the spirit of God in us,” freshman global studies major Meredith Fowler.
When it comes to the APU community, the team is looking for support, whether it be through prayer, donations to the senior class gift or other forms of financial support.
“We need a lot of prayer and we can just use a lot of support. I also want people to know about the trip in general, that we are going to be working with Muslims and that we really want to reach other people,” Fowler said.
There are also long term goals the team hopes will carry through to the future of APU missions.
“My desire is not to see a team go to this place once, but to have team members now want to lead this team next year,” Hernandez said. “For people to want to go and serve in these places. My desire is to see people to begin to take that up.”
