LAURA JANE KENNY | staff writer

Kent Minagawa learned the impact of a diverse ministry team while leading the Mexico Outreach Global Team.

Senior Christian ministries and biblical studies double major Kent Minagawa led a Mexico Outreach team over Thanksgiving break for the second time. Due to the “global” team’s cultural and ethnic diversity, Minagawa had the opportunity to learn what it means to bless people in a way he had never done before.

This Thanksgiving break was Minagawa’s seventh short-term mission through APU. When Minagawa had previously visited Mexico, he had the opportunity to work in other outlets, such as construction. This trip presented him with a new challenge. He and co-leader Adam Agusson incorporated drama and worship into ministry. The two leaders brought 11 students to Mexico with a drive for creativity.

“At first we were thinking, ‘What is our ministry?’ That was something that we wrestled with for both of our team meetings that we had and the first day we were there,” Minagawa said.

The team had the opportunity to visit other sites where APU teams were working with local children. Through skits and dancing, Minagawa’s team was able to lift the spirit of the children, the APU team members and members of the community.

“You expect going down for missions to be a blessing to just the people around you that you are ministering to, like the kids,” Minagawa said. “But we found that after our first day that we were able to bless not only the kids, but the teams that went down to help the kids.”

The trip was the second mission trip for co-leader Adam Agusson. Even though Agusson had been before as a team member, he also had a very different experience as a leader.

“I will never forget what I learned from the experience, especially from Kent. He was so helpful,” Agusson said.

Minagawa discovered what a blessing it was to work on a team full of international students. A global team is a specific kind of team that consists of international students and American students combined. The team of 13 members had students from Korea, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia and Jordan.

Minagawa has a passion for international students and wanted to give them the best opportunity of not only traveling to Mexico, but also working with each other and American students.

“I really wanted to help shape this experience for international students because it is a very different kind of trip for them,” he said.

The international students got to experience a different culture and they were able to bring new culture to the community. Minagawa explained how the children in Mexico had not previously had the opportunity to see many different nationalities and cultures. He shared how the children, upon seeing a student with an Asian nationality, would assume they were from China. This trip helped give the children experience of meeting people from other cultures and expanding their knowledge about diversity.

“It really breaks down barriers for these kids. I mean, how many Koreans do they see? How many Jordanians do they see?” Minagawa said.

The different nationalities on the team gave it many unique abilities. Members of the team taught the rest of the team and Mexican children new games from different cultures.

APU's American Language and Cultural Institute student Martin Lee helped lead the beginning of the program. Minagawa was extremely appreciative for Lee’s creativity and energy. Lee recognized he could not do it on his own, but only through the Lord’s power.

“I could feel the hands of God. It was so great,” Lee said.

Their ministry would start with a fun clever game, encouraging participation by enticing the children to help make rhythms and beats, transitioning into worship. Then the team performed a skit about putting Jesus in the back seat of our lives.

The skit portrayed life like a car as we keep putting Jesus farther back until he reached the trunk.

During their performance, the team members sought to teach the children information about other cultures by doing things like teaching them words in Korean to explain different cultural foods.

“It really opened up their mind and we were really hoping for that. I think we opened up some doors for them,” Minagawa said.

Minagawa was extremely satisfied with the ministry his team was given the opportunity to do.

“After the first day I thought, “I think we know why we’re here now,” It’s a different kind of experience,” Minagawa said. “It’s a lot more of our outpour into them.”