DTS Students Complete 2,000 Days of Cross-Cultural Ministry

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by Rose Ann Hopwood, M.A.[BS]

DTS students and faculty completed more than 2,000 days of cross-cultural ministry in the summer of 2009. From May to August, more than 80 men and women served in more than 40 countries and every major region of the world.

The following list illustrates the scope and impact of their summer service:

• Guatemala: For 8 days, a student served on a medical team performing 110 surgical and major dental procedures at a faith-based hospital.
• Eastern Asia: For 38 days, a team of believers shared the story of Jesus with hundreds of college students.
• Eastern Europe: For 45 days, a student worked with missionary teams in several countries—serving at youth camps, orphanages, churches and campus ministries.
• Central Africa: For 47 days, a married couple explored the possibility of starting a church-planting team among nomadic tribes.
• Mexico: For 10 days, a student led a team of 5 adults and 12 teens in serving a rural church and its orphan ministry.
• Cambodia: For 52 days, two students taught and ministered to preschoolers, Vietnamese immigrant children, teenage orphans and women who have left the sex trade.

Student Luke Perkins and his wife, Becca, spent two months ministering in Haiti. Luke served as interim pastor at a local church, where he preached through the Book of Ephesians, taught weekly Bible studies, and oversaw church operations. Becca taught at a Christian school and helped provide medical and food relief to women and infants.

The Perkins called it their best and worst time in Haiti—worst because the country's problems "ripped at our hearts" and best because "we both came away knowing that we were in very real ways used by God to do his work."

For more information on DTS student missions involvement, visit these web pages: Student Missions Fellowship and World Evangelization Conference.