What do basketball, turkey, prayer and soccer have in common? Short-term missions! During the past four months, we’ve hosted several short-term teams that have come to Senegal to serve.

In February, Grace Community Church from Auburn, Washington, returned to Senegal for their second trip, using basketball to reach kids with the gospel.

In March, a diverse team of volunteers from David’s Church in Millersburg, Pennsylvania, brought calibrating tools and hundreds of pairs of glasses with them. They were able to provide glasses for dozens of needy Senegalese. One of the team members, a hair stylist, made several missionaries very happy by giving hair cuts. The pastor served as speaker at the Spiritual Retreat for WorldVenture missionaries in Senegal. While he was busy with the adults, several other team members provided a VBS-type program for the MKs, and still others manned the kitchen, providing wonderful meals with foods that we can’t normally find here. (Yup, that’s where the turkey comes in.) One of the most entertaining features of the retreat was when one of the team members, a professional auctioneer, auctioned off numerous items to help raise money for one of the ministries in Dakar.

It was a great joy for us to host one of our own supporting churches for a 10-day Prayer Walk/Vision Trip. One of the goals of the trip was to try to discern whether or not Senegal will be at the heart of the church’s five-year global strategic focus. Fellowshipping with members from one of our own supporting churches and having them see firsthand what we do, see, hear and smell day in and day out was great. But the most exciting thing about having Millington Baptist Church of Basking Ridge, New Jersey, come to West Africa, was seeing the excitement mount as they began to catch a vision of how their church body could become more closely involved in a long-term ministry with the national church and the WorldVenture missionaries on the field.

One of the hardest-working teams we’ve ever had (we hardly gave them any time to rest!) came to hold soccer clinics and tournaments as part of an effort to use sports to reach young people for Christ. This team of 10 people from Bethel College in Indiana touched hundreds of lives while they were here! More and more people are beginning to see the great value in reaching young people with the gospel through sports evangelism.

Missions transforms people. Those who served here in Senegal returned home different people for having experienced missions firsthand. To learn more about how you can participate in missions check out WorldVenture's Opportunities.

Read the original post at http://www.worldventure.com/News-And-Prayer/Stories-Around-the-World/Stories/Short-term_Mission_Teams.html