transforming the lives of global youth
Overwhelmed with Excitement!
These are the final few days before the first classes at Opportunities NOW. It’s been a busy week doing a teacher orientation, tweaking the curriculum, and having lots of final meetings. It’s amazing how everything has come together. The last two years of ideas, meetings, and research are all coming together on Monday when students enter our facility to start their journey toward starting their own business. …
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This is what the LORD says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls..." Jeremiah 6:16a (NIV)
Many people who partner with us say they've found us on the web. Often times they're searching, looking for answers. We created an opportunities database to help people hone in on potential ministry opportunities. This is for people who have a desire to serve in a specific place or in a certain way. Sometimes, however, I think people come to us with a wide open perspective. They're not sure what to do, or more importantly, what they're being called to.
I know that most believers, especially young people who've not yet chosen a career path, wrestle with God's call on their lives. And rightly so! I think we sometimes think God has this wild and amazing dream for us that we're certain we don't want to miss out on. People ask …
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We have an exciting announcement to make at YouthHOPE for the youth of Myanmar!
God has opened doors for three international business as mission trainers from Chiang Mai, Thailand to train our summer internship participants and the Myanmar business community on business as mission skills. Originally our summer interns were going to travel to a conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand before coming to Myanmar. However, due to lack of interest from college students there, the company was forced to cancel the training. Our interns still needed training before this summer so he asked the trainers if they’d come to Myanmar instead. Their calendars were free and they accepted!
It gets better! In wanting to make their time in Myanmar worthwhile, Ryan talked with a couple of organizations in his network and the response was overwhelming. He approached the Myanmar Chamber of Commerce about doing a two hour session with some of their …
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U.S. Moves to Normalize Relations with Myanmar
What this means for holistic youth development? …
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Dozens of articles and reports by the UN, CNN, BBC, Unicef and others in the past few years have focused on the global youth unemployment crisis. As the global economy continues to waiver and bend, millions around the world fight the effects of unemployment.
According to a report by the International Labor Office, there were approximately 81 million unemployed youth between the ages of 15-24 at the end of 2009--the highest ever.
Many governments and organizations are establishing programs and schemes to fight this trend, to give hope to a generation trying to find their place. In the UK, the prime minister is planning an incentive that would give employers subsidies to employ 18-24 year olds for six-month periods. Throughout the world, programs are starting up to train youth for small business ventures and entrepreneurship opportunities.
The world seems to be taking notice of this global youth crisis, slowly, but …
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During the last year, we have been talking with several different ministries in India about partnership opportunities.
There are some wonderful ministries that God is working through in India and this year we will be visiting some of them to learn and look for direction about moving forward. We are very excited since the need in India is so great. Only about 2% of the country is Christian, where more than half of the 1.2 billion people living there are under the age of 25 years old. There are few places where the global youth ministry opportunity is greater.
As I was reading the news the other day, the following headline slapped me right in the face “In India, the challenge of building 50,000 colleges”. I read the article and learned that India is trying to solve the problem of the need to educate more than 100 million young people over the next ten years. At the moment a mere 17% of their graduates are immediately …
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As I think of the 4 weeks of recruiting across 10 states, I’m able to look back over our time and be amazed by the provision of God and the incredible ways he encouraged us throughout the time.
I want to thank those who were praying for us, it was evident that God was answering and blessing us in ways I didn’t even realize I needed.
Throughout the 4 weeks we had the opportunity to speak with lots of college students who are on fire for God and have a desire to follow Him to the ends of the world, or next door, wherever He calls. We got to listen as students shared their hearts, their passions, their dreams that God has planted in them. (Let me tell you, I am blessed to do that as part of my “job”).
One of the encounters that was particularly encouraging to me was at the last school we went to for recruiting, Berry College in Rome, Georgia. By this time in the journey, Britney and I were definitely feeling some of …
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YouthHOPE will be training in various locations this year. You can find us at the Chilean National Youth Workers Conference as well as in Zambia. Check out this video of Miguel Faundez, YouthHOPE's Director of Global Youth Ministry Training discussing our work in 2011 conferences. …
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I did my graduate work at Johns Hopkins University at the School of Public Health in 2003/4. It was the only school I had applied for, mostly because I had my sights set on going to the mission field, and also because I had decided that the only reason I would delay going overseas was to get my Masters in Public Health at the #1 school in the world. ha. Surprisingly, at the best school in the world for public health, among the top achievers in the field, I found the bottom line of all my coursework was this: It is hopeless, we can do everything we can to try to save lives, but people are people, and they will not just change to make healthy choices. Many many of our programs will never make a difference and will fail. People will always eat unhealthy diets, they will always smoke, they will always have sex outside of marriage. We can't change people. It is the fallenness of the world without the salvation and …
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You may not know this about me, especially when you see my Korean face, but I’m a little bit African on the inside. I spent close to two years in Kenya working with some Maasai folks in rural clinics. I learned the language, ate the food, hung out with families at home, and got to see the world from a completely different perspective for just a little while. Perhaps, by the kindness of God, these people got grafted into my heart in such a way that I might always identify with them and intercede for them as my own family for the rest of my life. Africa feels like home for me.
And so, as I watched this video, I found myself suspiciously eying the white guy teaching this weird thing—disc golf—to my friends. I mean, I don’t know these particular folks, but they are my friends, anyhow. However, I quickly started to see the common ground between the white guy and me/us. The fun of a new activity/sport/competition, …
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Download our brand new publication for our 2011 summer internships! We will be sending four teams to four different countries (Kenya, Malawi, Haiti and Southeast Asia) during the summer of 2011 to bless our current workers on the field. In order to get the word out, we will be sending these publications to youth ministry professors across the country and recruiting at missions venues. If you have contact with students who are passionate about youth ministry, do your part too, to challenge them toward participating in global youth ministry and serving the church in a country far different from their own. Click here to read about each of the opportunities. …
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