By Fall 2023, 17 teams had been sent out to explore 11 different potential new mission fields since EFM’s Five-Year Goal launched in 2021. In November 2023, EFM made a commitment to launch 6 of the 9 fields that were still under exploration. Those six fields are now moving on to the pre-launch planning phases. See more information here.

A Luke 10 Pre-Launch Planning Trip occurs after EFM has made a decision of commitment to launching the mission field. EFM commissions Field Study Groups to complete a Pre-Launch Planning Report, which often requires further trips to obtain the details necessary for EFM to be able to deploy missionaries to a location to launch a new field.

In June and July 2024, a pre-launch planning trip took place in South Sudan. The following is a report written by team memner Matt Macy.

Who Was on this Trip & Where Did We Travel?

There were eight total on this team: six future missionaries and two missions-sending leaders, which included three from Rwanda, one from Mexico, and four from the U.S. The team was made up of Pastor Jean Paul Nsekanabo (EFC-Rwanda Missions Board Chair), Nicodeme and Anoinciata Basebya (EFC-Rwanda-selected future missionaries to South Sudan), Ximena Maldonado (future missionary from Mexico Yearly Meeting North), Ellie Ware (future missionary from EFC-ER), Luke Macy and Nathan Macy (future missionaries from EFC-MAYM), and Matt Macy (EFM Director of Mobilization).

We started with visit to the missionary training boot camp in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, followed by visits to several boot camp student graduates who are serving among the unreached in Tanzania (June 23-29). Then we went to South Sudan, where we spent time in Juba, Sherkat, Juba Two, Kapoeta, Gemueza, and Tarit (June 29- July 8). Nicodeme and Anoinciate Basebya stayed a few more days in the vicinity of Juba to gather more information.

A Few Trip Highlights

We made our third visit to the town of Juba Two, which is a very quickly growing suburb of the capital city of Juba. Many refugees who were internally or externally displaced are moving home, and this is one of the places where many of them are building simple homes and businesses. For the third time, we had future missionaries who were with us who felt a sense of peace and even a sense of “I feel like I am home” when visiting there. It seems like a great place to start the mission. We enjoyed fellowship with local people there, visiting a couple of homes, and spending some time at the water well helping run the hand pump to fill jugs.

We made a two-night trip in Kapoeta, our first time there, which required a flight on a 14-passenger Cessna Grand Caravan. We met the Tiposa Tribe, and we were deeply touched. This is an unreached tribe where child marriage, child labor, and each man having many wives, is the norm. Access to education and other basic services is a challenge in the area. Identity in the traditional tribal way of life and African traditional religions and worldviews are very important to them. This is a town that represents countless towns in “the bush” of South Sudan, where road access is limited/seasonal or non-existent. During the low-altitude flight to/from Kapoeta, we saw countless clans and villages throughout the countryside and felt our hearts drawn to taking the Good News of Jesus to them, in a spirit of humility, learning, and service.

Our team had several visits with groups of people in Kapoeta. We were not allowed to take pictures, but it felt like we were walking amongst the pages of National Geographic, African bush tribes. Upon arriving at the town market, our girls talked to several girls, heavily adorned in jewelry around their necks, wrists, waists, and multi-ear and face piercings, who were happy for conversation as they rested in the shade. They appeared to be around age 16-17 but wouldn’t admit it or didn’t know their age and had their second or third child in their arms. We also had rich conversations of learning with a family outside of town, and also with people leading schools and a local hospital.

What Did We Discover on Our Trip?

As this was our third trip to South Sudan, after Luke 10 Exploration Trips in 2022 and 2023, the poverty and lack of infrastructure stood out, as we were thinking about how and where missionaries would live and what future strategies might look like, especially long-term. The Rwandan missionary family, Nicodeme and Anoinciata, are discerning how they would provide adequate education to their 11-year-old daughter. Also, in earlier trips, our minds were on immersion and homestays for launching the mission, but on this trip, we were also thinking about what minimum needs our missionary families will need for housing for long-term sustainability in areas where existing housing may lack in ventilation, water, electricity, sewer and even roads or security in some places.

We can see that the EFM South Sudan Field Study Group may be recommending that the mission look at sustainable options for starting schools, even before churches are planted. We also discovered that in order to pursue going to the vast areas of unreached peoples in South Sudan, we will need to be prepared to go to towns that can’t be reached by roads most or all of the year, but instead will require travel by small airplane. Discernment will require missionaries to immerse into communities in order to gain access to the information EFM will need in order to make long-term decisions and plans, but there is a growing sense of peace about Juba Two being a newer town that we could move into to get started in establishing an immersion presence and learning language, if not also getting a home base started for the mission there near the capital city of Juba.

What Are the Needs? Who Should Go?

We believe that people with business experience, school administration, teaching, gardening or farming, hospitality, and organizing skills would fit well on this team. These roles, along with a variety of other physical and spiritual support roles for establishing a presence for this disciple-making work, will be needed by both short-term (two-year) or long-term (four years plus) workers. People from the U.S. or other countries who are ready to serve in humility as learners alongside and under EFC-Rwanda’s leadership will be needed.

Pastor Nicodeme and Anoinciata Basebya from Rwanda have been chosen by EFC-Rwanda to move to South Sudan as early as the summer of 2025. We also have young adults from the U.S. who are considering the possibility after further preparation and training. We are praying that the Lord of the harvest would send other mature persons with personal and professional life experiences who could be a part of this work to go to people who may not hear the Good News if we don’t go!

Are you Feeling Called to Join EFM? Are you interested in exploring missionary service? Do you know of anyone of any age who might be interested in exploring the idea of serving as a missionary overseas for two or more years?  EFM is currently looking to contact and connect with people about opportunities to explore serving as missionaries with the Friends Church! To learn more, visit here or fill out this interest form.

We look forward to sharing more news as it becomes available about what we are finding and discerning in EFM’s Luke 10 Initiative.

The post Report from the Pre- Launch Planning Trip to South Sudan first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

By Fall 2023, 17 teams had been sent out to explore 11 different potential new mission fields since EFM’s Five-Year Goal launched in 2021. In November 2023, EFM made a commitment to launch 6 of the 9 fields that were still under exploration. Those six fields are now moving on to the pre-launch planning phases. See more information here.

A Luke 10 Pre-Launch Planning Trip occurs after EFM has made a decision of commitment to launching the mission field. EFM commissions Field Study Groups to complete a Pre-Launch Planning Report, which often requires further trips to obtain the details necessary for EFM to be able to deploy missionaries to a location to launch a new field.

In June 2024, the a pre-launch planning trip took place in Mexico. The following is a report written by team member, Maria Giron.

This team included Ernesto Ramirez (Superintendent Mexico YM Central), Elizabeth Gomez (Director of ITA -Friends Theology Institute), Samuel and Cristina Vasquez (Superintendent of Mexico YM North), Sergio and Nancy Cardona (Pastors Friends Ciudad Juarez), Sergio Contreras (Future Missionary from Coahuila Friends Church), Ximena Maldonado (Future Missionary from Coahuila Friends Church), Angelica De La Cruz (Future Missionary from Coahuila Friends Church), Matt Macy (EFM Director of Mobilization), and Edwin and Maria Giron (EFM Missions Mobilizers).

We explored several towns in two states. In San Luis Potosi, we went to Mexquitic, Moctezuma, and Salinas de Hidalgo. In Durango, we went to Vicente Guerrero, Durango City, Guadalupe Victoria, and Juan Aldama. We also visited Omar and Aryadna Ramírez, church planters in Zacatecas to encourage them and learn how EFM could send additional new workers to help them.

Edwin and Maria Giron met a woman named Martina in Las Vegas who is originally from a town in Durango but has not been able to return to her place of birth, and she has not seen her family for more than 20 years. Martina, a few years ago, accepted Christ, and she is the only one in her entire family who knows about salvation and the Gospel. Maria, knowing her story, told Martina about the plans to explore Durango and Martina, eagerly and excited, asked us to go take the Good News to her family in a little town called Juan Aldama. When the team arrived in Martina’s town, we asked some women who were sitting in small chairs at the door of their house if they knew Martina’s family because we had come to visit them. The two women pointed us towards the house across the street and told us these words: Can’t you also come visit us? Very clearly, at that moment, we felt that it was a special invitation made by God and that he was opening the door since we had heard that the people in Durango are very distrustful and do not easily establish a conversation, much less invite you into their homes.

After visiting Martina’s family, where to the glory of God, a 20-year-old young woman declared her sin and accepted Christ into her heart, we then went to visit these two women sitting at their door, and as we began to tell them that we were a group of Evangelical Christians preaching the Word of God, they invited us into their house inside the living room, one of them saying: Please come in, we want to listen more carefully to what you have to say about God. Soon, they began to call other relatives and neighbors, and soon, the house was filled with more people asking for prayer and listening with hunger and attention to our pastors’ preaching. That moment was a Kairos moment where God poured out his spirit, and seven people accepted Christ into their hearts! It was an amazing experience in which we clearly knew that God was calling us there.

In both states, the harvest is plentiful and ready for harvest. God is opening doors of opportunity to launch new ministries to continue expanding his kingdom in these places where more than 90% of the people are bound by other religions and fear because of the problems of drug cartels, immorality, witchcraft, and many other of Satan’s lies that have them cut off and very far away from having a relationship with our Savior.

The most compelling needs and skill sets needed in this country are church planting, personal evangelism, one-on-one discipleship-making, leadership making, marriage counseling, experience in psychology, addictions therapy/treatment, and kids ministry.

This team recommends the following types of people should answer the call to go to Mexico. People with the ability to establish conversations and relationships with new people. People with the ability to evangelize and disciple communities from scratch. People who are willing to live in very modest places or rustically in small towns. People who are willing to invest time and effort in local people. People with a focus and mentality of going to serve and present Christ to those who need a personal relationship with him. Preferably, people with influence in Spanish or a knowledge of the language or willing to immerse themselves in the culture and learn the language.

We look forward to sharing more news as it becomes available about what we are finding and discerning in EFM’s Luke 10 Initiative.

The post Report from the Pre- Launch Planning Trip to Mexico first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

The team started the next day by having the first conversation with EFM’s Director of Mobilization, Matt Macy, who shared a devotional based on Luke 10 and about EFM’s framework, vision, and mission. The purpose was to get acquainted with each other as we head towards the future where we intend to partner, form, and send multinational teams. After our first formal meeting, we all departed for the first part of the trip where we explored three different towns in the State of San Luis Potosi.

Having completed the first part of this trip, during our first debriefing time as a team, our mutual sense about these towns was that most people in these places are not very open to having a conversation with strangers. In fact, some of us experienced rejection, hardness of hearts, mistrust, and hopelessness in the lives of the local people because of the many cultural conflicts that they have suffered, for which we know that the reality is the need for Jesus’ love in their lives, in their families and their towns. Since the first town we visited, God directed us to talk to some key local people who informed us that before there had been other denominations of evangelical Christians that had tried to initiate ministries around this area and they all failed and left, the one pastor that lasted the longest had a ministry for one year without much fruit.  Even having experienced these hard spiritual soil towns, our team still agrees that it is precisely to these hard places where workers are most needed to come in the name of Jesus to bring the gospel of truth, grace, and love of God.

Please continue praying for our team of 12 as we continue with the second part of this trip traveling through towns in the state Durango.

Please pray…

• For safety and health.
• For continued conversations about the partnership between Mexico Friends and EFM.
• To be able to have encounters with the people of peace in each town.

The post Mexico Pre-Launch Planning Trip Update first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.