By Laura Granger, Guest Contributor
After a ten-year hiatus, Missions in Focus week returned for its second consecutive year.
Held Feb. 21–23, Missions in Focus, formerly known as Missions Emphasis Week, was a three-day event that included a chapel series, afternoon panels, evening symposiums and a job fair where students could meet missions organizations. This year, 28 missions organizations came to campus, up from last year’s 15.
Ruby Bartmess, a junior Christian formation and ministry and art history double major, directed Missions in Focus this year. Bartmess said this year’s event centered on the idea of stewarding your gifts, whatever they might be. She was excited for the many opportunities students would have to connect with missionaries, listen to their stories and have conversations with them.
“One of our guiding themes was this idea of open hands,” she said. “We wanted to think about having open hands, with our work being an offering to God . . . to have a posture ready to receive and ready to give.”
Reverend Johnnie Moore, a member of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and president of Congress of Christian Leaders, spoke at chapel on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, all part of the Missions in Focus chapel series. His messages encouraged students to ponder the sacrifices of Christians living in danger for their faith and live in solidarity with them.
Throughout the three-day campus-wide event, tables in Lower Beamer were lined with missions organizations. Students could meet missionaries and parachurch organizations engaged in gospel work. Organizations like Voice of the Martyrs, Wycliffe, Cru and OMF International came to campus to recruit students and share about their work both overseas and across campuses nationwide.
In past years, Missions in Focus week connected students with summer missions, internships and other short-term mission trips. Annika Reed, senior Christian formation and ministry major and the student administrator for Missions in Focus, said many professors invited visiting representatives to speak to their classes during the week. Some professors have even opted to take their class to one of the seminars held throughout campus.
Joanna Moss, a senior communication major who grew up around missionaries, said she witnessed some of her friends feel confirmed that they have been called by God to do missions work after Missions in Focus week.
“I look forward to Missions in Focus week because it feels like home when I’m walking through Lower Beamer,” said Moss. “Although I do not know anyone who initially became inspired to pursue full-time missions because of the event, I have several friends who connected with other missionaries and felt they were affirmed in their calling to go overseas.”
Reed said students from a variety of departments joined the Missions in Focus cabinet in prayer over the last month.
“ simply prayed that the Lord would open the eyes of campus to his work around the globe,” she said. “Whether people are called to go or to stay, everyone has a part to play in the work of missions around the world.”
On Wednesday, missionary kids and third-culture students hosted a panel to share their personal experiences. Missionaries from Voice of the Martyrs, a ministry serving persecuted Christians in religion-restricted countries around the world, also shared their stories of involvement in the persecuted church at an evening symposium. Missionaries spoke at a seminar on Thursday about how they have used various forms of storytelling to share the gospel, as well as the need for missions in East Asia and the intersections between missions and vocation. Missions in Focus week concluded on Friday with a special Rice Friday event in Coray Gym featuring another student missions panel.
Bartmess said she hopes students were encouraged that their gifts, no matter the profession or field of study, can be used for God’s kingdom.
“One of our big goals for the week was to invite people into God’s work for the world,” Bartmess said. “Our lives are a gift, and being stewards of God’s grace, we want to use them to glorify God. We are all invited to join missions.”
Laura Granger is a senior English writing major from California. She is a guest contributor to the Record.
