|
Opportunities for Groups
Opportunities for Groups
Young Life offers 7-10 day service-oriented spring and summer trips for high school, college, adult and family groups. Bring together a team from your local YL area, your college campus, your church or community, families or friends with an interest in missions. Trips are great for team building among YL volunteers, High School Bible study groups, church youth and adult groups, YL committee couples and families, or simply a miscellaneous gathering of like-minded people with a heart to serve and an interest in the international community. Truly, we have something for everybody!
Trip itineraries and specifics vary depending on host countries, but all of our short-term missions seek to serve and support the local ministry and community.
Help build camps for local kids!
In countries where Young Life operates a camp property, service projects will typically be divided between camp development needs and assessed needs of the surrounding communities. As with Young Life in the United States, camping plays a key role in our International ministries as a way of placing youth in an undistracted atmosphere so that they might hear the Gospel presented in a concentrated, non-threatening manner.
The vast majority of our international fields do not own or operate their own camping facilities, but in those that do, Expeditions teams are helping to create places where for generations to come thousands of local youth will have the opportunity to meet Christ at camp. In this way, our mission teams fill an invaluable role on behalf of the local ministry!
Serve the local community!
In countries where Young Life does not operate a camp property, service projects will address various needs of the local community and/or the local Young Life ministry. Such projects may include building or renovating a home, constructing a meeting facility for the local Young Life youth club, working on a needy school or orphanage, assisting in Vacation Bible School for local children, volunteering on work projects at a local church, medical missions, etc.
In addition, there are a few opportunities for teams to serve as "workcrew" at camps for local kids which are usually held at non-Young Life operated facilities. Workcew responsibilities include such tasks as washing dishes, food preparation, camp clean-up, etc. This is a powerful opportunity for your group to see the local ministry in action and serve to make a local kid's camp experience memorable and life-changing.
See the local ministry in action!
In host countries with an established Young Life youth ministry, every effort is made to take trip participants to a local Young Life club, meet local ministry leaders, visit a local church and, in certain host countries, stay in the homes of local families for cross-cultural "homestays"*. Often our mission teams find this to be the highlight of their experience, as they are stretched and challenged by the cultural immersion, forming friendships with their host counterparts to last a lifetime.
*Spring trips, typically shorter in length than summer trips, do not allow time for homestays.
Experience the beauty of God’s creation!
In addition to their volunteer service, groups will have opportunities to see and explore the natural surroundings of their host countries. Depending on the host country, groups may visit a rain forest, swim under a waterfall, enjoy a local beach, hike a volcano, etc. Encounter Christ in both the people and the places He leads you!
|