We are counting down to our 10th Anniversary Celebration banquet by looking each week at one of the 10 years. And since we are doing them all in order, this week we are looking at 2004. Unfortunately, 2004 was pretty boring. There, I said it. Criticize if you want, but you were all thinking it (unless of course 2004 was your year to go: in that case, well, sorry).

Just look at the timeline and you can see what I mean. In 2001 we started this whole thing from nothing and turned it into a tiny bit more than nothing, but at least we started. In 2002 we were dealing with the new world created by 9/11. In 2003 God threw SARS into Asia to make things really crazy. And next week we will talk about a new little partnership thing we unveiled in 2005 called Super Summer Global.

And right in the middle of all that fun was 2004, just sitting there looking at us with that cute and innocent look I get from my youngest daughter, usually after she has taken away a sibling’s toy. Interesting.

So maybe this calls for some closer inspection. In the summer of 2004, things started clicking. We broke into triple digits by sending 110 students that summer. We partnered with several churches to send youth groups on mission in a thing we called Group Treks. Asia opened back up and we sent a college team into East Asia (aka Big Red) to work with a new partner. Teams went back into Japan (including our first and last 8th grade team members). We added another new location in Central Asia (one of the countries with -stan at the end), and we sent out a small team of high school and college students to Germany in what turned out to be our first overseas intern team.

Our new friend, JRS (connected to him by SARS) in Cologne wanted to have a group of students interning with him for the summer that he could train to lead the other teams (Group Treks) that were coming in for a week at a time. We had a small number of pioneer-minded students ready and willing to spend more than 2 weeks overseas, so we put it together. Thus, the JSI strategy was born.

Every summer now students serve as JSI’s all over the world. (Note: In 2004 we called these students interns. We also called the students serving in our office interns. It got a little confusing. We ended up calling the overseas interns JSI’s. Don’t ask me what that stands for. And we now call our stateside interns Jimmy. That’s right, We don’t call anyone interns anymore, but at least it’s not confusing.) These students spend from 6-8 weeks overseas. Working closely with our M partners, they experience intense discipleship, lead our short term teams in their cities, and learn how to lead. Many of these JSI’s every summer are high school students, who can be seen leading other high school students and even adults through public transportation in foreign cities in order to engage unreached peoples. It is one of my favorite things to observe. The book, Do Hard Things was written by a couple of teenagers challenging their generation to raise the bar and do things far beyond the expectations placed on them by others. Our JSI’s do hard things every summer.

All that began with that first group of interns back in 2004. Thanks Allison, Bama, Crista, Heather, Heidi, Jennifer, Jordan, and Lindsey.

Ok, ok. You got me. 2004 was actually quite impressive. God removed all the distractions that summer so He could work on the foundation. It’s a good thing he did, too. 2005 and a small army from Texas Super Summer were on the way.

Check out a selection of photos from 2004 on the iGo Global Facebook page.