Counting Down to our 10 Year Anniversary – 2006
Very shortly after we started iGo (back then, iWitness) our friend James Lankford asked us to drive up to Oklahoma for a meeting. In that meeting James simply asked us if we could handle about 200 Oklahoma students that had indicated they wanted to serve on an international mission trip.
We said no. Or maybe it was an emphatic no way. At that time, we had not taken a team of students anywhere. We felt like just a couple of guys with a good idea, but with no real idea if we could make that idea happen. We really wanted to say yes, but we knew deep down that we just weren’t ready for that kind of bandwidth. We asked James to give us a couple of years to get this thing going, and we would get back in touch.
And then we drove back to Texas (AKA The Republic) and poured all of our time and energy into barely mobilizing a team of 13 to Japan. ( See the 2001 story for more details ).
Fast forward to the spring of 2005. We were preparing for our biggest summer ever. Texas Super Summer Global had, to say the least, taken off. We were poised to send over 200 students that summer, and we felt like we had a partnership model now that might work elsewhere.
Meanwhile, up in Oklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plains, James and the BGCO had been working diligently to mobilize students from Falls Creek. With over 40,000 students attending Falls Creek every summer, they still weren’t having any success with their GO Students initiative. In fact, in 2005 they would send less than 10 students overseas through GO Students.
It was time for another meeting. James and I met for three hours that day at InterUrban Restaurant in Ardmore, OK (someday maybe they will put a random historical marker in front of that place). With James’ desire to see Oklahoma students go global to make Him famous and our new model, we formed an official partnership. iGo Global would now be the student missions facilitator for the BGCO through Falls Creek.
Keep in mind that what we were doing with Texas Super Summer was just a model. Going into 2005, it hadn’t even been a successful model, other than we had 100 students and adults signed up and ready to go. With Oklahoma, we didn’t know what to expect. There were enough differences in the camp, partnership, etc. to make us wonder if we would have anywhere near the same level of success.
We didn’t have to wonder for long. When 2006 rolled around, we ended up sending 194 Oklahoma students and adults overseas. The response was so amazing that we had to scramble to create two weeks instead of one for GO Students. From a total of 13 in 2001 to over 400 in 2006!
Of course, now that we look back we can see this thing unfold so clearly. God’s timing was so perfect. We truly weren’t ready in that first year, but I doubt Oklahoma was ready then either. Without their struggle to do it themselves for a few years, they might not have ever been to the point where they would jump in with both feet. God took some time to get us ready and then he set in motion a groundswell from every corner of Oklahoma and all the parts in between.
Yes, 2006 was intense. It was crazy and demanding and fulfilling and challenging and stretching. But it was so much fun. So much joy came when everything came together like that. We had college teams serving in some of the hardest places on the planet to penetrate with the gospel. We had interns in Germany and Japan helping the M’s to get ready for and lead other teams coming in. We had a great group of Jimmy interns back in the office helping us to mobilize. And God was building our staff, our vision, our ministry, and our impact.
Side Notes: (Because every time I write one of these recaps somebody tells me what I forgot)
2005: First year we had a mascot in iGosia. The first one was an armadillo. In 2006, we went to the penguin. Can you name all the others?
Staff: God had to build our staff while he was growing our ministry as well. Ky and Aaron finally got out of college and joined the team officially shortly after Natalie in the 04/05 year. Crystal Meeker joined us in 2005 as well. Lori Flowers had come with us for a few years to help us get organized, but she left to move to Atlanta with her husband. In 2006, Elizabeth Junell heard the call (either from God or from us for help) and she took over as adminstrative and business manager. The exact dates and such have gotten away from me but Kent Jones made a shift to iGo staff instead of GO Foundation staff as his primary job somewhere in there as well.
Jimmy : It seems like in 2005 or maybe 2006 we started calling our office interns Jimmy. Brad decided that everyone needed a friend named Jimmy, and it was easier to give them all the same name. So we did.
And the countdown to our 10th Anniversary Celebration continues!
