The great “Hannibal” Smith from The A-team is famous for saying, “I love it when a plan comes together.” This was his closing line of each episode right after everything worked out, but hardly ever according to his plan.

2007 felt a little like that. The common thread throughout all these countdown articles is God’s faithfulness and guidance. This ministry has always been His vision, His plan, and His work. He led us to every idea, and many times he seemed to just drop things in our lap. The way He orchestrated events and circumstances to get us further down the road left us humbled and encouraged. His plans always came together, often at the expense of ours.

So when we say that in 2007 things really began to click, you know where to give the credit.

That little JSI idea from 2004 was rolling by the time 2007 came around. High school and college students were interning with M’s in Germany and Japan. These students spent their summer months leading one week and other short term teams on the field. They invested in people from their host cultures while our M partners invested in them through intense discipleship. It was cool to glance at this on the surface and see that we were allowing these students to become M’s. They were doing everything that M’s do, right alongside the career M’s. Even cooler was to look closer and see that we were doing something even bigger. We were helping these students develop an on mission life.

We also saw a clear strategy develop around this time for helping students intensify their engagement. Students could at that time serve with iGo for a week on an entry level team or for most of the summer as a JSI or college Xtreme Journey team member. That, however, wasn’t enough for a couple of young ladies. Chelsea and Amy approached us and asked if we would send them to East Asia for 14 months. Without really knowing how to do that (and Chelsea and Amy can verify that fact), we said yes. Those two young ladies paved the way in so many areas. We now send students to the middle east for 6 months or a year. We learned from them that we needed to provide clear steps for our students to see what is next in their journey towards missional living. As we get to walk with students over the course of a few years and multiple levels of trips, we can truly help them become on mission Christ followers. Thanks Amy and Chelsea for being such great guinea pigs (that sounds better than lab rats).

I remember writing in my journal back in 2001 how much I wanted hundreds of students to serve overseas with us all over the planet. I also remember not knowing how in the world that would ever happen. I didn’t have a plan, just a vision. Seven summers later we were able to train and send 500 students overseas. Some of them served a week, some served the whole summer, and three served longer than six months. Yep, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

Stay tuned for the final few articles in this countdown series. There is more to that 2001 journal entry that I need to share, more of God’s fulfillment of the vision He gave us from the very beginning, and of course more pictures to post on Facebook.

[If you got this far, you should post a comment to Shu, letting him know you’re reading these. He needs some motivation to continue these updates!]