I was so clueless, and I didn't even know it.

I grew up going to church, had always been part of a church, and had even gone to Super Summer.

I wasn't always on the right track, but things finally started to click during my last year of high school. My youth minister (Norman Flowers) even tricked me into preaching in Big Church on youth Sunday. It was terrible. For me and for everybody there that day.

With a cornerback's short-term memory, I surrendered to the ministry right after my senior year and headed off to DBU to start my next season. DBU was amazing in just about every way.

I was learning how to follow Jesus and being pushed into ministry opportunities. I even served as a team leader for a Shine Out Revival team after my sophomore year preaching revivals at 10 different churches in the Amarillo area. 

I was growing in ministry, but something was missing.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I felt like all the international students at DBU were an inconvenience. They seemed to be in the way, really strange, and almost impossible to talk to; not that I actually tried. 

My BSM director (Joel Bratcher) had to have seen my blind spot. I bet part of him wanted to rebuke me and challenge to me wake up to the mission field right in front of my face. But Joel is an encourager, and he is amazing at discipling college students. He took a better approach.

He showed me an opportunity to go to Kazakhstan over the summer. He said he thought it would be a great opportunity for me and wanted me to pray about it. I probably thought he meant an opportunity to do more ministry. I know now that he actually meant an opportunity for me to learn some things I was missing.

I prayed about it and signed up to go, not once considering that I wasn't even sure it was a real place. It was my first mission trip ever. And it was a long way from Whataburger and the rest of my comfort zone.

It was exactly what I needed.

I believe God is completely in control and I believe He uses us in spite of us. So I believe He accomplished some things through us that month that summer.

It's just much easier to identify what he accomplished IN ME that summer.

He showed me how much bigger He was than I had realized. He showed me how much He loved the whole world. He showed me the beauty of His creation. He showed me how much He wanted all the nations to worship Him. He showed me that living for anything other than His purpose would always be settling for less than He wants for me. He showed me that I was here to live to make Him famous.

I had no idea at the time, but God birthed deep down in me a desire to point students to these truths. We didn't start iGo Global until almost ten years later, but my passion to lead iGo is directly connected to my clueless summer in K-Stan.

It didn't take 10 years to show up, though. I saw the whole world differently after that trip. I saw my college campus as a mission field, especially the many international friends I would finally have. Yes, friends. They weren't projects. They were people that God loved and pursued that I got to know and got to share the gospel with right there on a Baptist university campus.

My friends and I began to invest in our international friends. We threw parties for them. We did crazy stuff like sitting with them in the cafeteria. We went to their gatherings and tried their food. Pig's ear is even more chewy than you would think.

We even somehow borrowed the DBU security van and took a group of them out to the country for a bonfire, but DBU has asked me not to really talk about that.

This iGo Global thing has been going for over 20 years now. And those stories continue to pile up. Mission trips are essential. Don't let anyone tell you they aren't.

Mission trips with solid teaching and training produce a long-term impact on the field and in the lives of the participants. These trips solidify our worldview. They provide opportunities to join Him in His work. They clue us in to God's heart and His passion in unique ways.

They teach us to live on mission.