Chris Reasner (right) talks with a student after class at a high school in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
Africa (MNN) ― Biking through the desert to put Fulakunda villages on a map. Helping Nigerien villagers with basic first aid. Running sports clinics and self-esteem classes for South African high school students. These are just a few ways that 44 short-term missionaries with Hands On Africa, a project of the International Mission Board, advanced the cause of the Gospel in the spring of 2008.
Hands On is designed to give Southern Baptist young people, 18 to 29 years old, a taste of life on the mission field. Teams of four serve alongside experienced missionaries and field supervisors for four and a half months, scheduled at the time of a typical semester. They receive language and cultural training before beginning their ministry.
Some Baptist colleges and seminaries offer credit for completing the experience. Currrently, the program is offered only in Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa, but it will go worldwide in 2009.
"I think with coming for a longer period of time, you really get to experience the culture," said Chris Reasner, a student at the University of Montana. "You really get to see what life is like because it becomes your lifestyle."
Reasner and Jay Dannelley worked in a rough area of Port Elizabeth, South Africa, where 70 percent of the city's crimes are reported. Drugs, abuse, and gang activity abound in the lives of high school students. Because so many people have committed suicide by jumping off of one bridge in Port Elizabeth, the city has installed a camera and an emergency phone.
"The schools are the most dangerous [areas] of all," says Wayne Barros, a local Baptist pastor and Cape Malay resident who has been working in high schools for the past 12 years. "There have been a lot of cases of stabbing, getting guns into school."
Nevertheless, Reasner and Dannelley have been able to reach students with the power of God to change lives. "They come to school having a lot of baggage with them," Dannelley said. "We try to tell them, ‘You can change your school. You can make it better ... if you are on fire for the Lord.'"
Kelsi Kelso and Brittany Breedlove left the comforts of their Texas homes to immerse themselves in the daily life of a Niger village.
"I have been stretched more beyond measure on this trip than I have ever been in my life. Nothing else matters than serving the Lord, no matter what you do," Kelso says. "Whether you're sitting at a desk back in the States or being a real missionary in Niger, you need to be a missionary wherever [you are]."