Encouraging a Life of Mission

At our Bridge Street Mission School, we invite students to join us for an 8-month discipleship journey.  During this time we work to give our students a fuller understanding of God’s character and his word, and help equip them to live a life of mission.  By mission, we don’t mean only vocational missionary work.  Rather, we work to help our students understand that God wants to use each of us in his plan of redemption every single day.  We help our students understand that God’s kingdom is one that brings shalom to the broken parts of this world, and that he wants to use ordinary people to accomplish this mission.


BSMS Students Brenna and Sam teaching in an academy in La Limonada, Guatemala.

During the second phase of our mission school we send our students overseas to work with our partners in either Guatemala or India.  While we work hard to dismantle the idea that mission is something that we only do overseas, we also want our students to see the fingerprints of God in a different culture.  We want our students to see that the God that we love and serve here in the West Side of Grand Rapids is the same God that our friends serve around the globe.  And the mission that we are a part of here in the West Side… the mission of redemption in a broken neighborhood… is the same mission that God is working out around the world. 
 
On a recent trip to visit our team in Guatemala, I was thrilled to see and hear that our students are catching this vision.  As I talked with our students and asked how their first three and a half months with us in the West Side of Grand Rapids had prepared them for their time in Guatemala, several of them talked about gaining a better understanding of God’s heart for the poor and marginalized.  There was a sense that they had a better understanding that their purpose in Guatemala was to serve our partners in joining God’s mission, rather than seeking their own adventure.


Our friend Tita Evertsz, founder of Vidas Plenas (Fulfilled Lives) in Guatemala.

And as I sat with our friend Tita in one of the four academies that she started in the slums of Guatemala City, I was even more thrilled to hear her talk about how much our students have blessed their team.  She talked about how diligently they have prepared for their time with the kids in the academy, how well they have connected with and love the teachers, and how engaged and selfless they are when they join Tita and her team on their weekly prayer walks through the streets of La Limonada.   
 
One of our daily prayers is that God’s kingdom would come here.  Our students are learning to live out that prayer every day, both here in the West Side, and around the world. 
 
Thank you for helping us support our students on this journey.
 
Ryan Waalkes, Director