Journey - Clarkston GA August 2024

NOTE: Recommended travel days included above, Saturday-Saturday. First official session is 8:00am Monday, August 26. Last session ends 11:00am Saturday, August 31 with enough time to catch an afternoon flight.
 

One of HarvestCall's focus areas is “Our Journey of Learning”.

Many of us have taken short-term service trips to other countries intending to serve there, and we come back saying, “I gained more than I gave.” What we may not fully realize, unless we have specific and locally unavailable skills (such as medical certifications), that’s usually a true statement. We should be approaching our short-term international service trips with a humble posture of learning (receiving from the foreign culture) and only secondarily with the intention to give.

And really, if we’re being honest, many of us sign up for these short-term international trips looking for not only an opportunity to serve (actually, crossing the street could give us that), but also fellowship with other brethren, a bit of adventure, and some global perspective. Short-term international service trips provide these things for our benefit, but our benefit often comes at the local community’s cost. “Missionary tourism” is a huge global industry and causes a lot of damage as participants “serve” local communities through their own cultural lenses—not speaking the local language or having enough experience in the culture to carry out their “service” in culturally sensitive ways.

Blessing others in an outward sense begins with a life dedicated to discipleship in Christ Jesus that overflows from the inside out.
Journey will challenge you to grow inwardly in discipleship while growing outwardly in seeing all nations through the eyes of Jesus. So, we have partnered with our Peachtree City church and ACCFS Abide to develop a different kind of short-term “international” trip—one that provides you with the fellowship, adventure, and global perspective you’re desiring—and so much more! We’re now offering the opportunity for our brethren to learn about other cultures and understand their role in God's Kingdom by immersing in a very diverse refugee community in Clarkston, Georgia.

The Journey week includes:

• Discipleship training and teaching which prepares us to interact with other worldviews from a place of strong faith
• Spiritual formation activities designed to connect us with our Master on a deep personal level
• Focused learning sessions about unreached people groups and refugees, how we as ACs can learn and serve well, and how to authentically integrate our faith and our service with other cultures
• Field trips to ethnic communities, stores, bazaars and restaurants
• A cross-cultural music worship session featuring language appreciation
• A visit to the refugee community’s place of worship
• Fellowship opportunities throughout the week with the team
• Reflection time to apply your learning within your local community

HarvestCall is leveraging the passion of a teacher from our ACCFS Abide discipleship instruction, the experiences of a local couple who live within the refugee community and several others that maintain relationships within the refugee community. They will be your “tour guides” and teachers, preparing and debriefing you as you experience these fascinating cultures, sing a song in their language, explore their religion, and eat their amazing foods. Your only “service requirement” is to show respect and honor to this community who has suffered much by showing genuine interest in them, by treating them as peers, and by giving them a welcome here in their new country.

 

Required training before you go:

HarvestCall is committed to encouraging short-term ministry participants to approach their unique opportunity with a humble learner's heart. We cannot learn from those we scorn or ridicule, so we do well to find ways to recognize and properly respond to the values of those who are different from us, who don't have the same advantages that we enjoy. We can also learn about ways that we might be disadvantaged in our culture!

Learning without Hurting / Syllabus:

- What is poverty and how does God view the materially poor? How can I help in a positive way?
- How should we think responsibly about interacting with another worldview?
- Introduction to Abide, Clarkston, partner agencies, and practicalities.

Access and timing:
Three pre-trip sessions are held over video meeting technology, facilitated by HarvestCall.
The sessions will typically take place in the month prior to your trip.

Cost:

Due to a generous sponsor, this trip is completely free!
All of your travel, lodging, and meal expenses are fully covered.

After your trip:

If you haven't posted your story on ServiceReef, consider doing so after your trip. Stories are a great way to connect with your family and friends about your experience. (Stories are subject to approval before posting online)
Opportunity participants may have the option to join your teammates for a post-event reunion! This follow-up event will happen at the discretion of your team leader, as your team desires.

Why get together? For one thing, it's just fun to see everyone again and re-live your stories! But we all could use the reminders and reinforcement of the life lessons we learned from our unique opportunity to serve. A reunion is also a great way to check up on your goals - how are you doing applying what you learned on the field to your everyday life?.