Intern Training 2016

With the Amazing Race over it was time to start Intern Training! This is our four days conference that equips our interns for the summer ahead. This year the theme throughout our time together was the path of a growing disciple and the five challenges we see Christ give to people along that pathway - to come and see, to repent and believe, to follow me, to follow me and fish for men, and "I am sending you." 

In the Bible we see Jesus give these five challenges to people - He sees and loves people exactly where they are and calls them to follow Him in a deeper way. And everyone we meet is somewhere on that pathway, and we are somewhere on that pathway too. We had five chairs (and, at times, five people in those chairs) on stage as visual reminders of the pathway.

We spent time talking about these five different stages and how each stage has different needs and challenges. In the evenings Dave Patty, the president of Josiah Venture, taught on the Father heart of God and led us in examining where are the places where we need God to bring us into deeper relationship with Him.

As well as those sessions, we shared about the mission and vision of JV - who we are and why we do what we do. Interns also receive teaching on how to serve in a team, how to share the Gospel and their story, their role for the summer, and many other things. There are also a lot practical skills they need to know for their summer - including teaching English or music, and the camp dance, which 2 year old Stella J is joining in on this photo. 

It was really fun for me to teach about serving cross-culturally with Rob! And with 92 North Americans and 41 Europeans, even if you're serving in your own country, everyone is serving cross-culturally.

As well as all the teaching sessions there is also plenty of space in the schedule for interns to get to know one another and process what they've been learning (both in their teams and individually). We also had afternoon sports games.

And on the last night each country stood in turn and were prayed over by a JV staff member. We are so excited to see how God works in and through these wonderful people - this summer and beyond! It was such a joy and honour to spend a week with them and I am looking forward to seeing some of them throughout the summer, and hearing some of what they've been up to! 

You can see some photos and read some of their stories if you go to this link of the #jvinterns on instagram.

And if you want to read our president's letter about our interns you can do so here.