Missions on the Frontline
a ministry of WorldVenture
Aaron and Daniel on Journey Corps
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SHOW SUMMARY Jonathan Finley guest interviews Aaron and Daniel, part of the Journeyer team, as they give you the heart of Journey Corps and what drives them to break new ministry ground.SHOW NOTES MOF_2010_01_27_ADJourneyCorp-web_nvr.mp3 |
SHOW TRANSCRIPT |
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AARON BJORKLUND: The website address is MyJourneyCorps.com.
JONATHAN FINLEY: And how is Journey Corps spelled?
AARON BJORKLUND: Journey Corps is spelled J-o-u-r-n-e-y C-o-r-p-s.
JONATHAN FINLEY: I know when you build a new website some of the hardest work is to articulate the essence of the ministry that it represents. Aaron, can you tell us just what Journey Corps is?
AARON BJORKLUND: Journey Corps, as you can see on the website, is essentially a service ministry that allows young people to climb barriers that would normally hinder them from going to missions. It’s a little bit of that. It’s an opportunity for WorldVenture to transfer its years and years of knowledge in missions to a next generation of mission-focused young people. It’s all sorts of different things like that.
JONATHAN FINLEY: So is Journey Corps mostly designed for young people? I mean, where does this ministry take place?
AARON BJORKLUND: Well our first facility is in Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa, and it’s designed primarily for people between the ages of 18 and 30. That’s a really large group and it’s designed for all sorts of different subsets of people like people who are just trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives and they, for example, graduate from college and they still have some questions about their gifting and their calling. It’s also for people who might be intimidated by the idea of going long-term; the process of doing applications and stuff for mission agencies seems a little bit daunting. Well this is a place where they can go and it’s a little bit shorter term and it’s also for people who for example just want to gain some more experience before they make a decision on whether they want to do missions; they want to do business with God and decide whether this is what God has called them to. It’s a great place for them to go and experience what missions looks like firsthand by doing it under the leadership of seasoned missionaries. There are a lot of people out there who are engineers, who are doctors, who are nurses, who have a tremendous heart for God but many mission agencies don’t know quite how to facilitate that because there’s a really high standard for who is going and it’s hard to know what their experience and their knowledge of the Scriptures are so a lot of these people won’t even apply or won’t even think about missions because they don’t see themselves in that category. Well Journey Corps is a place where we want to send people who have a heart for God and a heart to serve.
JONATHAN FINLEY: So is the ministry directed primarily to those who…who…to Americans or, uh, if I understand correctly you are wanting to develop new cross-cultural workers. You want to use the context in West Africa. Is that really what your end-game is, is just developing these people or will Journey Corps be a service to Africa as well?
AARON BJORKLUND: I think it will be a tremendous service to Africa. I mean think about these people who go and take their vocational skill. Sometimes a secular vocational skill that they’ve studied in a regular university and they go and then translate that skill into another culture and then try and share the Gospel at the same time.
JONATHAN FINLEY: So are you telling me that all of these young people will be there learning the language, learning the culture, learning to integrate into life in West Africa?
AARON BJORKLUND: Yeah, absolutely. That’s a huge part of it. There’s not a whole lot of extensive mission training programs out there. Well one of the things Journey Corps, we hope to do, is to teach them the principles of integrating into culture so that we can navigate easier between other cultures. They know the downfalls of, you know, what to do to prevent damaging the culture with the western mindset or what to do…these different things and how to go about starting to learn a new language and the culture shock that takes place. They get to experience that with a team of westerners so that it’s a little bit more familiar and under the direction and leadership of missionaries who aren’t just focused on their own task but then direct their attention back to the Journeyers to really give them intentional training.
JONATHAN FINLEY: Well that’s great. Let’s shift gears a little bit. Describe your role here. If I understand correctly, you won’t be moving to Africa with the Advance Team; you’re planning to stay here in Littleton, Colorado and work in the home office. What does that look like day-to-day?
AARON BJORKLUND: Helping the team get integrated with the different technology; setting up emails, getting things set up for Journey Corps – just back-end management stuff. And then writing some of the content for the website and initially this first six months, the way Jim describes it to me is he really wants me to just be in the back-end and help develop the program and the division. And then next year I will probably divert some of my time to going and spreading the news, maybe going back to Moody, for example, where I have contacts and just getting people excited about giving their lives to two-years of service overseas.
JONATHAN FINLEY: Okay, one last question. What is your dream for Journey Corps? What is the end-game for you? What do you…if in your wildest dreams, what do you hope that it does?
AARON BJORKLUND: I really think that Journey Corps can become a model of how to prepare people for ministry. Not just overseas ministry but a percentage of the people are doing to go and do business with God and decide that they are not called to missions. But, what they will have experienced as a result of Journey Corps, they will have experienced another culture and they will come back to their churches in America or wherever and they will spread a passion for the world and I believe that God has a passion for the world and, I mean, I’m thinking of leadership of the church – both abroad and in the states – who have more of a knowledge of the world, more of a knowledge of missions and God’s heart for the world – and what a tremendous opportunity for us to influence a missional movement all over the Planet.
JONATHAN FINLEY: Thank you, Aaron, that’s a compelling dream. Thank you for sharing. Aaron represents the Colorado office; Journey Corps’s Littleton office. We’ve also got Daniel Graybeal with us. Daniel has the honor of being the very first person that WorldVenture appointed for Journey Corps. I first met Daniel while he was interviewing and he did such a great job, such a compelling interview, that I’ve been enjoying getting to know him ever since. You are moving to West Africa, Daniel.
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Whew!!
JONATHAN FINLEY: Daniel will be part of the Advance Team, setting up for the others who will be arriving. Just tell us a little bit how God brought you to this point. Here you are on a radio show in Littleton, Colorado. It’s kind of a pit stop on your way to Bourke, Cote d’Ivoire. Tell us; how did you get here?
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Um, wow! Well, yeah, it’s been a long journey. I’ve been involved in taking short-term mission trips since 1993 and I’m just going every year and excited about the world and went to Multnomah Bible College in Portland and went to Western Seminary a little bit over there and through youth ministry. I just really had a heart for the world and kept taking trips every year and wasn’t sure exactly where I was going to go or what I was going to do. I have a mentor over in Portland, Doug Hazen, and I’ve hung out with that guy the past four or five years. He kind of helped me refine my calling to realize I was gifted and equipped and had a passion for Africa…
JONATHAN FINLEY: Doug Hazen is the Church Connections Director for WorldVenture in the Pacific Northwest, is that correct?
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Yeah, he’s kind of the Northwest guy for WorldVenture, yeah.
JONATHAN FINLEY: Okay.
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Yeah, yeah. He’s an incredible man of God and a former missionary to Congo and a pretty hard-core dude. So meeting with him every week and meeting with, as well, Jeff and Michelle Theisen, a couple who spent about 20 or 25 years of their life in Africa and were really pioneers in a few different areas and really encouraged me in my walk. So I had been looking into mission organizations and I looked into WorldVenture and I saw that they are really excellent in partnering with the local church. The church here in America and the church overseas and that was a strong value of mine. I don’t think that mission can move away from the church ever. I think the church is the foundation of God’s work. And so I was excited about that and excited as well that WorldVenture really cares about their missionaries; they have a strong missionary care, strong pastoral care division at what they do. Sadly, I’ve seen a lot of missionaries get very task-based and project-based that they forget the soul care of the missionary. I think WorldVenture does really well at sustaining their missionaries in long-term work. So those two things really excited me about WorldVenture and I began the application process and began looking into where I could fit and we began looking at places like Congo and Uganda; Rwanda. Different places for me. The challenge is that where my real passion was is to live in community with other missionaries to intentionally live together so that we might grow together as followers of Jesus. That model isn’t there too often…and then last year about February I was introduced to Jim Copeland, the current director of Journey Corps, and he heard my heart for community and said, “Hey, why don’t you come along and help us build that part?” So we thought it was a good fit and I raised support last spring and summer and moved to Colorado in October.
JONATHAN FINLEY: If I understand correctly, you’ve been working on kind of streamlining the application process to make it easier to get connected with Journey Corps. How would somebody that’s interested in kind of following your same path, how would they get connected with Journey Corps?
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: I think like Aaron said, going online; reading the website (MyJourneyCorps.com) That’s an excellent resource and go ahead and just start the application process by filling out the Getting Better Acquainted Form that’s online there. It’s kind of a pre-application that gets people kind of in the pipeline for application.
JONATHAN FINLEY: If you are just joining us, my name is Jonathan Finley. I’m guest-hosting for Hans Finzel today. I’m here with two of Journey Corps’s start-up team members, Aaron Bjorklund and Daniel Graybeal. Daniel is sharing with us how he got connected with Journey Corps. You can do that as well at MyJourneyCorps.com. Now what do you think about moving to Africa? Have you even ever been to Ivory Coast before?
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: No, I’ve never been to West Africa. I’ve served in East Africa and South Africa on a handful of different trips, leading teams, and things like that but I haven’t been to West Africa. I’ve had some good interaction with Rod Ragsdale, our missionary over there who will be our site director for the first site.
JONATHAN FINLEY: That’s great. So I imagine you have begun working on French a little bit. French is the main language you’ll be learning.
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Yeah, yeah. Um, definitely. Um…starting…
JONATHAN FINLEY: Do you want to say a few words for us? Bonjour Daniel.
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Bon, bon. Bonjour. Au Revoir. Bonsoir. Como talle vous. Aw, I don’t know too much.
JONATHAN FINLEY: So you’re saying those who would like to go with Journey Corps, they don’t have to already know French before they can get started?
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: No, they don’t have to already but before they leave they should start learning.
JONATHAN FINLEY: So one of the main tasks is to learn to function; learn to use the language and understand the culture in the Ivory Coast, is that correct?
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Yeah, one of our core values for Journey Corps is for “do no harm” so our hope is that we really learn to submit to the local leaders and serve them well and to serve another culture well is to learn their language; learn their culture and not be 100% American when we go there but to actually learn to integrate and learn to incarnate as Jesus would into the culture.
JONATHAN FINLEY: Well apart from language and culture, what is it that you hope to learn from the African church, from the West African church?
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Their vision of God. I think we have kind of an insulated vision of God in the west. God has given us many things over here and we often forget the walk of meaning complete independence and faith on God and I think in a place like Cote d’Ivoire there is a whole different experience with God because of the struggles they deal with in terms of war and poverty and just the every day life is difficult there. So I think that the church in one sense is richer in Cote d’Ivoire and I’m excited to join it.
JONATHAN FINLEY: So with so much instability in the Ivory Coast, how do you hope that Journey Corps will benefit Ivory Coast and West Africa in general? What do you hope that your presence will bring? What value?
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Um, I think at many levels I want to show the Ivorians that they are not alone; that we as a global church care about them and support them and are going to give our lives to join them in service and in life and in community together. I do think that some of the practical work we’ll be involved in – in terms of medical, education, farming, business development and different projects that we will be working on – we’ll serve real practical needs in West Africa. Um, the challenge with growth that fast is that it’s hard to really care for all those people that come to the church so in much of Africa conversion has been very rapid and very… It just has exploded in the past 100 years. The church is now at 350 million in sub-Saharan Africa and 100 years ago it was more like 10 million so discipleship is the key in Africa. That’s the need for the church – helping people walk with God and live with God and integrate their faith into their everyday life.
JONATHAN FINLEY: In our lifetime the gravity of the Christian church has shifted from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere to where today the majority of Christians now live in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. As we consider the French-speaking world and the global French-speaking church, the vast majority of French-speaking Christians live in Africa; in West Africa and Central Africa. Can you speak to the African church becoming a sending church?
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Yeah, I think once any church is a healthy, functioning, growing church then the next step is to begin to look into mission and into the world and to other cultures and to needy places and to broken, forgotten places and begin to send workers to support and to help. Just like the early church did in Acts where they sent Paul out, they sent Barnabas; they sent other guys out to look into the situation in foreign cities and to help the church there.
JONATHAN FINLEY: Yeah, it would be great to see some Ivorians as part of the Advance Team that starts Journey Corps / Western Europe.
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Yeah.
JONATHAN FINLEY: Right in Paris. Sound like a good idea?
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Yeah, that would be great.
JONATHAN FINLEY: What do you think, Aaron?
AARON BJORKLUND: It sounds like an awesome idea!
JONATHAN FINLEY: Journey Corps / Western Europe in Paris, France.
AARON BJORKLUND: That’s right.
JONATHAN FINLEY: All right, I’ll be looking out for that.
AARON BJORKLUND: Let’s do it.
JONATHAN FINLEY: Uh, Daniel! Let me just give you the opportunity to say anything you want to say. What’s your dream, man? This is your opportunity to communicate to all of our listeners what you hope for yourself, for Journey Corps, for the world in general.
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Well my hope is that I grow in being a disciple of Jesus. That I grow in following Him and listening to His heart; being sensitive to the Spirit. And so my hope is as I do that I can help others begin that journey as well; that path. So for Journey Corps my hope is as I’ll be working and kind of acting as sort of a chaplain for the students on this first site, my hope is that the students will grow in their walk with God, grow in their consistency, grow in their passion, grow in their understanding of how to follow Jesus, and how to walk with Him and this takes place in a few different ways. First, we are looking at the students and ourselves grow in a place that we call spiritual solitude. What that is, that’s where we create space for God to show up so whether we do it in the mornings or the evenings or midday, whenever a person decides to get alone. In Baptist circles we used to call it a quite time and so find your quiet time; find your spiritual solitude and get alone with God and meet Him in His word and in prayer and sit and listen to Him and give Him time to show up. That’s what spiritual solitude is and I hope that we become very excellent at that and we grow in that and we are a group that demonstrates to the world that that’s the first place we start – an intimacy with our Savior, with God our Father, and that we care most about relationship with God and people becoming disciples through direct conversation with the Father. So we begin the spiritual solitude and then from that space if everyone is growing in that and doing that well, a group of us come together who have met God in our alone time and we call that group community or gospel community. A group coming together that is about the Gospel; about the Good News of Jesus and His reconciliation with individual broken people and broken groups as a whole. And so we see that… Because we are all affected by sin in our lives and in our groups that we are desperate for gospel community. We need a space where there is grace; where there is acceptance and where there is forgiveness and where we practice these rhythms of self-less service to each other. A term has been used called self-giving love where we give all of our self to another for their good. That beautiful place of community can only happen if we’ve been meeting God and letting Him heal our hearts in our alone time.
JONATHAN FINLEY: So as your lives are transformed together through the Gospel your hope that that transformation will be contagious all around you in the areas you’ll be serving in West Africa.
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Yeah. And I think we truly can’t go out and serve and do practical works and help and practical social needs unless we’ve dialed in and we’ve really become serious about those disciplines; those disciplines of spiritual solitude and of community. Because if we’re not then we just become like a Peace Corps; another U.N. humanitarian aid group that’s just doing work for works sake. Our hope is that we do work in Jesus name and I think the only way to do work in Jesus name is to hang out with Jesus first and then go and serve in Jesus name and to ask Jesus, hey, how would you like us to walk? How would you like us to talk? Let Him begin to change us from the inside out. So when we begin to serve it’s evident that we are serving with His love and with His hands and with His feet.
JONATHAN FINLEY: So Daniel, it doesn’t sound like you are planning to bring Jesus to West Africa; you are planning to follow Him there.
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Yeah.
JONATHAN FINLEY: And…
DANIEL GRAYBEAL: Join Him there.
JONATHAN FINLEY: If you’d like to join Daniel in his pursuit of knowing Jesus better through cross-cultural mission experience in West Africa, we invite you to check out the website at MyJourneyCorps.com. There’s a possibility to connect with the team here. Gentlemen, we wish you all the best in your endeavors. WorldVenture is fully behind you; we’re excited about this new ministry and we hope that our listeners are, too. Thank you so much! Thanks for listening today. This has been Missions on the Frontline. We’re here to expand your vision and make you aware of new and exciting ways you can be involved in missions around the world. If you want to learn more about Journey Corps, please consult their website at MyJourneyCorps.com. For more information about WorldVenture please visit WorldVenture.com. And don’t forget to drop us a note. We need your feedback and we’d love to hear from you. You can email us at Frontline@WorldVenture.com This has been Jonathan Finley filling in for Hans Finzel, president of WorldVenture. Hans will be back with you again next week here on Missions on the Frontline.
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