Urbana 09, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s 22nd Student Missions Conference, will address some of the most pressing global issues presently faced by missions practitioners around the world. More than 20,000 people, from every state and many nations, are expected to attend Urbana 09, December 27–31, 2009, in St. Louis. Each day at Urbana 09 the program will focus on a different issue and the challenges it presents.

The four issues in focus are:

Movement of Peoples
Millions of people are being dramatically affected by immigration, migration, and human trafficking. In the midst of great human suffering, there are opportunities for people to come to know Christ, who was Himself a refugee and understands their sufferings. Urbana will provide an introduction to the different types of people movement around the world, both voluntary and involuntary, and will create the case for why it’s important for both missions practitioners and those who support them to understand this issue.

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It is hard to miss Joshua Project’s “Unreached of the Day” widgets on websites and Facebook profiles. But you are likely unaware there is a an email version of these. Fuel your prayer for the unreached by getting these daily or weekly prayer (your choice) reminders in your inbox. The email consists of a profile of a different unreached people group each day—complete with picture, map, and prayer ideas.

A “Double the Prayer Challenge” is underway to increase how many people receive these daily reminders to pray for the unreached to over a thousand. For more information about the challenge and how to subscribe to the “Unreached of the Day” emails go to http://prayfortheunreached.com.

I’m highlighting Generous Giving again, following the theme of this issue. From my previous comments about the resource

The website called Generous Giving is aptly self-described. It contains an incredible wealth of information from stories to statistics. One of my favorite anecdotes on the site is a story about two doctors living in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The first time the IRS audited the couple it did so thinking that no one could give as much of their income away as the Finchers. Read their story via this link.

This time I’d also like to point out their upcoming conference in Arizona as well. Find more information about the Spring event via this link.

By Peter Armstrong

We finalized the name for the new internet resource center for aspiring missionaries. Can I have a drum roll please? The name of the website will be… PreparingToGo.com.

Although we tentatively used that domain name to refer to the project for awhile, we did not know if it would go over well with the intended audience. On our quest to make a final name selection, we brainstormed 200+ alternate names, eliminated all but five, and made a survey. Fifty aspiring missionaries gave us their input. The result? PreparingToGo.com emerged as the leader. We think it is a good name to work with—a solid name that relates well to the content of the website, has few negatives, and is easy to remember and spell.

A good name only goes so far though. Ultimately the content on the website supersedes the name. We are happy to report progress on the content the front!

In May, an intern from JBU edited down the footage from several missionary interviews and our pilot run of an organization headquarter tour. In July, we set up the ability to post the videos on PreparingToGo.com. That brings us to beta version 0.6 for the website! Hurray for progress! You can watch these first samples at http://PreparingToGo.com/videos/ . Or watch them via our YouTube channel. If you have a YouTube account please subscribe to the channel and add us as a friend.

Although we have made progress, we also encountered a few setbacks. Unable to figure out a satisfactory method to get around closed country issues for the mission field reports we envisioned, we decided to put production of these video clips on hold indefinitely. Also, our week long mission trip to produce a series of mission agency headquarter tours fell through. Between staff training, travel, and office remodeling projects, summer is not a good time to schedule these tours for the mission agencies. In fact, it may be pretty near impossible to coordinate producing a series of tours in a one week time frame. Lining up the schedules of multiple organizations is tricky! We’re not abandoning the idea though. We will just have to work out a different way of accomplishing the goal.

The next few pieces of the website we are working on are a directory of mission organizations, a logo for the website, and producing more video clips. Content. Content. Content!

The Journey Deepens has retreats coming up in October and November. This weekend retreat will deepen your relationship with Jesus and help you explore what it is like to be a missionary, discover whether a missionary or sender role is God’s fit for you, and connect with mission agencies. The core of the retreat and the key distinctive is the discussion groups with six prospects and two missions coaches which meet four times throughout the weekend.

Find out more by following this link.