Prayer: M-DAT Participating in Urbana 09 — Our team is getting ready to head to St. Louis at the end of December for Urbana 09—the largest student missions conference in the United States. If you are attending, look for us in the exhibit hall. Paul Nielsen has designed a new display (very exciting!) and is now working on designing the resource cards we will be handing out. Please remember him in prayer and also begin to pray that God would put us in contact with students we can encourage in their missions involvement, as well as some who will have a vision for using the internet as a tool for helping mobilize their generation and join our staff.

Prayer: Wii™ Golf Tournament Nov. 21st — M-DAT’s Wii™ Golf Tournament is just around the corner. Please pray for good participation and smooth working of the technology during the event.

Praise: Web Design Progress — We are happy to have visible progress on the AskaMissionary.com redesign and the design work for PreparingToGo.com. The logo design for both websites is complete! Take a look. They are posted on the media board here: http://www.causes.com/mdat.

News: M-DAT Leads Social Media Workshop at FSTML — Peter Armstrong, M-DAT’s executive director, twice led a workshop titled “Using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube Effectively in Short-Term Missions” at the Fellowship of Short-term Mission Leaders conference. The workshop was done via video conference. The workshop was well attended and we received positive feedback on the content presented.

Praise: The response to our first annual Wii Golf Tournament exceeded our expectations, from both sponsors and participants. We’ve heard that people who didn’t attend this year are already planning to come in 2009. We’re trying to figure out how to get more gaming stations into the community building to accommodate the interest!

Prayer: Work on PreparingToGo.com, continues at a steady pace. The next steps in the process include purchasing a video editing computer, completing a logo and completing calls to gather information about 30 long-term sending agencies. Work on a more interactive version of the next steps assessment tool is ahead of schedule.

Prayer: M-DAT is in the final stages of solidifying an agreement with John McVay, creator of AskAMissionary.com, to add the website and its wealth of content for aspiring missionaries to M-DAT’s growing suite of mission resources. The agreement is for a one year trial period that could begin as early as December 31st. Pray for wisdom and God’s direction as we move ahead with this opportunity.

News: Website name finalized. After gathering input through a brief survey, a name has been chosen! M-DAT staff have been working in earnest on a resource to help aspiring missionaries get to the field. That website, PreparingToGo.com, is now in very early stages. Core components of PreparingToGo.com will eventually include video interviews and tours, a readiness assessment, and a searchable database of sending organizations.

Prayer: Wii golf tournament. We’re planning a Wii Golf Tournament as a fundraiser this Fall. None of us here at M-DAT actually golf, and using the popular Wii video game console complements the technology aspect of the ministry. Pray that preparation will go smoothly and the event will be successful.

Praise: Inquiry increase. Two months ago we made a few small adjustment to the process for inquiring about mission opportunities posted on ShortTermMissions.com. The result surprised us: A significantly higher than expected increase in inquiries being sent to our partner organizations. More inquiries = more successful connections. More successful connections = increased involvement in mission!

News: 1 million searches. In April the 1 millionth mission trip search was performed on ShortTermMissions.com!

Praise: Response Exceeds Expectations — Over 350 aspiring missionaries completed the survey we conducted in November and December. The responses and feedback have been extremely helpful to gauge the need and interest for a long-term mission website. We were also pleasantly surprised to have over 200 respondents sign up to receive Propel!

Praise: Volunteers Man Display at Mission Connexion Northwest — We broke into new territory this past weekend (Jan. 18 -19th) when for the first time ever, the M-DAT display was entirely setup, manned, and disassembled by volunteers. Thanks Nick and Kari! Nick reported: “I found that people really appreciate the work that you guys do. I expected that, but it was really encouraging to actually hear it from people. God is really using M-DAT, and I think that is really cool.”

Prayer: Volunteer Coordinator and Website Project Manager — Please pray for God to provide a volunteer volunteer coordinator. This person would help us tap into people who desire to invest a portion of their time to help accomplish our ministry vision. We are also still praying for a website project manager to join our team — an addition that would greatly expand our capacity to serve.

News: Mission Book Giveaway — In February, March and April we will be giving away ten short term mission books each month. Rules and details will be published in the next few weeks on ShortTermMissions.com.

Prayer: Video Gear — As we move forward with plans for the website for future missionaries, we have identified the need for basic video equipment and editing software. Later this Spring we’ll be letting folks know about the need and asking them to give to help meet the need.

Prayer: Spring Board Retreat — Coming up March 13th-16th our board meets for their annual retreat.

• Praise: ShortTermMissions.com buzzed with activity over the last few months as people looked for summer opportunities. One website visitor wrote:

“Yes, I found a short term mission trip through your site (praise the Lord!).  I’ll be going with Eastern European Outreach to Kiev in June 2007.”
— Steve

We are encouraged to see God working through the website! Watch for more user testimonies in the near future.

• Praise: As our staff prepared some reports for our annual board retreat we rejoiced at seeing a solid, steady annual growth rate of 15-20% since M-DAT’s birth seven years ago across all areas of the ministry (service reach, man hours, funding). Praise the Lord for His provision!

• Pray: This year we hope to expand further into helping believers who are considering becoming a full time missionary. To that end we have a number of additions slated for a website we have in development (currently called PreparingToGo.com). Pray that we would be able to pull off these additions in our already tight work schedule! (Keep on praying for a few more people to join our team!)