My year with Mission24

It was a joy to meet our group, chat and catch up on what happened since our first trip to Thailand in August 2023. It was also exciting to meet the new participants who some of them I already knew from my Ucrew year (you can read more about Ucrew here ).  So I had time to reflect on my thoughts on the program with my friends and also ask what the new participants were expecting from their year.

Different cultures

In Norway we focused a lot on the different cultures that came together. We had participants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Norway and me, an Estonian, and since we were instructed to bring some local snacks with us, we had a way to get to know each other’s cultures better by food. Having been learning about mission for a year it was nice to pay attention to how culture impacts the ways we socialize with others, the vocabulary we use and manners we have.

Snacks from Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Photo by Silje Løvdal / NMSU

Mentors

One of the days in Oslo we met our mentors. They shared about their Mission 24 experience with us. My mentor was an Estonian so she didn’t join the trip, but it was amazing to see my friends mentors and learn about their experience. I think one thing that made this program so enjoyable and special was the mentorship part of it. The opportunity it gave for us to learn from both former and present missionaries about their journeys, and hear what God have given them and lessons they have learned were encouraging. With my mentor we met once a month after online teaching to reflect on what I had learned and we got to pray for each other and cheer on the works that God is doing in our lives. I feel that many of us got a friend from our mentor and I truly think that these are the friendships we will cheerich through all our lives.

Photo by Silje Løvdal / NMSU

The meaning of mission

One thing I learned from this program was the meaning of mission. I got to share this also in the last days of our trip to Norway when we participated in the «Boat and Bible» family camp at Furutangen. Growing up in the Estonian Pentecostal Church I was taught that mission is the Great mission commandment in Matthew 20:16-20 where Jesus sends out His disciples to share gospel and make more disciples of all the nations, it was a task trusted to us to carry through and in my church it meant doing outreach in the city streets, and overall being very loud and clear of what Jesus taught us. Then in the year 2022 I participated in the Ucrew program and worked in Ukirke in Stavanger and through that year I learned that mission is much more than just sharing the gospel, mission is about making friendships, being hospitable, getting to know each other and sharing lives. My understanding of what mission is expanded and last year it grew even more. We heard stories of how people do mission with the talents they have, how doing mission work involves getting your hands dirty by planting a field, building a bridge or making soap as they do in Thailand in the «Home of Grace». We also made 100 soaps while visiting them on our first trip in the summer 2023. And I learned that mission is about building a network, and that it is a way to encourage other missionaries. I also heard stories that in the hard times of missionaries lives, knowing that you have a network of people praying for you, the hard times became bearable and easier to go through.