Baptist Foundation awards grant to NGU Intercultural Studies program

North Greenville University has received a $15,000 grant from the Baptist Foundation of South Carolina in support of its Intercultural Studies degree program.

Intercultural Studies majors are required each May and June to participate in a supervised international field immersion experience. In the past, North Greenville students have travelled to East Asia and to Eastern Europe. This year the immersion experience will take place in the South American country of Ecuador. Students will be learning about Latin American history, culture, and religion, and they will be studying the specific strategies that missionaries are using to share the gospel and plant New Testament churches in both the Andes Mountains and the Amazon Basin.

Working with field missionaries and national Baptist partners, these students will also participate in a wide variety of evangelistic and outreach ministries, including direct evangelism, church planting, children’s and youth ministries, discipleship formation, and leadership development.

The purpose of the international field immersion experience is to help these Intercultural Studies majors integrate mission theory with hands-on experiences and practices on the mission field.

The grant from the Baptist Foundation of South Carolina will help defray the $4,000-per-student cost for the experience.

Allen McWhite, director of the North Greenville University Center for Cross-Cultural Engagement and Global Leadership, and the supervising professor for the immersion experience, stated, “We are very grateful for the Baptist Foundation of South Carolina and for those donors whose investments make grants like this possible. Without this kind of financial assistance, many of our Intercultural Studies majors would not be able to participate in these kinds of invaluable experiences.

“The foresight of these donors and the gifts that result from these kinds of investments are helping to shape a new generation of missionaries who will engage spiritual darkness as they take the good news of the gospel to the nations,” said McWhite. “We simply cannot express our appreciation adequately enough for the difference that this grant makes, both to our students and to those who will hear — perhaps for the very first time — the life-changing message of Jesus Christ.”