Five graduate students from North Greenville University were among 21 volunteers who traveled to Venezuela July 20-28 on a mission trip.
Mike Darrow, a North Greenville student and interim pastor at Double Springs Baptist Church, Taylors, talks with his interpreter and a man who accepted Jesus Christ as Savior just moments before.Bill Cashion, professor of missions and evangelism at North Greenville’s T. Walter Brashier Graduate School and a former missionary to Venezuela, said it was “a blessing for me to see how our students and the other volunteers served our Lord in unity of purpose with no complaining during long, hard and hot days of work and how they loved the Venezuelan people with the love of the Lord.”
The 21 volunteers from South Carolina and Georgia joined more than 100 Venezuelan volunteers in Los Valles del Tuy, a valley south of Caracas that is home to more than 1 million people.
The volunteers shared the gospel through door-to-door witnessing, through the evangelistic street drama, “The Redeemer,” and through puppet ministry and an evangelistic baseball clinic. More than 900 Venezuelans professed faith in Jesus Christ, 250 homes requested ongoing Bible studies, and four new missions were started with Venezuelan pastors leading them.
Julie Styles, an NGU student, said, “I heard stories of how people went on mission and came back saying the people were waiting for someone to tell them about the Savior. I had the opportunity to see for myself that multitudes of people are literally waiting on someone to come and tell them that Jesus Christ loves them, forgives them and wants to save them.”
Walter Pym, another student, said, “People often say, when returning from a trip like this, ‘This was a trip of a lifetime.’ However, this is not true for me. Instead, I say, ‘This is a trip I want to take for the rest of my lifetime.’?” – NGU