For the past 40 years, the Southern Baptist International Mission Board has been sending single college graduates, who are in their 20s, onto the mission field. These graduates want to do something more than just jumpstart their careers.
Charles SmithThe Journeyman Program, therefore, was designed by the International Mission Board to allow recent college graduates to serve as foreign missionaries for two years. Through this program, more than 4,250 college graduates have gone all around the world.
In Webster’s Dictionary, a journeyman is described as “a person who has served an apprenticeship at a trade or handicraft and is certified to work at it by assisting, or by serving, under another person.” A journeyman is a worker on a journey towards the mastery of a trade.
The Journeyman Program was created in 1964, but in the shadow of President Kennedy’s Peace Corps. So the Peace Corps, not surprisingly, lessened the interest of those wanting to serve abroad through the Journeyman Program. There was one thing, however, that the Journeyman Program offered that made it different, and that was the chance of getting to share the gospel with those who had never heard it.
As Jessica Griffith, a junior at Lander University, said, “This life on earth is not mine. It’s God’s, and we are all called to serve him.” Jessica has taken two overseas mission trips, and plans on taking two more in the next six months. She believes that God is calling her to be a journeyman in Asia.
A student, through the Journeyman Program, may be in another country to serve others, but that student will find that he or she is doing more of the receiving – receiving joy, friendship, spiritual growth.
The Journeyman Program gives students the opportunity to build a bridge of friendship and to explain the length to which Jesus went in order to seek a man’s soul. It allows a college graduate to gain a world perspective, beyond books and television.
Smith is a senior at Lander University.