Blog 5: New Wilmington Mission Conference

I spent the past week at a Christian camp called New Wilmington Mission Conference (NWMC) and I feel like a changed person. I have been going to this camp for one week, once a year, for the past 5 years and I wouldn't miss it for anything. At this conference, many people from all over the world come together to share their love for God and mission work. My love for NWMC comes from the amazing things I am able to see happening there. Every moment and every person at NWMC is absolutely beautiful, there is nothing else like it.

While I was there, I learned about the differences people are making all over the world. I figured instead of spending my whole summer trying to better the world myself, I should take time to figure out how others are doing it. One missionary I met was a lady from Morocco. She told us that being a missionary was literally against the law in Morocco. Because of this we were not able to know her name or take any pictures of her. To protect and disguise herself, she teaches English to Muslim children. The work she does in Morocco includes befriending Muslim people, teaching them English and spreading the word of God. Another missionary was Freddy from Egypt. He told us that over 90% of Egypt is Islamic and there is violent discrimination against Christians. Freddy spreads peace by helping people with health problems. He is a doctor and opened up a facility called the Salam Medical Center and hospitals for poor Egyptian families. All of the workers at the Salam Medical Center donate their salary to the clinic. There is no discrimination at the clinic and it helps to bring together Muslims and Christians. Scott Boyd was a missionary who worked in Slovenia for a large portion of his life. He now lives in the U.S. but works with international students. Anne from Ethiopia told us about the lack of schools there. To help with this problem, she has been starting schools and teaching college students. She also spent 6 years in Kenya being a high school teacher. These are just some of the missionaries that I talked to. At the end of camp, we added up all of the years of service of all of the missionaries together and it was 1,023 years!

Along with individual people making a difference, there is also foundations. The Outreach Foundation has been building children homes in Africa. A couple, Nancy and Bill have been working for Outreach in Madagascar for 40 years! Another foundation called Medical Benevolence recruits doctors and nurses to go to countries in medical need. A foundation that stood out to me was the Children Are Not Soldiers program. Did you know that children under the age of 18 are currently used as soldiers in at least 14 countries? As many as 300,000 children are engaging in armed conflicts. The Red Hand Campaign sends messages to world leaders saying that children should NOT be used as soldiers. I sent out a letter myself after hearing a story that touched my heart. A missionary told me about a 13 year old boy that was forced to fight for his country, or be put to death. While he fought, he killed someone and still has not been able to live with himself. These foundations stand up for horrifying problems throughout the world in the hopes of making a change.

I know that I want to become a missionary when i grow up because it amazes me how they are willing to step down into such an ugly world in the hopes of making it beautiful again :)