VSM: Challenging Youth to just “BE”

By Holly Meriweather 

It was a first for VSM! An American team of eleven leaders and students served in Portugal, making it the very first Volunteer Student Missions trip to this European country. The American team represented churches in Texas and Arkansas, and the in-country leaders were Portuguese, Brazilian, and Dutch. What a milestone for BMA Global student missions. 

With the purpose of conducting leadership training that emphasized sharing the gospel, VSM students and leaders served Portugal ChangeMaker Marco Gaspar and his family. Both American and Portuguese students and leaders helped run Campo de Ferias, a four-day sports and evangelism camp led by Dutch missionaries Peter and Annie Verhoef, youth leaders at Marco’s church.

Five months before the trip, teens in the Morelena church sent a video about their community and culture and explained the camp’s format then asked the VSM team to do the same. The video explained that the camp’s goal was to “be a living testimony for Christ.” The camp was well organized and planned with very specific expectations of both the team from the States and the Morelana church’s students. 

Peter and Annie’s camp objectives included team building, discovering and using your gifts, being an authentic example through your testimony, understanding the needs of others, and working together in a multi-cultural context. Based on Annie’s degree in psychology, the couple’s camp experience, and their work with youth, the Verhoefs’ camp theme was centered on just BE-ing: BE with your team, with the kids at camp, and BE-ing in the moment celebrating connections despite language and culture barriers. 

They also encouraged VSM team members to just BE with their negative feelings and frustrations of not being able to communicate and understand culture. They were told, “We will not challenge you much in DOING and leading activities because in BEING you will learn so much more about what it means to serve and live in another country, which is the best preparation for your possible future as a missionary.” 

On all four days of camp, from 9 a.m. to noon, American and Portuguese teen volunteers received training, with camp beginning at 2:00. The Verhoefs included activities like dance, jujitsu, parkour, water games, volleyball, basketball, crafts and graffiti art. Worship music was led by Sandra and Pedro Gaspar, and most of the teen workers were from Marco’s church and had Catholic backgrounds. 

The training was on servant leadership and the fact that there is no better role model for leaders than Jesus. Several of the youth leaders were non-believers, so the gospel was intentionally shared in their training, which is another of the Verhoef’s goals: Let non-believers be impacted through their own gospel teaching of others.

BMA Pastor Advocate Heidi Sorrels said, “Serving in Portugal tested my American mindset of identifying leaders. The Verhoefs taught that leadership is not just for adults, and that young people should be given opportunities to lead. For Peter and Annie, that means intentionally including non-Christians to participate in the servant leadership training that all campers went through. Hearing the gospel in that context helps make it personal.

Please pray for students in and around Morelana and other small villages that have been impacted by Campo de Ferias. Who knows the seed that has been sown!