June's Testimony: Project 3000 Pt. 1

What happens when you venture to the edge of lostness, seeking people who've never heard the gospel? June's journey with Project 3000 reveals both challenges and unexpected joys on the frontline of missions.

Called to missions at age 10, but it wasn’t until college that God used experiences, mentorship, and divine nudges, to eventually draw June to the International Mission Board's innovative Project 3000 program. This initiative targets the approximately 3,000 unreached and unengaged people groups remaining worldwide.

Unlike traditional missionary assignments, June's role took her across South Asia on a perpetual cycle of research and discovery. Working alongside national partners who provided translation and cultural guidance, she navigated remote villages to mega cities searching for unreached unengaged groups with the gospel.

Whether you're considering cross-cultural missions or simply curious about how God works in the least-reached places on earth, June's story offer both inspiration and practical insights into modern missions strategy. Listen now to discover how God is using young adults to map the final frontiers of global evangelism.

Transcript

Kyle 0:00

Welcome back everyone. We're excited for this episode, but before we jump into it, I just wanted to let you all know this episode was filmed at a summer camp and so, as you're listening, if you hear people walking by or ice machines or people doing dishes, it's because we're here at a summer camp in Oklahoma and we're recording as best we can with what we got. So I think the episode's really good and you're going to enjoy it. So let's jump in. Welcome and thanks for listening to the From Every Nation podcast, the official podcast of the Tom Eliff Center for Missions at Oklahoma Baptist University. I'm Kyle and I'll be your host as we learn to live as those sent out to spread the gospel. Welcome everybody to this episode of the From Every Nation podcast. I'm so excited for you all to listen to this episode.

Kyle 0:56

My guest with me today is June, and she is with the International Mission Board and actually recently got back from completing her Project 3000 term and is here to talk to us about her experience and just kind of her pilgrimage as she's walked with the Lord and journeyed through this project. And so, June, we're glad to have you. We're really excited for you to share your story. I know I've heard many people within the IMB talk about Project 3000, but I've not yet gotten to talk to somebody who completed the program, so I'm really excited for this. I know our listeners are going to be excited. So, with that being said, June, would you just briefly introduce yourself to our audience and let them know just a little bit about you?

June 1:42

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, so my name is June. I am originally from Georgia, but I went to school in South Carolina and was sent by a South Carolina church and super thankful for the ways that the convention and my university have helped me. As I've been overseas yeah, I am thrilled to be talking about P3K and had an amazing experience on the field. I've been overseas yeah, I am thrilled to be talking about P3K and had an amazing experience on the field. I've been back for a couple months now and just excited to share about what it was like and some of my experiences.

Kyle 2:14

Awesome. So for our listeners, can you give us just a really brief, 30,000 foot overview of what Project 3000 is for those who don't know, yeah, absolutely so.

June 2:24

Project 3000 is named for the 3,000 unreached and unengaged people groups left in the world, and so when we say unengaged, we're talking about a people group that has little to no access to the gospel, usually no believers.

June 2:38

If there are any believers, it's very, very few and no active church planning strategies.

June 2:44

And so, again, there are around 3,000 of those unengaged people groups left in the world, and the IMB launched Project 3000 a couple years ago with the goal of reaching those last 3,000 unengaged groups.

June 2:56

The goal of the program is to send around 300 midtermers, and so those are usually young adults who go overseas for two to three years. Those are usually young adults who go overseas for two to three years, and the goal of the program is for each of those 300 midtermers to take on at least 10 of those unengaged people groups, and so working in different places in the world where these people groups are located, finding them, putting them on the map in a lot of cases, doing research among them, sharing the gospel, discipling as opportunities arise when people come to faith and, hopefully, being a part of planting churches or helping come up with long-term strategic engagement strategies. And so we get to work a lot with local partners, national churches, long-term team members who are already on the field and have a heart for these people groups and are excited for us to be there and hopefully help them out with some of the on the ground research on the front end.

Kyle 3:46

That's awesome. So I do know that Project 3000, like you're saying, I mean it's relatively new. But our audience and many others are very familiar with the IMB's kind of long term program that's similar, called Journeyman. Can you talk to us briefly about what that program is and kind of how they're different a little bit?

June 4:08

Yeah, so Journeyman and Project 3000 are similar in the sense that it's geared towards young adults 20s and 30s and it's a two to three year term. It's the same application process actually. So when you start a Journeyman application or a P3K application, a midterm application, it's the same all the way up until the end when you get access to the jobs.

June 4:31

Some of the differences would be that P3K is going to be typically a lot more travel and even though you might have a home base or a team that you're connected with, you won't be working with that team all of the time. You'll kind of be going out and connecting with different teams in different places, working with different people groups, going to places where there are no team members. But where I was working I was in South Asia we had kind of a hub where we got to come in and out of and again. That's different all throughout the world. But Journeyman is usually going to be more focused on one area, even one people group or several people groups that you're working with consistently over the course of your two years, and P3K is going to be focused on multiple different people groups and maybe even multiple different locations and countries over the course of your term.

Kyle 5:17

Awesome. So we'll kind of use those terms interchangeably here Not necessarily interchangeably, but we'll reference both. We're going to be talking about Project 3000, talking about journeymen a little bit. So I want to make sure you all understood kind of what those programs were before we jumped in. So now that we kind of have some of that laid out for us, let's jump in just kind of to your story and where you grew up, what it was like your family. Tell us a little bit about that.

June 5:45

Yeah, so, like I said earlier, I am from Georgia originally. My parents are both believers and I'm super thankful for them and the way that they've spoken into my life. They were very intentional when I was young with discipling me. I'm the oldest of four siblings and so I have two younger sisters and one younger brother, and so my parents took us to church as we were growing up and were very intentional with just instilling a biblical worldview in us. I will say I remember very clearly when I first accepted Christ for myself.

June 6:17

I was around eight years old and I was a very fearful child and I had some kind of irrational fears. They weren't really grounded in reality at all, but I was convinced that a fire was going to come burn up our house. And so I remember praying with my mom every night that I would ask the Lord to keep a fire away from our house and I would thank him that the house hadn't burned up in a fire the night before. And one night I was sitting with my mom and praying and she just reminded me and said you know that you can give this fear over to the Lord and it is totally fine to talk to him about what you're worried about. But you can give your life to him and actually not have to be worried about anything and not that that means you won't struggle with that in the future but you can give that to him right now.

June 7:05

And I remember the Holy Spirit just really worked through her words in that moment and I knew that I wanted to have a relationship with God for myself, not just my parents' faith. And so she kind of led me through scripture and showed me where it says if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and that you are a sinner, you will be saved. And so I prayed that with her that night and became a believer, accepted Christ for myself and again looking back, really thankful for the ways that my mom and my dad both just invested in me and spoke truth over me during my childhood and looking forward even to middle and high school. But I actually experienced a call to mission specifically when I was still pretty young. I read a biography. It was a really small little book. I was 10 years old and looking back it kind of makes me laugh. I'm not sure who gave me a biography. I think maybe my grandma, or it could have been my mom.

Kyle 8:02

There's a lot of really good children's missions. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think maybe my grandma or it could have been my mom there's a lot of really good children's missions biographies out there.

June 8:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and so I read that it was about Gladys Alward, who was a missionary, okay, yeah. Yeah, a missionary in China years ago, and I remember reading her story and I told my mom, I think I want to be a missionary in China and she said, okay, you're 10. So we'll see, we'll see.

Kyle 8:25

But I just remember Not a lot of fear yet there, because it was like oh, you're 10. Yes, yeah, she's like lots of time for you to decide to be a doctor.

June 8:31

Exactly.

June 8:31

Yeah, she's like I'm not going to worry about that one quite yet Jokes on her, but I remember that being my first pull to the mission field, and to the international mission field specifically.

June 8:44

I was able to go on several outreach and service trips with my church throughout middle school, in our local community and nationally. I went on my first international mission trip when I was 13 or 14, I think, with a family member who led trips to Central America, and when I got up to the end of high school and was praying about college, trying to decide where to go, I just didn't have a ton of peace, and so I asked the Lord what he wanted me to do instead, if there was something else I should pursue, and I ended up going overseas not with the IMB, with a different missions organization, and I was there in Southeast Asia for a few months and just felt the Lord confirm in my heart that I was supposed to pursue this as a next step post-college and really started feeling Him burden my heart specifically for unreached people groups during that time as well.

Kyle 9:38

That's awesome. So rewind just a little bit. So you accepted Christ at eight, called the missions at 10, and kind of the Lord reaffirmed that call for you in college. But what were some of the things that you did in those middle school, high school years to really grow your faith? What kind of spiritual disciplines did you have in your life? How did you learn to read scripture? Did you have mentors, kind of? What was that sanctification process kind of like for you growing up?

June 10:14

Yeah, absolutely, that's a good question. And even looking back, I think there's a lot of things that I would do differently. But I was pretty involved in our local church and so different service opportunities that we had there. I do remember my church launched, I guess, like a campaign kind of one year and it was called Not Zero and the goal of that was to really challenge the members of the church to not let their number of people they share the gospel with be zero for the year, not let their number of people they share the gospel with be zero for the year. And so I remember really thinking about that and thinking, man, I don't know if I've shared the gospel this year and I don't know if I even know how. And so I started kind of feeling burdened just for lost people and being challenged and sharing my faith. Again, that was probably 13, 14. So what was that process like? Yes, so again, that was challenging to me, but I still feel like I didn't have a ton of the tools that I needed to learn how to share my faith or really be challenged, in that I did work at a summer camp when I was 16 and got to pray with someone there to accept Christ for the first time. I remember her face like it was yesterday and continue to pray for this little girl that I got to pray with. And again, that was kind of a moment for me, a turning point, where I learned how to more clearly communicate the gospel and even asking people to respond. And so, even though I had grown up in church and was familiar with gospel truths, I had never personally been really pushed on sharing that with people and then even asking them like, hey, do you wanna believe this for yourself? And again, working at camp, being in that kind of setting was really a push that I needed at the time to be challenged in that. And there was just so many open doors with students asking questions and wanting to sit with me and talk about Jesus and who he is and how to have a relationship with him.

June 12:09

I will say, in high school I, you know I had been considering missions before. I knew that that was something the Lord had laid on my heart. When I was younger, I was doing some stuff with my church but I wasn't honestly super interested and I was actually dating a guy. And towards the end of high school junior and senior year and when I felt led to go overseas, I kind of was holding back a little bit. I felt like the Lord maybe wanted me to consider Southeast Asia and even thinking back to when I first felt a pull to China specifically, I kind of felt pulled towards that Southeast Asia trip but I ended up not signing up for it. I signed up for a trip to Central America because I felt like man, that's a less of a time zone difference, Like I can stay in touch with this guy, I can be closer to family, it's a little safer.

June 12:59

And after I graduated high school, within a couple of days, me and that guy broke up. And then I got a phone call from the missions organization saying that trip actually didn't fill up. There's only two people signed up for it. We need to send you somewhere else because we're just going to dissolve the trip. And from there I felt like it was very clear the Lord was redirecting me to Southeast Asia and to spend some time there instead. But I would definitely say, even thinking back to your question, spiritual disciplines I instead. But I would definitely say, even thinking back to your question, spiritual disciplines I remember being challenged to spend time in the Word every single morning, being intentional with that time and again, just being challenged in my own faith to share the gospel and I think a lot of my mentorship and even getting some more exposure to evangelism that came later on for me in college, where I was meeting more and more people who were holding me accountable to things like that and giving me the tools that I needed to feel more confident.

Kyle 13:52

So I guess, when does actually applying for IMB kind of come into the picture and kind of the on-ramp for that? Because I think that was at the end of college right, that the Lord kind of affirmed that. So talk to us then about those college years and how the Lord used those to really start steering you towards missions, and how you landed with the IMB.

June 14:15

Yeah, absolutely. So I actually transferred to North Greenville. I went to, I took a semester off of school to go overseas, came back I had some dual enrollment credits so I didn't lose any time. So that's one thing I love telling high school students go ahead and do dual enrollment, and if you want to take time off of college, it gives you some more space and flexibility to do that.

June 14:35

I'm also a big fan did the same thing, yes absolutely, and so I went to a community college in Georgia. While I figured some things out, once I got back from my Southeast Asia trip again, I felt like the Lord was confirming kind of I want you to pursue this for your next steps. But I didn't know what that looks like and so I thought I guess I should apply to a Christian school. I had heard about the IMBA. I wasn't super familiar with them or any of their programs at all, and so totally, it was totally a God thing. He just opened the doors for me to go to North Greenville, which I did not even know this at the time, but it's the Southern Baptist University. And once I got to North Greenville I enrolled in their intercultural studies program. And once you go to North Greenville and you're in the intercultural studies program, pretty much everyone that you talk to is kind of asking you what you're doing next. And they're kind of like well, you're going to do journeymen, right? And I started hearing that word thrown around. We have a missions conference, a global impact week at North Greenville, and I started talking to some of the IMB reps and learning more about Journeyman. I learned that it's fully funded by Southern Baptist, that I could go overseas for a couple of years and not have to fundraise, which was huge and just kind of thinking through my next steps.

June 15:50

I actually, once I got to my senior year of college, I was considering what to do next and I was actually really worried about moving overseas and thinking about that and I had this picture in my head like if you're going to be a missionary, you have to be perfect, you have to have your life together, you have to be like super holy. And I did not feel that way. I definitely still don't feel that way. And so I came up to the end of my senior year and just didn't have a ton of peace about what I wanted to do next and where I wanted to go, and several people spoke into my life and just told me go ahead and start a journeyman application and see what happens.

June 16:28

I will say, throughout college I got to be involved a lot with campus ministries and student engagement. At North Greenville I was part of a leadership development program in South Carolina called Palmetto Collective that gave me different resources for missions within the states and also abroad and lots of contacts as far as people who worked with the IMB and were willing to talk to me and even coach me through my journeyman application a little bit, so super thankful for that. But I will say I kind of had to be pushed a little bit to start the application, which, again, I tell people now go ahead and start it as early as possible and just take your time working through it and, knowing that it is going to be a time consuming process and you might as well draw it out if you have the time, if you're in college or thinking about journeyman go ahead and start an application. But I ended up working through mine pretty quickly, um, within a few months. So praise God.

Kyle 17:22

Yeah, it was six months. Six months, yeah, that checks out, um, but I know so I know the application is pretty rigorous. I mean, you're talking about it. What were some of the things about the application that really helped you grow as an individual and grow in your faith?

June 17:39

Yeah, you do have to look at like the doctrinal statement for Southern Baptist, the Baptist faith and message, and just affirm a few different things. And I remember reading through some of that and I had always said like, yeah, you know, I believe all these things, but signing off on all of it, I had to take a look at scripture for myself and make sure that those were really things that I affirmed. And so that was a really good process, just making sure that I understood what I believed and why. And even there's an evangelism log that you have to do as part of the journeyman application.

June 18:14

And even saying that out loud I cringe a little bit because we don't share the gospel just to write it down and prove to someone that we have been doing it.

June 18:21

We do it because it is a spiritual discipline and because we have something that's so beautiful and should bring so much joy, we're compelled to share it with others.

June 18:32

But I will say like having to record that and being intentional really challenged me in my own reliance on the Holy Spirit and just asking him to give me opportunities, knowing that I that was part of my application process, and kind of again being challenged to think, you know, I shouldn't have to be making up entries or trying to dig for opportunities to share the gospel just to make this application. I should be already doing it and working that into my daily rhythms. As far as being open to talking to strangers or having conversations, when I was still in college I was that senior year, I was over a freshman dorm, so being really intentional with conversations with my freshman girls, just things like that, was eye-opening to me to see where I was really spending my time. And again, it did challenge me also to come back to why I'm sharing the gospel because it can feel weird to have to write it down and record it.

Kyle 19:26

But I really like evangelism.

June 19:30

Yeah.

Kyle 19:31

Or even I think it just provides a lot of accountability, especially for those who are uncomfortable or just out of practice, they haven't done it a whole lot. Um it, it creates, at least for for me and my personality cause I've taken a couple of evangelism courses where like we had to do the same thing.

Kyle 19:52

You know I had to share the gospel with 10 people. One of them had to be in international context, had to write reports, submit the things like very similar, but it provided a lot of inner conviction and realization of like to what degrees do I need to change my normal life rhythms so that this is a normal rhythm? Right and that this is just built into who we are as believers.

June 20:26

Yeah.

Kyle 20:26

Like this is just what to be a Christian is to share the gospel, to share the good news of Jesus Christ and having the accountability. So like even small groups and things like I don't think it's a bad idea for small groups to just commit to one another and say, hey, let's commit to sharing just who had gospel opportunities this week and holding one another accountable to that. But when you're not used to it and you do these applications or you are in like evangelism courses, you hear I've got to do this.

Kyle 21:03

And it's super intimidating, but I think it's something that even for our listeners, if that's not a normal practice for them, is to share the gospel. That's something that would be really good for them to talk about with their mentor or discipleship group and just say, hey, I heard about this thing, never really done it, but I'd be really curious to do an evangelism log. Would you guys hold me accountable to that?

June 21:29

Yeah, absolutely yeah. So having that challenge and even being at North Greenville, that became more and more a part of my rhythms, sharing the gospel with students around me going out, I went door knocking for the first time in college, just going to an apartment complex and knocking on doors and looking for opportunities to share the gospel, working with a homeless ministry, different things like that, and so I did have people holding me accountable and that just kind of reaffirmed the application process with the IMB reaffirmed for me. This does need to be part of my daily life and even post-grad, working on the application and thinking through I'm not in college anymore, I'm not in like these ready-made scenarios for meeting people and sharing the gospel. How can I continue to be intentional about it?

June 22:19

I think also, accountability, the IMB, the application process they will ask you a lot of really personal questions and you're really challenged to consider do I have accountability for sin struggles in my life? Have I talked to people about different things? Have I worked through what I need to work through to be healthy and get on the field? And so really again in college was the first time in my life that I had consistent accountability, partners that I was able to meet with and just be really honest and vulnerable with other women in my life that I still get to be friends with and reach out to every now and then, and so I'm super thankful for that.

Kyle 22:54

So you said earlier that when you were 10, your mom was a little hesitant about you saying, hey, I want to do this whole missions thing, but here we are. You're midway through the application. Now You're talking about this. Where were your parents at in this? What were they thinking?

June 23:11

Yeah. So again, I'm really thankful for my parents. It would be a lie to say that this has been super easy for all of us and being far apart from my family. I'm pretty close with my family and so that has been a really tough part of being overseas. But, like I said before, I was really struggling my final semester of college just feeling like am I ready to take this step, am I qualified?

June 23:37

And my parents actually I remember sitting down with them. They came to visit me at college and I took them on like a bunch of hikes. It was like 20 degrees outside, it was freezing, and we went hiking in the mountains right there near North Greenville and I sat down with my parents for lunch the next day and we were talking just through my options and I was explaining to them several things that I had thought about applying for and was considering. It was all ministry related, different things with North Greenville or my church, or I was even considering an internship somewhere else. And my parents were, like, listen, I think that you should maybe just start a journeyman application work at your church. This summer I was working with another ministry out in Colorado and they were like go ahead and do those things those were both seasonal, short-term options and then work on your application process for journeyman and just see what happens, like I think you might be surprised. The Lord might keep that door open for you.

Kyle 24:31

So it sounds like they were pretty on board. Yes, they were on board. They were even kind of pushing you down the road.

June 24:34

Yes, they pushed me a little bit, encouraged me to take that next step. And really hearing it from them knowing that that would be hard for them and for my mom especially, and just kind of getting that push I was like, okay, well, I'll try this out and start the application and I think you're right, I think this is the right next step for me. I think you're right, I think this is the right next step for me. So they were very affirming in that. And again it was hard once I got overseas and missing holidays and stuff. But super thankful for their support and their encouragement in that.

Kyle 25:05

So is that something like over the years? I mean, you kind of were. Were you always talking about missions, or maybe it coming up here and there enough that your family wasn't surprised. They were more kind of expectant that this could be a legitimate path that June may still walk down.

June 25:24

Yeah, again, I spent a semester overseas right after graduating high school and I had been on several trips throughout middle and high school and worked at camp.

June 25:35

I would say, from like summer 2016 and onwards, I was not at home for really any summer, I think after I got overseas, before I transferred to South Carolina.

June 25:45

I was maybe home for that summer, but for the most part, I was spending almost all of my breaks in college either overseas or with different ministries, traveling on my spring breaks and Christmas breaks, stuff like that. And so my family they were used to me not being around for a lot of different things and they knew that I had a heart for ministry and a heart specifically for overseas missions and for the nations, and so it was not a surprise to them. I would say they were expectant and they were excited for me. Even though that was not a surprise to them, I would say they were expectant and they were excited for me, even though that was still a hard transition to really let go as I like, actually moved overseas. But I would say it had been like a gradual process of me catching more and more vision for God's work among the nations and also just feeling like no matter where I end up, I really think I'm supposed to be in ministry, and so I leveraged a lot of my breaks to do things like that.

Kyle 26:37

Yeah, that's awesome. So let's jump into your decision to do Project 3000 versus Journeyman and kind of that step in your process.

June 26:52

Yeah, so this is a little bit of a crazy story, but I actually remember it was my junior year of college and I was sitting down with a friend. I was in the library at North Greenville and we were talking about journeymen and moving overseas. He also had a heart for missions and he just kind of asked me if you were to write your ideal journeyman job, what would you want to do and what would you write for yourself? And I was like, well, I really would love to be based out of a hub city. I would love to be traveling to unengaged people groups. This was around the time that I had just started hearing about unengaged people groups and the need for people to go to them and bring the gospel to them. And I told him I really would love to get to do a lot of the research on the front end, sharing the gospel with these people groups for the first time and then connecting with long-term teams and partners to hopefully come up with engagement plans. And he was like, okay, like, usually journeyman is kind of a little bit more stationary. You're still traveling a lot of the times with journeyman jobs to different places, but usually more stationary, more focused on being with a specific team for a certain period of time. But he was like that sounds cool, maybe you'll find a job like that. We'll see.

June 28:04

And when I went to my job fair what we call interview conference with the IMB after I had walked through my application process, I had looked at a map at that point I had learned about unengaged people groups and I had seen that out of the 3,000 unengaged people groups left in the world, around 1,000 of them are located in South Asia. And so when we say South Asia, we're talking about Nepal, india, bhutan, pakistan, bangladesh, sri Lanka and the Maldives, and so that's kind of what the IMB defines as South Asia. And when I looked at the map, I saw that there was just a huge concentration of unengaged people groups in South Asia. So I felt really burdened for the work there. I didn't know exactly where I wanted to go, but I knew that I wanted to work among unreached peoples and be in some of those places. And when I went to my interview conference conference, to my job fair, and I was talking to different representatives for different places around the world, I kept asking like, is this job focused on unengaged peoples? And some of them weren't and some of them were. But I ended up applying for a few different jobs. Actually, one was in Central Asia and then the other two were in South Asia and I left my interview conference.

June 29:15

I was working in Colorado at the time. I flew back to Colorado and I remember the next few weeks just having a lot of lack of peace. I was really confused. I was interviewing with these teams and they were incredible great team leaders, amazing work. The jobs, especially in South Asia, were still very focused on unengaged peoples. But I just didn't have any peace about it and I was struggling with the Lord, asking him to make it clear to me where I should go and what team I should join.

June 29:44

And during that time, kind of the in-between period, my consultant was kind of pushing me to make a decision soon. He was like, hey, you're dragging your feet a little bit. And I got an email from my best friend and she was actually getting her master's at the time. She had started a journeyman application and was taking her time drawing it out, working on her master's, and her consultant had emailed her a very vague description of Project 3000. So it was not a posted job.

June 30:13

At this point it had not been uploaded online. There was no team leaders officially appointed for any of the areas Project 3000 would be rolling out in, but her consultant had said, like hey, this is a new pilot program. We would love to expedite your process. If you wanted to go overseas in the next few months, if you would be a part of this program, we could kind of get you there. And my friend was like well, you know, I'm getting my master's. I'm not super interested in that right now, but this looks exactly like something that June would want to do. And so she sent that forward to me and I remember exactly where I was standing when I got her email and I just felt the Lord confirm for me immediately after she forwarded me that. Read the description it was about Project 3000, talking about being kind of on the edge of lostness is one of the things that one of the phrases that we see associated with P3K a lot.

Kyle 31:07

One of the taglines yes exactly.

June 31:10

And so it talked about going to some remote places. It talked about working with unengaged peoples and needing some individuals who are willing to pioneer this program. And so I said well, I think this is what I've been delayed for. I think this is why the Lord has not been giving me clarity about these other jobs, even though they were all amazing opportunities. I'm supposed to do this, and so from there I reached out to my consultant. I got an interview for P3K.

June 31:36

Again, there was no team leaders officially appointed anywhere in the world yet for P3K, and so I interviewed with a lady who was kind of on like a board of people making decisions for P3K, trying to get it rolled out, and she said I think that you'd be a great fit for this job, but we don't have any team leaders.

June 31:53

So probably if you wanna go to South Asia usually South Asia is the first to jump on things like this they have a lot of unengaged people groups. They wanna get people to those groups, they wanna get P3Kers as soon as possible. And so as soon as we get team leaders officially I'm sure at that point they were probably talking to people, but again, officially nothing had been announced and so within a few weeks, I got to interview with the team leaders that had just been appointed for P3K, talked to them in South Asia, and they further affirmed we're ready for you, we want you to come out as soon as possible. And so, within about a month, another guy had been hired for South Asia, and then another guy for P3K had been hired for Asia, pacific Rim or Southeast Asia, and all three of us got to go to FPO together and be a part of the very first group of P3K and eventually moved overseas March 2023.

Kyle 32:50

So when they pitched this job to you, what were they saying? It was going to be like, what kind of person were they looking for? And I know we haven't talked about what reality was on the field, but this may be a good transition point kind of into that.

June 33:10

Absolutely yeah. So they were kind of pitching P3K as being very extreme. You would be in very remote places. We needed people who are willing to be sick a lot of the time, be traveling a lot of the time, be in very good physical shape. I would say there was kind of an emphasis on being able to backpack a lot, trek a lot, and I would say I'm pretty outdoorsy. I've always been very active, but I was a little intimidated by some of that. But I remember, yeah, I reached out to one of the guys who had he had been overseas with the IMB for a period of time and he was with the South Carolina Convention and coached me through my process. And I reached out to him and I said do you think that I'm up for this? Like you know me pretty well, he had seen me walk through the process and he said, yeah, I mean, I think that this is the job for you. If anyone can do it, you can. And that was really kind of. I reached out to him.

June 34:08

Several other people who knew me well, several ladies in my life who had poured into me, and they all said, yeah, I think that you should go and you should really push for this, and so again, I was kind of like, well, I guess I'll learn some new skills. And they also emphasized a lot like being able to work independently, being a self-starter, self-motivated, being willing to work with a program that was brand new and so dealing with some of the kinks of that as they got worked out, and I had been a part of several, on a much smaller scale but several pilot projects in college, helping start some new things, or just being a part of the first group of several different things, and so I felt like those experiences were really valuable and I am pretty independent, I'm pretty self-motivated, and so those things just seem to further confirm that this was a good job for me and this was a good fit.

Kyle 35:08

As far as can I do it and is this the right choice for me? You land, you unpack what, what was kind of the start of this program like for you? Because again you're sitting here saying you know, you're one, you're in the first cohort yeah you know to get up and go yeah, so what was the? The on-ramp, like you know. What were the bugs, what were the glitches, what went well?

June 35:30

yeah, yeah. So I landed in South Asia um March I I can't remember it was 23rd or 29th, I can't remember exactly which one I think 29th 2023. And I got on the field and they took me to my. I had like a room in a guest house until we could work out my apartment, and so I knew that I would be based out of a hub city in South Asia, and the city that I would be based out of did have a lot of leadership with South Asia living there, and so my team leaders at the time actually were not living in that city they were living in another country in South Asia but we did have a lot of people checking in on us, some good community, lots of investment from other people who have been in the field for years and years and were really excited that we were there, and so that was a huge blessing.

June 36:20

Pretty much right off the bat, I was going on runs with some of the personnel who were living in that city. I was spending time with their families and just asking questions about South Asia. I did a little bit of language those first few weeks and then, within a week of landing on the field, we went out to a village, and so this was not like an official P3K trip, but it was kind of like an orientation Welcome to South Asia, let's test out some of your research abilities and get comfortable traveling in villages. And so we went out with another family that was in our city and they took us out to again a couple of villages and in the mountains and we just got to practice sharing the gospel with South Asians for the first time. For me, sharing the gospel to South Asians for the first time, and for the people that we were sharing with it was the first time they had heard the gospel.

June 37:10

And just asking the questions of people group where are you from, what's your culture, what's your language, what are things that are unique about your group and we spent about five days doing that and then came back to the hub city that I was based out of and from there I started planning my first official people group outing. And so that was me planning. I was working with different people. We have a research team in South Asia that I was working with my team. We have a research team in South Asia that I was working with my team leader and then some of those personnel there in our hub city to get some of my plans for that trip rolled out. I was traveling with a national partner, a local sister who could translate for me and be a ministry partner, and so within a month I was maybe within three weeks I was out researching a people group on my own for the first time.

Kyle 37:59

That's awesome. So for you and a Project 3000 participant, you're in and out of a lot of different contexts and, I assume, a lot of different languages.

June 38:14

Yeah.

Kyle 38:15

So what does language acquisition look like for you versus like a journeyman peer?

June 38:21

Yeah, so usually journeymen have to do at least three months of full-time language study and I did not have to do that Again. Typically if I was a journeyman I did some like survival language classes for several of the different language groups that I would be working with and I picked up more along the way. I can understand a few of the South Asian languages that I was immersed in. I can understand some of the conversational things and especially religious language I'm pretty familiar with because there's some overlap even within different languages in South Asia as far as spiritual language goes, even within different languages in South Asia as far as spiritual language goes.

June 38:58

But I usually always was traveling with, again, a local partner, usually a sister, young adult. A lot of times she was single. I did work with a married girl also, but they were translating for me and then helping me with like culture and teaching me as we went. To be totally honest, I had kind of hoped I would just like be one of those people who picked up language as I went and I'd be like fluent by the end of my term.

Kyle 39:22

Yeah, we all want to be the 1%.

June 39:24

Yes, I would love to be the 1%.

June 39:25

I am not the 1%, so at times that could be even a little isolating, like I've been here for how many months and I still don't understand what these people are saying to me. But it also really encouraged me to lean really heavily on my national partners, and that was really valuable because our national partners, they are our long-term strategy and so we want to see as much ministry as possible handed off to locals and so it helps my national partners sometimes get out of their comfort zone, helps me get out of my comfort zone, and I loved it when I would work with a partner and she'd be like hey, I feel really confident in sharing the gospel now and I would love to just take over this conversation and do that myself, like I don't, you can say what you want and I'll translate, but I'd also love to practice sharing on my own and so getting to have some of those conversations and getting to do some of that training was really incredible and, again, really challenged me to lean on my partner as much as I could.

Kyle 40:19

So were you able to be strategic, or at least a little bit strategic with I mean, if there's a thousand UUPGs within South Asia and you're looking at just getting involved in you know 10 or so, were you able to be strategic with, hey, let's pick this one, this one and this one because their language is close enough, or all within the same language. That that kind of was able to help you not be in and out of too many different languages? I know you had a translator with you, but was there some of that strategic opportunity.

June 40:50

Sometimes.

June 40:51

Yeah, so my first year on the field, most of the people groups were speaking the same trade language and so a lot of them had their own tribal dialects or, like a mountain dialect in one of the places we worked.

June 41:06

Most of them speak like three or four different languages and so, but yes, a lot of them did speak the same language and that did help with a lot of the vocab that I was learning on the front end Again, especially for religious language and different things like telling a taxi driver go straight, turn left, turn right, like those things I got down really fast. And then after my first year I kind of moved to a new area and that was a totally different language and a different script and so I lost some of it and then I went back and relearned some of it, and so that's what a lot of my term was like, just kind of going back and forth relearning vocab, kind of refreshing myself as I went, especially the language that was spoken in my hub city. I kind of I would check myself and try to make sure I remembered a lot of the key phrases that I needed to be in the city for that.

Kyle 41:54

So what was a normal rhythm for you? I know you've kind of talked to me about what a full cycle looked like for you, but kind of talk our audience through that and then tell us about your first, that first group, that you went out and researched what it was like, what you learned, what you realized. You had no idea you didn't know, you know, all this stuff.

June 42:19

Yeah, so Project 3000 is different all over the world, so I can speak to South Asia and my experience. But we traveled on an eight week rotation and so that was usually six weeks focusing on a people group traveling, being with our national partner, really focused, and then two weeks back in our hub city, and so those two weeks were usually rest, recovery, reporting, and so we do type up like people group profiles to send to team leaders with all the information that we got about the people group and we also update, like our research team, with the information we found, stuff like that, and then we also do some training during those two weeks and so that was a time for our whole team to come together, especially as our team grew. That took a little bit of time but as our team grew we got more and more intentional about meeting together when we were back in our hub city and debriefing, going over training tools, gospel tools, discipleship tools, making sure we were all on the same page and comfortable. We ended up working as we were traveling. We would work with a lot of churches and so we went over like vision casting and how to communicate God's heart for the nations to some of the local churches that we were working with, and so again, that time back in our hub city was usually a really strategic time for us to just review what worked during our last people group outing and what didn't, and challenge one another and encourage one another.

June 43:43

My first people group outing, again, it was in the country that I was based out of and I kind of had an idea of where this people group was. We knew what district they were in and so we went to the main town in that district and just started prayer walking, talking to people. It was still kind of a village area but, um, main town, as in, there was a few shops and a few restaurants, and so we just asked as many people I was there with a partner, um, and we asked as many people as we could about the group that we were looking for, if anyone had heard of them, and then we attended church on the Sunday that we were there, and so we'd been there three or four days. No luck finding the people group. But while we were at the local church there they said we actually know a pastor who works with this group and he's seen believers among this group.

June 44:32

They're in this kind of a little bit more of a remote area in the hills away from this town. We will connect you with him and he'll communicate with you how best to get to him, and so we reached out to him. He gave us directions to a place to meet him. We went to a town another town that was even smaller and met him there, and then he took us to a village where this people group was located, and once we got there, we got to stay with his family. We were in the village in their home, eating meals with them three meals a day and then walking during the day out to a lot of these villages that he was working in. We found the people group. We found that, even though they were marked as unengaged online, they had actually been engaged with the gospel years ago there was quite.

June 45:16

Yeah, there was quite a large percentage of believers for a group that you know should have been unengaged or that we thought was unengaged. But super encouraging just to see that the Holy Spirit's already at work in all of these places and it was super encouraging to see that he had gone before us, that it wasn't about me or my partner or anything that we could do, but we just got to come alongside these local believers. That's our angle, with everything that we do is to see local ownership of the Great Commission and so, seeing that that had already happened in this place and that there was local believers, that they were attending church there was even leaders coming out of the harvest there we got to again just partner with this pastor, do ministry alongside them. For a few days we traveled to another area as well where this people group was located, worked with another believer there and we were just super encouraged. That was a great way to start my term.

Kyle 46:11

Yes, it was. I believe that. So were you able to figure out how the gospel got to them Like, did it get to this people group through just other national believers, or was there a church or organization, like a foreign church or organization, that years ago or in the recent past came you tracking with me?

June 46:30

Yeah, so the pastor that we worked with was from another people group. He was not actually from the people group that we were looking for, but his family had been believers and I could be getting some of this wrong. I can't remember if he converted from Hinduism and then his family did, or if his family converted and then he was raised in a Christian household, but either way, his whole family. By the time we got there they were all believers. There was a church from America that had been supporting some of their ministry and, to be honest, that was always a little confusing to me. I tried to ask clarifying questions like how did y'all get connected? And I think it was at some point.

June 47:08

He was in the city, he got connected with some sort of mission team or a ministry that they had in the city and from there they supported what was going on in his village and the work that he was doing, and so again, some of those details are a little murky still working with a working through a translator, but even just asking him and he's like I don't know. This is just the way it is. And so they had been supported in the past and were working towards getting more and more independent with their ministry and that was something that I was even encouraging them like you want to be self-sufficient, right. But really cool to see again what the Lord was doing there, how he had used other people in the life of this pastor and this church, and I think that people were just the harvest was right there, and so this pastor started working, started seeing people come to faith and there was just a lot of fruitful labor happening there.

Kyle 48:00

So, as you walk away from this one, thinking oh, this is going to be easy, all these people are going to be reached already. We're just going to knock them all off the list.

June 48:08

I don't know if I thought it would be easy, but I was like man, this is incredible. And, yeah, I wonder how many of my people groups are just already engaged. And I went back to my team leaders and I said take this group off the list. We updated peoplegroupsorg and Joshua Project and they're no longer marked as an unengaged people group and that was incredible.

June 48:28

Again, an amazing way to start my term and just reminded me I think it was. It was humbling very quickly, just to realize I think I had an idea in my mind and I would not have told you this before moving overseas, but I had an idea of like I get to go and be the person who brings the gospel to these groups and very quickly I was checked with that first outing of man, the Lord's, working these places and if we get to see that local believers have been mobilized to their own communities, praise God. That's again, that's our end goal, that's what we want to see anyways, and so that was a huge encouragement and, again, also very humbling and eye-opening to see firsthand.

Kyle 49:08

So, yeah, that's awesome. What was your team leader? Was your team leader surprised or not when you came out that day? They're engaged.

June 49:17

Yeah.

Kyle 49:18

Like the gospel is here already.

June 49:19

Yeah. So my team leaders, they're incredible. They've been working in South Asia for years and they knew the country that I was working in. And they were like yeah, like we're excited that you got to see that that might be the case for other groups. But they did tell me it's not going to be the case for a lot of the groups and so they kind of just encouraged me that I got to experience that and then also reminded me like it's not always going to be the case and don't let yourself get discouraged. And I remember sitting down with another leader within our company and he asked me like if more and more of these groups are already engaged with the gospel and your job is just recording that, like are you okay with that?

June 49:59

You know he was kind of checking my pride and my spirit, and just reminding me to remember what the Lord says about success, and that's faithfulness. It's not how many people do we get to see come to Christ, how many people do we reach with the gospel for the first time. It's about faithfulness with what's before us, and so if every group on my list ended up already being engaged, then praise God. That did not end up being the case, but it was the case with several of my groups. So again, praise God, super thankful for those experiences.

Kyle 50:29

So tell us about one of the groups that wasn't engaged. So what was it like finding them, learning about them and you've mentioned a couple of times part of the job description here is to think through engagement and writing plans for how to do that. Talk us through one of those groups.

June 50:50

Yeah, so let's see, I'm trying to think of a group that would be a good example. I'll tell you about a group that we worked with, and it was actually a small city in the desert in South Asia, and it was a Muslim people group. It was the first time I had worked with a Muslim people group. A lot of the people groups I worked with were Hindu or Buddhist. I had worked with some Jain peoples as well, but this was the first Muslim group that I had, and so we were in a smaller city. There had been, um, a team that worked in that area, but they were kind of far. They were stationed far away, um. They didn't really have the time to be out in that city all the time, um, and so we reached out to them and said hey, we're coming. Our team leader has told us about these people groups that are here. I actually was researching two at that time and then another one of my teammates.

June 51:43

We ended up in the same area for a short season and she was researching another group as well. So we were coming, we were researching three of their groups. And how can we best help you in finding these groups? Do you have any information about them? And so a lot of our job on the front end is reaching out to team leaders that might know a little bit about that group. Sometimes they don't, sometimes they do. A lot of times they're familiar with them or at least have some sort of log of information that national partners have reported about the groups.

June 52:10

And we also asked are there any believers in this city that we can partner with? And so, knowing that it was a city, knowing that there might be some believers there, we went ahead and asked that question and the team leader for that area said yes, please come, we're so excited and there is a little church there that is really solid. We would love for you to connect with this pastor. And so he sent us some information about the pastor. We reached out to him, we visited his church and just talked to him about what we were doing, and they were super excited, very welcoming, and we got to even do some training at that church, just vision casting with the congregation about the people groups in their area and getting to do some gospel training with them, how to share the gospel, things like that. And for us working in that city, we got to drive and so if you're in a more remote area in the mountains, it's harder to get, like rentals and stuff like that. You're maybe taking taxis or local buses more, but being in a city, we rented scooters so little two-wheelers, two-wheeler scooters and got to drive those around. And again, instead of prayer walking the areas, we were prayer driving a lot, um, but we'd get to a community and just start again prayer walking, prayer driving, whatever.

June 53:25

It was asking the Lord to open doors to a people group the people group that we were looking for Um, and we were able to. This is funny. A lot of times you can look up the name of the people group in Google Maps and if the people group still uses that name as their surname sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but they'll actually tag their house on Google Maps sometimes. And so one of the ways that we found one of those people groups that we were looking for is we just looked them up on Google Maps and someone one of the guys had tagged his name on Google Maps and then all of the colonies where this people group lived in that city. They had named their colonies after the people group name and so they were very easy to find. That has not been the case all the time, but they were very easy to find and we got involved in the communities pretty quickly, got to spend time with them, asking about their culture. They were artists this is one of the two groups that we were looking for in the city but they were artists and very hospitable, very willing to talk to us, and we got to just spend a lot of time.

June 54:26

We kind of alternated between different communities in the city, share the gospel with many of them, and our follow-up plan from there was working with that local pastor that we had spent time with and done some training with at his church, and so at the end of our time we connected with him.

June 54:43

We went there for at least three Sundays, if not four Sundays, for church, and so they were familiar with us. They were really excited that we were there and excited to share the gospel with the people in their communities, and so I, after that trip, I sent him a document that said here's a list of the people that we spoke with, who were what we would call yellow lights, might be interested in hearing the gospel, hearing more stories about Jesus. Here's some of the strategic places that we found where these people lived, and if your church is willing to continue following up, we would love for you to be a part of that. And they took it and said yes, we're excited about that too. So I believe they're still continuing to try and share the gospel among those communities.

Kyle 55:25

That's awesome. So what I mean you did this for two years. What improved and what was different about the last one versus the first one, like? What tools did you find that you all really liked? What methods or questions did you find were useful? How did the process improve as you guys did this?

June 55:51

Yeah, I do think I got a lot more comfortable with just finding gospel bridges and being bold with asking people. Hey, can I share with you about what I believe?

June 56:03

I think that could be pretty intimidating at first, and even a few of the national partners I worked with, they had kind of been taught like you have to spend a really long time building a relationship with someone before you can share with them, or it has to be like a really obvious door to the gospel, um.

June 56:20

But I was kind of like, listen, if we're going to spend the time with these people, um, and we're trying to find them to share with them, like let's just be, you know, as fast as possible, let's get to the gospel and see if they're open to it.

June 56:32

And so I I definitely think that, think that both me and a lot of the partners that I got to work with, we kind of sharpened one another in seeing ways that we could share the gospel with people and seeing opportunities to even share our testimonies and connect with people on a more personal level when that was a possibility, and even just being like if we looked for bridges and we weren't seeing any, just being confident enough to say like hey, you've talked to us so much about your culture and your identity and your religion. We would love to share with you a story about what we believe. And almost always people said yes and so again I think I got a lot more comfortable and confident with that we usually used for me. I love three circles is my preferred gospel tool and so getting to draw that out I really enjoyed. If you've ever seen like the hand gospel, where they explain the gospel with their hand.

June 57:22

That's something we use in South Asia a lot and so getting really more comfortable. I use three circles a lot in states and so that was kind of my fallback, but I usually try to defer to my national partners if they had a tool that they preferred. I think that was something I learned. If my national partner is translating and especially if she's been in ministry for a long time whatever she's comfortable with and able to explain clearly, I want to kind of I want to default to her but then also take opportunities to train her as well and be trained by her, and so I think a lot of that's another thing. The translation I got a lot more comfortable with working with a partner all the time and knowing when to like simplify my language so that it was easier for her to translate and explain things clearly, and how to communicate through a translator whether that was just knowing when to pause, knowing how to tell her like hey, you haven't translated for me in a second, I don't really know what's going on and being willing to like break into conversation. You know stuff like that both ways, just working together and figuring stuff like that out.

June 58:25

I think also just vision, casting from scripture A lot of the tools that we used for that and for speaking to churches. Just looking at verses from the Old Testament and the New Testament and all the way to Revelation, communicating clearly like God has a heart for the nations, from the time when he promised Abraham that he would make him a father of many nations to Revelation, where we see the promise that every nation is represented before the throne and getting comfortable sharing that with local believers and helping them see like God's heart is consistent throughout scripture. But we also see a great commission for us as believers to go and do. Go and do the great commission carry out his command to make disciples of all nations.

Kyle 59:06

Thanks for listening to this episode. The Tom Ellef Center for Missions exists to equip the next generation of missionaries at Oklahoma Baptist University. Regardless of your major, you can come to OBU, get a world-class Christian education and get equipped to take the gospel to the nations. Our prayer is to send students from the local church through OBU to the world with the gospel. For more information about us or the Eliff Center Scholarship, follow the link in our description and come visit us at OVU.