June's Testimony: Project 3000 Pt. 2

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 to part two of my interview here with June. She was with the IMB doing Project 3000 and is here talking to us about just kind of what that process was like and what her experience was. So if you didn't listen to part one, you're going to want to hit the pause button, jump back to part one, listen to that and then jump back in here, but we're really excited, so we're going to go ahead and just jump right back in and wrap this interview up. 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. Okay, so what were some of those tools that you guys used, and are those tools exclusive to South Asia, or are they accessible?

June 1:01

Yeah, so a lot of the tools that we use are related to four fields, if you've heard of that, and so we talk a lot about the core missionary task entry, evangelism, discipleship, church planning and leadership development, and then exit to partnership, and so a lot of our tools are based on those elements of the missionary task. One of the ones that we used a lot were the seven commands of Christ, which, if someone believes those are just stories from scripture that we can use to help disciple someone who recently came to faith, or even if someone's interested in hearing more about the gospel, sometimes I would go to those stories. Or we have another set of stories called the seven stories of hope, of people throughout scripture who experienced hope found in Jesus. So that starts with, like the story of Zacchaeus and how he repented and believed, the baptism story of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. And from there, different elements of discipleship that we think are important in a new believer trying to grow in faith, and so those tools are all easily accessible.

June 2:08

If you look up online, no Place Left or even just Four Fields, you'll be able to find a lot of those resources.

June 2:14

So I got a lot more familiar and comfortable as I was spending time with leadership in South Asia who had a lot of experience or had even helped develop some of these tools or made them their own.

June 2:26

We had some different things, even within our own team, some different resources that had been customized a little bit to our setting and our context, but all of those tools are easily accessible. I had actually experienced a training in four fields when I was in college and got to learn about the missionary task that way, and it really came alive for me once I got to the field. But I tell everyone, if you're able to apply those things where you're at in the States, it's really valuable, just helping us to reframe our ministry and the way that we think about the work that we're doing. As far as when we evangelize and we're sharing the gospel, what's the next step? Well, we want to disciple, and then from there, what's the next step? And on and on and seeing how that's a really reproducible and simple model to be a part of, as we do missions overseas or just are sharing the gospel, being intentional with that where we're at in the States.

Kyle 3:22

Yeah, it's really cool to see just how many of these tools that are getting used all over the world are applicable and accessible to us here in the States that we can use to help strategize, implement, do ministry. Um, I even know a lot of people in the no Place Left movement per se.

Kyle 3:48

You can get online and find just local trainings near you, depending on where you're living, where you could go and get help learning how to use three circles or four fields or some of these tools that you guys were using to access and start ministry and plan ministry with all these unreached, unengaged people, groups, so there's a lot of really good stuff out there. Yeah, she's not wrong. It's super easy to find these tools. Just Google no Place Left. They're pretty awesome. So you also mentioned the core missionary task. When you think about project 3000, what elements of the core missionary task does this job description lean more heavily on?

June 4:35

Yeah, um, I would say the job description leans pretty heavily on entry and evangelism. You're entering new people or new places and places and engaging with new peoples for the first time, and then you're sharing the gospel with everyone that you can as you go. I will say I love talking about this because I was a little bit apprehensive when I got to the field, like is this going to be all that I do for my two years, just entering and evangelizing and then leaving, and leaving what I could in the hands of the people who could be there for longer than me. But actually I was really surprised getting to, I mentioned before, we got to work alongside a lot of local believers and so through that we were able to do a lot of leadership development and even discipleship, as I was working with national partners and we were learning from one another. I was getting to disciple some of those girls and I would say that even they were discipling me as well in different ways as I worked with different partners and then also getting to see people come to faith and disciple new believers for the first time.

June 5:45

We did get to do some of that and again, even though a lot of it was short term, like we're helping with this while we're here, but we're also thinking about ways that we can continue to see the work carried out among these people after we leave. It was really, really cool to get to be a part of that and praying that more and more churches get planted among these groups. We got to see one like they. They're calling it like our prayer group that was developed from one of the groups that we worked with, where we saw several people respond in faith, um, and even the local church that we were working with started gathering those people together and so praying that that becomes a church, if it's not already, and just asking the Lord to be at work there. And so we really get to have our hand in every component of the missionary task, knowing that each step leads to the other and that it's all continuing to multiply as we're working through it.

Kyle 6:39

Yeah, that's good listening and realizing when you're doing that vision casting and talking about God's heart and those things with those local pastors and congregations. Like that's leadership development.

June 6:53

Yeah.

Kyle 6:53

You know it's like you're. I'm kind of piecing together and realizing you get to do a lot of the core missionary task, more than just what this job portrays on the surface level of, like you're saying, entry evangelism exit, repeat, repeat, repeat yeah, so that's been. That's been really good and really encouraging. What were, what were some of the hard things about doing Project 3000? And were those similar to or different than your peers who were doing Journeyman?

June 7:31

Yeah, so I love telling the story of like my first. So I was telling you about the very first people group that I worked with and that was an incredible experience. I was like man, I'm ready to just run hard Really cool stuff that we got to see the Lord had been doing and was doing and is continuing to do. And that was actually a shorter trip for us because I had a meeting I had to get back to and so it was a meeting. It was like a kind of a refresh meeting and a strategy meeting and so I had to get back to my city. I wasn't actually out working with that people group for six weeks and so after that, the very first like official, I'm out for six weeks at a time. It was my second like people group assignment, but then my first like this is an actual stint that I would be continuing to follow that cycle for the rest of my term.

June 8:23

So I was going out for six weeks working with a national partner and I got to this place. I went to another country. It was my first time in this country. It was extremely overwhelming, kind of from the get-go. And I got there and I mentioned earlier that I felt like the Lord had given me some really unique circumstances, situations in my life, experiences and even personality traits that I felt like made me a good fit for this job, and I had people affirm that in me.

June 8:53

And then I got to this country and within a few weeks I felt totally stripped of all those things. The independence that I thought, you know, qualified me. I couldn't be independent because I couldn't speak the language I couldn't at that point, I didn't know how to drive and so I couldn't drive myself. All these different things that I just couldn't do on my own. And I remember getting really frustrated and going to the Lord and asking him you know, what am I really doing here? And even we had seen believers and we had seen churches among the last people group that we had worked with, but this one there was no believers, there was no churches and wrestling with the Lord of we are sharing the gospel with people that we meet almost every day, if not multiple times a day, and we're just seeing it was a very an area that was very hard soil and so just seeing a lot of people say no again and again and again, feeling very stripped of myself, I feel like there was a lot of things that came out of me during those couple months that I was like, oh my gosh, I've never seen that before. Like who am I? And so that very quickly drove me to the Lord.

June 10:00

It forced me to, like I mentioned earlier, success is measured by faithfulness. It forced me to really check my own heart and my own spirit and my expectations and even my own view of myself. Again, I would not have said, going to the field, like yeah, I have so much pride about who I am and what I'm going to do. But I did. And so I was humbled very quickly and the Lord just revealed to me my own weakness and how his strength is made perfect in very quickly. And the Lord just revealed to me my own weakness and how his strength is made perfect in that weakness and that continued to come up kind of every time. I felt like I was getting my stride and getting comfortable. I would have another circumstance or be speaking to someone working with a people group where I was just reminded this isn't about me or anything that I can do in my own power. It's about the Lord and his spirit at work and what he's called me to do, and that's just to be faithful day by day.

Kyle 10:51

You know, it's funny to me, like I talking to all the Ms that I have and even reading the biographies and things like it's just so crazy how universal that struggle is.

June 11:07

Yes.

Kyle 11:08

Like no matter. I would love to think oh yeah, I've talked to all these people, I've read all these books. That's not going to be me, but I just I don't know how you get around it. Yeah, I think that's just something that everybody has to work. They're like the Lord has to work that out in us when we get there, because I don't know if the Lord will ever call my family and I overseas, but I imagine we're going to have to walk through that.

Kyle 11:36

You know, if that day comes, it just kind of it's interesting being able to see all the common threads when you talk to people and you read just about. We're not actually all that different.

June 11:53

Yeah, yeah.

Kyle 11:54

And we're very thankful that the Lord's working in all of us.

June 11:58

Yeah, definitely yeah, and I had people tell me that and again, I would not have said, like when I went to the field, that I had any sort even expectations with Project 3000, so much was up in the air and so I didn't really know what to expect. But I realized that I did have some sort of expectation.

June 12:19

You know I was going to see someone come to faith from every people group or see these results or at least feel confident and comfortable and at some degree, because I did have, you know, these experiences and again the Lord just very, very quickly humbled me and checked my heart, and continued to do that throughout my term, cause I was traveling a lot in different places and so every time I got to a new place, it was, you know, kind of starting over and relearning those same lessons over and over again.

Kyle 12:45

What were. So that was kind of one of the hard things.

June 12:48

Yeah.

Kyle 12:48

If we haven't already hit it, what were some of the just the highs your favorite moments? Um, looking back at it, having been home for a couple of months, like what were some of the biggest lessons you learned and took away?

June 13:04

Yeah, I'll tell you one of my favorite moments. First, we were working in an area where actually my team leader had been before and we were focusing on one unengaged group. But we were in an area where we would attract a lot of attention if we showed up to the same place every day, and so he had given us several people, groups that were all unengaged. And he said I've been here before, I would love for you guys to follow up. We know where they live. So you know, don't prioritize that until you find the other group that we don't know where they are. But go ahead. They live by this river. If you have some time or need to spread out, you know your visits to that other place go. If you have some time or need to spread out, you know your visits to that other place, go down to this river and spend some time with this group. And so me and my partner went down to this river area. We were with, actually, another team member and another national partner, so it was them two. It was two guys and then us two girls, and we got to this place. We tried to talk to some people. They were not very open. Me and my partner kind of wandered down to a shop and we were talking to some of the guys there at the shop and then our friends who were back at this house that we had walked by, they texted us and said, hey, come down to this area. We really really think that this girl is close to accepting Christ. We've shared with her multiple times, we shared with the whole family and we really think that she could benefit from hearing your testimonies.

June 14:26

And so we went down, we met this girl. She was from this unengaged group. We sat down with her and she had already heard the gospel, but we shared it again. We shared our testimonies and just asked her are you wanting to believe this for yourself? And she was like yes, absolutely. And so I get chills just thinking about it, because it was so just like we were there at the right moment.

June 14:48

Again, it wasn't anything that we did or said, because our teammate had already been sharing with her and she was close and I think, just hearing from some ladies and having us look her in the eye and say, are you ready for this?

June 15:00

She was ready and so she accepted Christ. We prayed with her, we looked at scripture with her and that's actually. Y'all can be praying for her, because she got married shortly after that and it's been really difficult to stay in touch and so that national partner there has been continuing to try to connect with her and has had a hard time finding her and getting in contact with her. So, finding her and getting in contact with her, so um, but it was a very um, just Holy Spirit led moment and it was very natural and we we knew that she um was feeling the Holy Spirit's conviction and prompting cause. She was so fast to just say yes and we were almost like wait, are you sure, you know? Like do you want to go over this again, which that's our again our own human doubts and pride, oh gosh, yeah.

Kyle 15:43

I think about that stuff all the time.

June 15:44

Yeah, yeah. And so that's even a little humbling just to think man like why am I not trusting the Holy Spirit? Like, praise God. She said yes, and so we got to pray with her to receive Christ, and I love that story because it really shows you never know what happens with the seeds that are planted Again. My team leader had found this group years ago, had been driving out to them every now and then sharing the gospel. Our partner and the other team member had shared with her. Then we went and shared with her, and so you just never know what part you're going to play in God's mission to bring these people to himself.

June 16:23

Thinking back on what I've learned, I think that success is only measured by faithfulness. I think that's a huge thing. We talk about that a lot at the training that we have to go through to move overseas with the IMB, and I just continue to be reminded of that even being here back in the States. I think. Also towards the end of my term, I was really wrestling with like I've shared the gospel so many times with all these people and I know it backwards and forwards, I know all these tools, but am I really believing it for myself? And so I wasn't doubting my salvation or doubting God's grace in my life, but I was just really wrestling with am I walking in the joy and the light and the freedom that he's called me to, or am I letting myself get kind of caught up in just going through the motions of every day? I'm sharing and I'm trying to connect with people, but am I really like internalizing these truths for myself? And so that was just a beautiful reminder. I was walking through Ephesians and I was walking through.

June 17:24

I was reading a book called the Bruised Reed which is a Puritan classic and talking about God's heart for sinners and for people who are broken by their sin, and being reminded that that's me Like my sin separates me from God, but his mercy and his grace has saved me, and I get to share that truth with others, but I also get to believe it for myself.

June 17:49

And so that was just a sweet season where the Lord was reminding me of the freedom that I have in Christ, that there's no sin, there's no shame, there's no guilt. That has a say in my life because I have victory through him. And again, I was sharing those truths with people every day, but I think I had distanced myself from it a little bit and again just got caught up in the motions, and so that was a really good reminder. And, yeah, reading through Ephesians by grace, through faith, we are saved, and so he was really gracious to me during that season to remind me of who he is and his love for me during that season to remind me of who he is and his love for me.

Kyle 18:28

Yeah, that's awesome. So I can think of one thing that we haven't talked about yet that I feel like people always think about or ask when it comes to Project 3000, and that's where do you sleep? Yeah, what is it like? What are some of those? Just like simple logistical things, like when you're because you talked about earlier, it's not the job, is not living out of a backpack a hundred percent of the time, like you kind of just would stereotype the project as yeah, but uh, what did that look like for you then?

June 19:05

Yeah, so I already mentioned like we got to stay with some locals when we were working with them in the village there in the country that I was based out of, and so that kind of set the tone for the very first part of my term. I was like, ok, I mean, we were kind of roughing it on the village. We did have a roof over our heads, we had little like wooden platform beds, but like I was carrying a sleeping bag, I was, you know, using the squatty potty out back stuff like that.

June 19:37

But then after that we ended up staying in a little like suite hotel in the next city that we worked in and that had like a little kitchen. It had two beds, me and my partner didn't have to share a bed, and I would say that those two experiences like are good indicators of what the rest of my term was like. So everything in between that I probably did it. I did not have to camp at any point. I think one of my teammates we've got quite a few people on our team in South Asia now I think one of my teammates has had to camp a couple of times and that's been it, and so for the most part we are able to find guest houses, or what we call homestays.

June 20:16

In South Asia People will kind of rent out a room in their house. If there's local believers where you're going and there's nowhere to stay, the local believers will invite you to stay in their house. A lot of times the non-believers will too, and so we've had opportunities to do that, to stay in people's homes. But I worked in a city for a few months and there was a Starbucks down the road. It was kind of a nice city and I stayed in an Airbnb and so I had kind of a large space. It was bigger than my space actually back in my hub city but I had like one little suitcase so I couldn't fill it up for the six weeks that we were there, but I stayed in the Airbnb. I've stayed in again, locals' homes, little churches, we've stayed in places like that. Lots of hotels, lots of guest houses and pretty much anything in between.

June 21:04

Everything in between. Whatever you can imagine. That looks like probably I've stayed somewhere like that.

Kyle 21:08

Yeah, imagine that looks like probably I've stayed somewhere like that, yeah, so I want to transition here semi quickly to kind of what's next for you and kind of where you're at now that you've been home. But before I do that, is there anything about Project 3000 or common questions that you get that we haven't covered? That would be good for our audience to know.

June 21:34

Yeah, I would. I've already talked about this a little bit, but people ask me a lot like what does a typical day look like for you? And so, as I mentioned earlier, on the front end of finding a people group, we do a lot of like pre-research working with our research team, and so that's a fun part of our job, just getting to kind of read about the people group a little bit some census data, some anthropological research that we have on these groups and then from there we get to plan like where we're going to start and what we're going to do when we get there. That is a lot of like wandering around. It feels a little creepy sometimes because you're trying to find people and get connected in a community, googling things, you know, stuff like that but we usually spend a lot of time just getting to know local communities, going shopping, talking to shop owners, stuff like that and then as we get invited into people's houses, spending time, meals, tea time, stuff like that and as we meet people within the group that we're looking for, continuing to ask for connections, and usually towards the end of a people group outing, we're spending a lot of time in people's houses and we've kind of been welcomed into a community, so that's a gradual process. Sometimes it takes a week, sometimes it takes three or four of the six weeks, but it's different every time. So that's one of the big things people ask me.

June 22:50

I do say like I tried my hardest to maintain some sort of consistent routine, and so that was, you know, bible time in the morning, prayer time with my national partner. If they were open to discipleship, we would meet together and do some training. I would maybe talk about four fields or vision casting or learn from whatever she had to share with me as well, and so those were always part of our daily routines. I did try to exercise. That wasn't always consistent, but there are ways to do that, even as you're traveling, and so I love telling people stuff like that. Just practical, here's what it might look like for you to be doing this and out on the field every day searching for a people group.

Kyle 23:29

Yeah, were people skeptical, or how did you go about saying hi, I'm looking for this people group. Yeah, help me find them.

June 23:39

Yeah, so that is kind of funny. Sometimes talking about people groups in South Asia can be a little bit taboo and I think for me, especially as a foreigner, I kind of had um the blessing of like, oh well, she's a little bit ignorant about our culture, like she can ask. But also we saw a lot more receptivity than maybe people expected. Um, and we tell our national partners all the time. You know, just try and ask and see what happens. You might be surprised at how open people are talking about this. Um. Like I said, my major in college was intercultural studies and so that was part of my like platform. I would just say I studied this in college. I'm interested in traveling and learning about this for myself, and so I read about this people group online or in a book and I'm really interested in verifying some of the information that I found.

Kyle 24:27

And so that's a really good way of doing that, yeah absolutely yeah.

June 24:30

And if you don't have a major like that, you can still just say like I'm.

June 24:34

You know it's so popular now to do travel blogging or just to take a few years off of school and travel, and so you can say like, I love traveling, I love anthropology, I'm really interested in learning about this and we were always just really excited and blessed to see that a lot of these groups haven't had a lot of spotlight on them.

June 24:54

Some of them are higher caste within the you know, especially if they're Hindus. They're, they're higher ranked and so maybe they have had a lot of attention, but most of them had not. And so getting to talk to them and just sit and learn about their culture, learn about their customs, their families, that really means a lot to people, and people love to talk about themselves, and so getting to sit across from them and asking questions and being really intentional and following up really means a lot to these people. And you know that's also a genuine thing. Like I do love, you know, getting to hear these stories from people's lives and their customs and it was super interesting. I think that opened a lot of doors into communities, just showing a genuine interest and a genuine love for the people there.

Kyle 25:35

Yeah, that's awesome. One of the things that's common with all people who do project 3000 or journeyman is you. You have a date, that you're coming home. You know it's not a career job description where you have a one-way ticket and you don't know next time you're coming home, and so one of the things that it's always well, are you going back, are you staying in the States? What's next? So how did you work through that and kind of what's, what's the answer for you? What's next?

June 26:05

Yeah. So I told you guys about my experience, just even leading up to my journeyman application and taking little tiny steps of faith in filling out my application. I would say I'm back in that same place of little tiny steps of faith and asking the Lord to keep making things clear. I did feel like when I was overseas, especially towards the end of my term, I got to try out a few different things within our team. I helped onboard some of our new units, I helped with some of our just logistics and stuff like that, and so I felt like towards the end that I could really see myself continuing to work in South Asia, that I loved getting to be a part of some of that pioneering work among unengaged peoples.

June 26:45

I loved our team, I loved the research, and so I spoke with our team leaders before I left about returning to the field and I am in a turnaround process with the IMB to go back career and be a career unit on the field, and so that's something that everyone can be praying for as well. Like I said, I'm taking small steps of faith and just asking the Lord to continue to keep that door open if that's where he wants me, and make it clear if there's something else that he has. But as of now, I am excited to hopefully be back in South Asia within the year and working with my team leaders and other people there on the ground in South Asia to make that a possibility, and so I will hopefully start seminary in the fall and get some of the credits that I need and just keep moving forward with that process.

Kyle 27:32

So what's a realistic timeline for you to be back overseas full-time as a career?

June 27:39

Yeah, so I'm trying to figure out actually, some of those logistics like right now, hopefully within the year. I would love for next spring to be my like, I guess, I guess relaunch date, but if I can't work out some of the things I'm trying to work out, it could be next summer and so that I got back to the States end of May this year, so that's 2025. So it could be a full year before I get back overseas. My hope would be closer to the nine month mark and so sometime in the spring 2026.

Kyle 28:10

Yeah, and you're still looking at South Asia.

June 28:12

Yes, yeah, yeah. I love South Asia. This is my pitch to everyone thinking about going overseas. I love South Asia, I love the work there and I think that the harvest is plentiful and we've got some great laborers, but we need more, and so I feel really burdened for the peoples there. I love the team members we have on the ground, I love the national partners and the churches that we get to work with, and so I'm excited to hopefully be going back.

Kyle 28:36

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, june, I really appreciate you taking the time to join us on this podcast and talk our listeners through Project 3000 and what your experience was like. I'm sure I mean this was really beneficial for me, even just to hear and talk through, and so I know it's going to be beneficial for our listeners and those who are considering and weighing hey, do I do Journeyman? Do I do Project 3000? What even is Project 3000? Sitting down and being able to listen to a conversation like this is going to be really helpful for them. So, thanks for coming on, thanks for what you're doing, and we're gonna be praying for you in your turnaround time as you're trying to figure out and work through all these different logistics.

Kyle 29:20

So, really appreciate it.

June 29:21

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoy great questions. I love getting to talk through a lot of that and just encourage anyone thinking about it. What my parents told me you know a few years ago just start the application, see what happens and see what doors the Lord opens.

Kyle 29:40

That's great and a great last word. All right, thanks for listening everyone and we'll catch you next time. Thanks for listening to this episode. The Tom Ellef Center for Missions exists to equip the next generation of missionaries at Oklahoma Baptist University. 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 Ellef Center Scholarship, follow the link in our description and come visit us at WU.