The last year has been incredible! It seems weird saying that because it has been challenging, frustrating, and sad at the same time. When the pandemic hit, we made a decision to keep moving forward and let God direct our path of when, where, and how much to do. In 2020, we focused on being ready for God to lead us forward. In 2021, God led us to places we did not even think or imagine!

This page is just a brief glimpse into the year of ministry God had in store for us. It will highlight the places God led us to minister and how His hand guided us this last year. Thank you for your continued support of Base Ministry through your generosity and prayers. We are thankful that God has led you to join our team and together empower young people to continually live and share their faith in the global communities they serve.

Trevor Drew Hester

Executive Director

Virtual Training and Trips

We have always said training paired with authentic ministry can lead to lasting change! So when the idea of a virtual trip was first presented, we were unsure that it would be true to the mission God has given us. Many of the virtual trips we heard about did a great job of educating people on missions and the location they were interested in, but they struggled to incorporate our philosophy of authentic ministry. While we struggled to see how an authentic missions experience could happen during a period where it didn’t seem safe to travel, God had other thoughts!

During the same week, Biola University asked about going on a virtual trip and one of our partners in Morelia, Mexico, asked if there were any students who could tutor their kids in English virtually. God put these two entities in our path to help us realize what we could do. The missions experience included all of our core pieces: curriculum, training, authentic ministry through tutoring, and an opportunity to debrief and look ahead. The relationships built and the encouragement received for both the students in Morelia and the Biola students have continued to impact them. We had never done anything like it, yet God led the way to incredible ministry!

Preparing for summer

Each year Base Ministry partners with churches to run local sports camps for authentic ministry in a local setting. As we prepared for the summer in 2021, we knew needed to train and equip sports interns to serve our 15 partnering churches. We moved forward in faith and with multiple contingency plans in case Covid tried to interrupt our summer.

Praise God, in addition to a Covid-free summer, our partners in Mexico had a few alumni of their leadership programs who wanted to serve with us! It was a part of their vision to see Mexico change from a mission field to a mission force. Here is one of our great team members, Monserrat Hernandez, talking about her experience of getting ready and coming to training.

Summer Ministry - Sports

Kids and parents were ready to get active, and sports camp was a great way for them to do so. For the six weeks following training, our teams traveled to many different churches and served them by empowering leaders in the church to live and share their faith in their community through sports. In total, we trained 660 leaders and reached 1,375 children with the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Please watch this short video recap of God’s amazing work this summer through local churches serving their communities.

SUMMER MINISTRY - MISSION

Many churches focused on their own community during the ongoing Covid pandemic, however, there were two churches whose youth also wanted to serve in communities nearby. We partnered with Crosby Chapel in Seabeck, WA in training their youth and sending them to Pilot Rock, WA. While in this small farming community they partnered with a local pastor in many different ways to support his efforts. Our second church, Morning Star Community Church in Salem, OR, went to Lind, WA and helped them run local outreach into their community.

In both cases, the churches have continued to deepen their partnership and look forward to ministering alongside each other in the future!

A new model

This past year gave us a glimpse at our new two-person (sports camp) team model. Traditionally, we have sent four or five coaches to a church. By sending two coaches, our goal is to create more of a training atmosphere where the local congregation can dive into the authentic ministry opportunity and take more leadership at the camp itself. Monse was a part of this new model and she shared about her experience with it over the summer!

In addition to the impact on Monse, we witnessed many high schoolers step up and coach a sport or run a significant part of camp. One of our partnering churches in Texas paired a youth with an adult in each sport. This created a mentoring model so the younger coach could lead, but still learn from the older coach.

A new mission force

Last year at this time, we were talking with Juan Peralta at the Noe Center in Morelia, Mexico, about his desire to see Mexico move from a mission field to a mission force.

In August of this year, we launched Base Mexico! Jonathan and Ruthie Peralta were brought on board to launch and grow this great new ministry. Joseph Keith, our Director of Global Ministry, spent eight weeks with his family in Mexico to help establish this new ministry.

Here is Joseph Keith talking about his favorite story during a recent collaboration between Base Ministry in the USA, Base Ministry in Mexico, and our ministry partner Gama Canul in Merida, Mexico.

A new year

As we wrap up 2021 and look forward to this next year, we are very excited to see where God leads us. Sports camp churches have already signed up for next summer. We are also seeing a resurgence of mission opportunities, as churches and schools are looking to join us again to go to both domestic and foreign missions locations.

We are also seeing God lead us to many different locations for trainings across the globe. Peru, Nepal, and the Dominican Republic are a few of the places where local churches and missionaries are asking for training paired with authentic ministry.

Moving Forward

Praise God for what He has done and what He is doing! Thank you again for your support in prayer and through generous gifts. As we approach the end of this year, some very generous donors have pledged a $13,000 match for every gift that comes in between now and the end of the year. This means your gift will be doubled! Would you consider joining this matching opportunity and helping set up this next year of ministry?