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After we returned from Ecuador, several youth from our town, including young people from our trip, organized a community event to reach their unchurched peers. They called it Power Jam. The young people themselves planned, prayed, and orchestrated the event with no adult input, doing everything from running the cotton-candy machine to leading the worship. Six hundred local youth showed up.

All of the youth who led the Power Jam had recently been on mission trips, observes Rod Van Solkema, who at the time was senior-high pastor at College Church. He adds, "They learned on those trips, 'If God can use me over there, why can't he use us over here?'"

A mission trip will not set the course for an entire generation. But, as it did with our group, it can help young people to see a God who is alive in his world—where trees climb upward to return God's glory to himself; where the Spirit builds up the physical being; where the sinful nature can be slaughtered with a song.

It's too soon to tell if the mission-trip trend is raising a generation of disciples. But it's a start.

Wendy Murray Zoba is a senior writer for CT. Her latest book, Day of Reckoning: Columbine and the Search for America's Soul (Brazos), comes out this month.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

You can also read Steve Saint's article about Western college students encountering Christ in the Huaorani from Christian Reader.

Wendy Murray Zoba has often written about youth for Christianity Today. Some of her previous articles include:

Columbine's Tortuous Road to Healing | One year later, survivors' recovery is filled with painful twists and turns. (April 3, 2000)

Elegy for a Jesus Freak | "These are the ultimate Jesus Freaks—the people who are willing to die for their faith."—Toby McKeehen of dc Talk (Dec. 6, 1999)

"Do You Believe in God?" | Columbine and the stirring of America's soul. (Oct. 4, 1999)

Tough Love Saved Cassie | How the Bernalls helped Cassie break with old friends and build a new life. (Oct.4, 1999)

The Class of '00 | These "millennial" teenagers are forcing the church to rethink youth ministry. (Feb. 3, 1997)

Zoba is author of J. I. Packer Answers Questions for Today, Generation 2K : What Parents & Others Need to Know About the Millennials, and Day of Reckoning : Columbine and the Search for Americas Soul.

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February 5 2001, Vol. 45, No. 2