More Than Hoped For
We’re passionate about serving our global community—about the partnerships we have in Africa, the friendships that continue to grow, and the work God is doing there. It’s just part of who we are as a church and where we found to be an important part of serving on a global scale.
One of our core values is “Investing deeply in local and global service.” This investment isn’t solely monetary (although it does include an investment of resources). This investment isn’t a passive glace at the world and a random pin on a map. It was a careful and prayerful decision by leadership to foster relationships through local church empowerment and partnering with organizations already doing God-honoring work. Originally, the goal was to help turn the tide of the AIDS pandemic, and this mindset has since slowly and intentionally focused toward coming alongside those caring for the most vulnerable in their communities.
And practically speaking, this looks like a lot of different ways to engage in service. For some, joining Africa means sponsoring a child through one of our partner organizations. For others, it means opening their home to host a guest from Africa who may be here as a part of a staff exchange, participating in an internship, or doing other important work in the U.S.
For Paige, it started with going to Kenya in 2018.
“I feel like my decision was actually rather impulsive,” Paige Watson admits. This opportunity came at a time in her life when she needed something new to direct her focus. She remembers thinking, “This year, that’s going to be it,” as she made up her mind to join a team after hearing about it in service on a Sunday. She learned that going to Africa would involve more than just the time spent on the trip over the summer and came with team meetings both pre- and post-trip as well.
“It turned into more than I ever hoped for,” Paige says. “It really brought me a lot deeper into my faith, and it brought me so many new people and a new community that just really helped me get through a really difficult time in my life.”
While in Kenya, Paige spent time with one of our global partners, Tazama Nia. This organization works with women, children, and vulnerable individuals in the slums of Nairobi. Paige was able to be a part of facilitating Tazama Nia’s summer Bible clubs, and through this, discovered a passion within herself for working with children.
“Talking about God and teaching kids and [seeing] how much they can absorb it at such a young age—that was just something that was so heartwarming to me to see,” Paige says. “These kids are in these circumstances that are far beyond what they can control, and they still have so much joy and so much faith in Jesus and in their faith.”
“They don't have very many things to distract them from what's going on,” she continues, “so ... it's a much deeper connection that you can make with these kids.”
Paige also found herself challenged while engaging in another element of serving globally. She was able to gain a new perspective on something familiar when Grace Veronica joined her Connect group last year. “I’ve never met somebody like Grace before,” Paige compliments. Grace was interning with Summit from Nairobi Chapel, another one of our global partners and longstanding friends, and was hosted by Summit families during her stay. She is a church planter and has spent time in Uganda, the Philippines, and India learning about church cultures different from her own. She interned with Summit to experience western church culture before beginning a church plant in San Francisco. Paige says that Grace challenged her in her prayer life.
“She was a very big part of helping me develop prayer-wise, I feel like, because when we would be in Connect group, our leader would always say, ‘Would anyone like to pray?’ And I wasn't super comfortable with it,” she explains. “And when Grace joined our group, because we had been meeting for a couple of months before Grace came, she would just say, ‘I think Paige wants to pray,’ or, you know, whoever she decided she was going to pick that week.” This gave Paige that extra push as she continues to grow into praying with more confidence and a fresh mindset.
Last year, Paige returned a second time to Kenya. “I feel like my heart is really in Kenya as far as missions go,” Paige says, “but seeing how much experience [Grace] has had and how she's used that to continue on traveling and doing church planting work with Nairobi Chapel—it's encouraged me to maybe step outside of my Kenya.”
One way Paige has “stepped outside of Kenya” has been right here in Base Camp, the children’s ministry at Summit. After returning from her first trip, she volunteered and jumped into the elementary groups. While serving in the U.S. is different than in Kenya, she still finds similarities that get to the heart of why she loves working with children in the first place. She says, “It's cool to see how much they can rely on God at such a young age.”
It’s hard to engage with global service and not begin to see the world in a different, bigger way. “One thing that I've tried to focus on since coming home from my first trip is compassion,” Paige says. “The more I think [about it], that's part of why it's so great that we do the meetings afterward because you can talk through those kinds of things with people, like Nathan, [the global ministries coordinator], who have gone on several trips to several different countries.”
If you’re wondering if you should engage in serving globally in Africa, pray and ask God for wisdom on what that could look like in your life. For some, it's joining a team; for others, sponsoring, hosting, or simply getting educated may be the next step. Learn more about how you can join Africa with us. Because there is a whole world of new community and relationships you are invited into. As Paige says, “I fell in love with the family and with the people that I met. ... It helped me grow so much that I wanted to continue helping them grow their program, and I'm hopeful that I can go back again.”
If you’d like to learn more about serving globally, join us for an info session on Sunday, February 16th or reach out to our Global Partnerships Coordinator Nathan Boyett.
Lauren Margheim is the content coordinator here at Summit. Basically that just means she writes or edits all the words. She loves coffee, Disney, science fiction, and writing in third person. You can email her your Star Wars theories, any coffee shop recommendations, or if you’re interested in writing with our volunteer team.