COVER STORY

COVER STORY

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Anderson shares gospel with Mission of Hope

On the cover: Anderson served on “Team Hope” as she ministered in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Key West with Mission of Hope. (photo by Levi Dade) On this page: Anderson and coworkers spend free time together. Anderson says she will miss the relationships she built with her coworkers and the locals (photo courtesy of Emma Anderson)

By Julia Shands, Staff Writer

Junior Christian studies major Emma Anderson was in the middle of her freshman year when she fervently began to pray about her unknown summer plans. She did not exactly know what to do with her summer, but she knew that her heart was set on mission work.

She reached out to her discipleship group leader, Paige Fett, who recommended that she apply to Mission of Hope, an organization that seeks to bring life transformation to the people of Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Key West. Fett worked with the organization in the Summer of 2019 and had a great experience. That conversation was enough to convince Anderson to sign up for a summer abroad, expectant that the Lord would place her where she needed to be.

Mission of Hope assigned Anderson to the Dominican Republic for the summer of 2020, which was later postponed until the summer of 2021 due to COVID-19. Although her internship was delayed, the year-long waiting period only heightened Anderson’s excitement to make memories and touch lives in a new environment. Anderson left for the Dominican Republic in June. While there, she was in charge of leading church groups in various activities and making sure they got to their work sites safely.

“I was the person that went to the airport and picked up the church groups and took them to all of their project locations throughout the week,” Anderson said. “On VBS weeks, we would work with a pastor in the community and host around 100 kids. We would do stations like crafts, health (we taught them how to brush their teeth and wash their hands) and then we would play games to build relationships with them through jump rope, chalk, soccer, basketball and baseball, but most importantly, we would share the gospel with them.”

Anderson left the comforts of her own home to enter into a summer of no air conditioning and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches everyday for lunch, but she would not have had it any other way.

“I am so grateful for this summer because it taught me to listen to the Lord’s voice and go where he wants me to go and not to rely on my own strength,” Anderson said. “I began to listen when he tells me to go talk to someone, even if it’s starting a conversation with a random stranger.”

The opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus allowed Anderson to witness lives changed by the gospel. She returned home with many heartwarming stories to share.

“One day I was with a translator, and we were talking to this lady, but the whole time we were talking with her, I was looking at another woman across the village and I just felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me to go talk to her, so after my conversation had ended, I grabbed another team member and went over to this woman and asked if she had ever heard of what Jesus had done for her,” Anderson said. “She said ‘no,’ so I began to explain the gospel to her and who Jesus is. After that, my team member asked her if she wanted to become a Christian and she said ‘yes’ so we prayed for her and got to explain what salvation means. When I was talking, I felt like the words coming out of my mouth weren’t even mine, so it definitely was just the Lord guiding me through that conversation.”

While working to build God’s kingdom is rewarding, it is also hard work. Anderson grew to know this kind of work well through long days on the mission field.

“We’d wake up around 6:30 a.m. and have a staff meeting, then we would eat breakfast at 7:30 a.m., so we were always up early,” Anderson said. “We’d leave by 8:30 a.m. for the day and then we wouldn’t get back until around 4 p.m. Then we’d just hangout, worship, debrief the day, eat dinner, go to bed and do it all over again.”

Dominicans speak Spanish, Creole and French. Despite the language barrier, Anderson was able to show the love of Jesus through her actions and utilize the help of translators.

“The language barrier was hard, but we always had translators, so we could talk to anyone as long as a translator was with us,” Anderson said. “One of the pastor’s sons was adopted and abandoned as a kid, and even though we couldn’t talk much because he speaks Creole, it was just fun to get to love on him.”

Now that she is back home, Anderson feels slight culture shock as she assimilates back into her daily routine. While she is happy to be back, Anderson misses the relationships she built this summer.

“I miss the hospitality and friendliness of locals,” Anderson said. “They were just really inviting. We would knock on their door, and they would invite us in and sometimes give us coffee, so just the relationships I built, I miss having that.”