What started out as a family and a few friends getting together in a garage to lick envelopes and send out invitations to mission trips has turned into a movement of people bringing the Kingdom to earth.
After 22 years, Adventures in Missions (AIM) will reach the major milestone of sending 90,000 people out onto the mission field. Founder Seth Barnes launched AIM in 1989 with a mission trip to Montego Bay, Jamaica.
“We would lick the envelopes in his garage,” says Rosie Watson, AIM’s first mission trip participant.
Watson, who is originally from Jamaica, suggested the location. She said she never dreamed the organization would grow into what it is now.
“It’s pretty exciting to be at the beginning of something that God had such a vision for,” Watson says. “(Short term missions) changes you because it forces you to leave your own comfort and your heart is opened to the needs of others.”
AIM trips, which are both domestic and international, range from three days to 11 months. Its programs include short term missions for youth and adults, Ambassadors, a high school age program, Real Life, a college age program, and the World Race, an 11-month trip for 21- to-35-year-olds.
“Starting Adventures in Missions in my garage seemed foolhardy,” Barnes says. “(But) it was better to do to that and abandon everything as I trusted Him, than to trust in my own competence. The way of total abandon was really the path that offered the greatest security.”
