Annual Report2019

Adventures in Missions took youth from Wellington, Florida on a missions trip to Mexico for our very first trip. The first office was in the garage of founder Seth Barnes’ home, and his kids and wife remember answering the phone, "Adventures in Missions!" Family friends remember coming to an envelope stuffing party for the first support letters ever sent. And the first two employees, Heidi Neulander and Lisa Finney, are still on staff with us today!

We opened our first international missions base: The Gateway in Matamoros! Every summer, we hosted hundreds of youth from dozens of churches. The Finney Family and the Gonzalez Family were some of our first long-term missionaries in Matamoros. Both families serve on staff with Adventures in Missions today.

Adventures moves to our current campus at 6000 Wellspring Trail in Gainesville, GA.

Seth Barnes traveled to Swaziland (now Eswatini) with Bruce Wilkinson, founder of Walk Thru the Bible and Beat the Drum. That summer, Adventures in Missions mobilized hundreds of students to preach the gospel and teach on the value of abstinence. We taught in every secondary school in Swaziland, to fight the AIDS epidemic plaguing the country. While there, God spoke to Seth about the orphans and the widows. The dreams for starting our Beauty for Ashes Women’s ministry and Swaziland Care Points were born. In 2005, the Swaziland Long-Term Missions Base launched.

The first World Race launched and Training Camp was in Seth and Karen Barnes front yard. The squads raced from one country to the next, thus the name, “The World Race!” The first squad raced from Mexico to Guatemala. Along the way, they focused on the same World Race values we celebrate today like listening prayer, community, intimacy with God, and spreading the Kingdom around the world.

We started formalizing long-term missions bases around the world. Bases have added sustainability to our ministry efforts and have strengthened relationships with partners on the ground. The short-term teams we send work alongside our bases to provide additional support to our long-term ministry efforts in that region.

18 World Race alumni became the first class of Center for Global Action (CGA) students. This first group represented the beginning of second year programs for World Racers journeying with Adventures. CGA is a leadership and discipleship program designed to mobilize our alumni to continue to live out their faith and recreate biblical community whether at home, professionally, or ministering overseas.

Our Parent Ministry, which launched in 2012, hosted the first Parent Vision Trip for World Race F and G squads in Kigali, Kenya. Since then over 3,400 parents have joined their Racers on the field for these trips. Parent Ministry continues to create new opportunities to engage parents in missions and God's activation in this season of their lives.

We launched Landing Zones and Missional Communities to begin connecting alumni with opportunities to use what they learned on the World Race to continue to impact the world. Landing Zones were the beginning of the Global Kingdom Network which includes ministry, church p, and business partners, and even Kingdom Life Coaches—all seeking to empower alumni to continue living out a Kingdom way of life after their experience on an Adventures missions trip.

Continuing the growth of our long term ministry base network, we launched our eighth base in Costa Rica. Our international bases continue to serve as both locations for discipleship and empowerment of the local communities as well as hubs for Adventures ministry teams to serve, and join-in with long-term efforts.