Latest Update - 9/3/2020
As COVID-19 continues to restrict international travel, and as state and local governments continue to issue guidelines and regulations, we are committed to making COVID risk management a top priority as we look toward the future. Our expectation at this point is that we will be able to resume international trips in early 2021.
Our commitment is to remain fully compliant with government mandates and to go above and beyond those by implementing best practices as recommended by the CDC, the infectious disease experts we have consulted, and the advice we have received from conversations with camps who operated this summer (some who made it through the summer without an outbreak and some who had to close due to outbreaks).
Fuller details of our Campus Covid Plan can be found here. Our plan includes increased cleaning protocols, distancing and isolation guidelines, daily health assessments and more.
As we look forward to resuming international travel we are evaluating possible locations in several ways, including:
- The ability to enter the country – whether or not their borders are opening to Americans
- The quality and capacity of the health care system in the country
- The ability to provide food and necessities to our teams in a time when the global food supply chain has been seriously disrupted
- The practical reality of what ministry would look like and whether we can truly add lift to our partners there
Over the course of the summer we have made the following decisions:
- All international trips have been cancelled, or modified to be a domestic trip, through the end of 2020.
- Individual programs are creating options which allow us to continue our mission, even without international travel.
- Our Ambassador program (high school age), which operates in the summer, offered a month-long domestic mission trip in Gainesville, GA.
- Our Semesters program (college age) offered month-long domestic trips to Asheville, NC and Wisconsin Dells, WI this summer. Our 3-month fall Semesters trips have just launched in those same locations.
- Our 9-month Gap Year World Race program is launching with a 4-month training camp on our main campus on September 2. We expect them to head overseas in January.
- Our 11-month World Race program will attend training camp in Gainesville, GA in October. One squad of World Racers will launch from Training Camp on a domestic route, with the expectation that they will go overseas in January. Three squads will wait and launch directly overseas in January.
- Our Short Term trips are looking forward to options for 2021. To check those out, visit this link. Covid-specific information will be provided as part of the application process.