“After my GO trip, I came back. And I knew I wanted to move out here and be a part of the church here. And just come alongside what they were doing. All I can say is, it was truly by the Lord’s grace that I am out here.”
My computer speakers echoed tinny words as Natalie Nagy, Union alum with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, spoke from over 1,500 miles away. She was telling me about her GO trip, an eight-week stint in the mission field of mountainous, Mormonist Utah back in the summer of 2021. It was now a year and some change later, and California-raised Nagy lives only thirty minutes from the Utah missions site her team served at.
Though mission trips live in the minds of many Christians as places of extreme change, both physical (building churches and digging wells) and spiritual (holding crowded altar calls and baptizing tens of people), those who went to Utah spoke of a quieter, more applicable practice of faith.
“One of the main things that we did was we would strategically try to go out into the community and meet LDS people and people who weren’t believers, or people who were believers, and start to build relationships with them and have conversations with them,” said Anna Thompson, senior social work major. “And at the end of the trip, we were supposed to connect those people that we met with church members at Christ Fellowship Church so they could continue hopefully to build those relationships and continue to pour into their lives.”
Going out into the community took many forms. Thompson and another team member joined a running club that met at 6am, expecting to encounter a number of people they could minister to.
“We were like, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be this big club,’” Thompson laughed. “And it was literally just one guy. But we got to from the get-go have some incredible gospel conversations with him.”
The beauty of GO trips is that they are not only designed to help the people on the mission field, but to prepare the mission team for life on and outside of the trip. The teams each year spend months before the trip learning about the culture they are entering, the people they are working alongside, and – most importantly – how to best communicate their faith.
“I have a big heart for ministry and just wanting to share the gospel and learning how to evangelize well,” said Nagy. “So I think seeing the GO trips, I just saw them as a great opportunity to learn how to be equipped in those ways, even for a short period of time, and to learn how to gain the skills in being an effective minister for Christ.”
Though the trip seemed to mimic everyday life in many ways – the students were in a moderate-sized city, interacting with the community just as a resident might – the impact the trip to Utah left on them was significant.
“It definitely taught me how the Holy Spirit works in people’s hearts,” said Thompson, nodding as she spoke. “And the importance of having people who are going to plant the seeds, someone to water the seed, someone to harvest the seed. And just trusting that the Lord will continue that and all we can do is be faithful with what he’s given us and he will be faithful on his end.”
Thompson didn’t witness anyone come to Christ during those eight weeks, but that was not reason for her to lose heart. According to a church planter in Utah, it takes around seven years for a person belonging to the Church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) to leave the church and come to faith in Christ. Union’s team was only there for eight weeks, and Thompson said they were prepared for that outcome.
“We went in knowing that the likelihood of seeing anyone’s heart change was extremely low,” Thompson said. “I mean, we were like, God can totally do that, but more than likely we will go in, we will build these relationships, share the gospel faithfully, and then we will go home and not be like, we had this many salvations this summer.”
Just like most people’s everyday life, there were no promises of big, dramatic salvations, no expectations that communities would be drastically altered because of the power of the Gospel. Those things can happen, of course, and have. But this GO trip was perhaps so impactful not despite its similarities to everyday life, but because of it.
In addition to the running club Thompson became a part of, she also joined a sewing group made up of LDS members. Nagy became extremely close with the Christ Fellowship church family, continuing to stay in touch with them long after the Union team returned to Jackson. Though the connections they formed were made in ordinary, unremarkable ways, that was what made the GO trip so special. The team got to live out regular life for eight weeks with one difference – they focused those eight weeks solely on Christ. Now, a year and a half after the trip, the influence and the lessons learned are still a big part of their lives.
“I want to be more intentional,” Thompson said. “Because that’s another thing. We prayed very specifically over every part of our day. And so we were more aware of what the Holy Spirit was doing in our hearts and what he was doing in the hearts of those around us. It’s definitely something that I’m reteaching myself now.”
The students who visited Utah had to be intentional. It would have been easy to skip a 6am running club every once in a while, or sew travel kits among the lost and make small talk without mentioning the Gospel once. It was a challenging mission field not only because the team was surrounded by so few Christians, but also because they had to be brave enough to initiate tough conversations. And, because they did, a world of possibilities opened up to them – whether they moved to Utah or found more purpose to life in Jackson.
“I think just learning like, ‘Okay, after college, where, where can I go? One to, like, grow spiritually, and then also be most effective,’” Nagy said. “And not be complacent in evangelizing. That trip taught me that, whether you are a designated missionary with a title or you’re not, we are all called to share the gospel, and we are all called to make disciples. And that can be with our neighbor, that can be someone overseas. The universal call is the same for everybody that is of the faith.”
