Annie Van Dyk & Oaks International

This summer our Missions & Evangelism Committee supported Annie Van Dyk as she went to Montana for ministry training through Oaks International. She shared this report:

Hello! My name is Annie Van Dyk and I went on a trip through Oaks International, a campus ministry at the University of Northern Iowa, to Bozeman, Montana for a Student Training Program. My trip was made possible by the generous support of the FPC Missions Committee and individual donors. Over the course of two weeks, we covered three main topics; Evangelism, Discipleship, and Missions Mobilization. 

Evangelism: We learned about how important evangelism is and how the Lord teaches us to be fishers of men in many places throughout scripture including in Luke 5. This doesn’t always mean that people will accept what you’re telling them but it means that you’re being obedient to Christ in preaching the gospel in everything you do. We were given practical training about how to talk with people, how to get to know people, and how to share the gospel in a meaningful way. Then, we put our learning into practice on the streets of Bozeman!

Discipleship: We talked about discipleship and how critical it is in people’s faith. You cannot help a person give their life to Christ and then not teach them how to abide in him. Discipleship is simply walking alongside a friend in Christ and continuously leading them back to the gospel. Discipleship is at the heart of Oaks International, and I felt equipped to begin leading a bible study for other women in a dorm as well as doing one-on-one discipleship with other students on campus. 

Mission Mobilization. We talked about the 10/40 window which spans across North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. This area of the world has the largest concentration of people who have never heard the gospel. We learned about the ways that we can support missions when you’re staying at home or even the ways we can be more involved in travelling to become a missionary in these places. I left so excited about missions and the ways God has called us to be at work in the world.

This trip was incredibly influential in many ways including helping me deepen my faith, experiencing God’s beauty in a new way, meeting people from all around the state, and learning new programs and practices that we can incorporate into our campus. 

Thank you so much for your generous financial and prayer support. I’m so thankful for the opportunities this trip provided, and I’ve already been putting my new skills into practice!

More information about Oaks International can be found here: https://oaksintl.org/