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It’s inconvenient, but it’s worth the sacrifice. It’s exhausting, but it’s energizing. It’s expensive, but the impact is priceless. What is it? Urbana ’12!

Since 1946, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship has hosted a student mission conference, now a triennial gathering. The conference derived its name from the city that hosted it for 55 years – Urbana, Illinois. InterVarsity hosted Urbana ’12, its 23^rd such conference, in St. Louis, Missouri from December 27-31, 2012. Nearly 16,000 students attended.

Six Mission Society representatives abandoned their newly unwrapped Christmas gifts and departed early on December 26^th for Urbana ‘12.

The following day, the Mission Society team erected its booth. The concept for the booth, the brainchild of Mission Society staffers Kate Hilderbrandt, Laura Means, and Steve Wilson, was quite creative.  Passersby could enter the display area and have their photo taken in front of a backdrop of a Namibian elephant. In order to retrieve the photos, one would have to ‘friend’ The Mission Society on Facebook. The booth also included a couple of benches to give weary students a place to rest.

For four days, The Mission Society representatives connected with college students. “We listened to students’ stories, coached them through decisions, and helped them to find opportunities that seemed to match each student’s passion,” remembered Richard Coleman, one of The Mission Society’s team members. Because The Mission Society’s leadership doesn’t place a quota on the number of missionaries that must be recruited each year, the representatives could focus on the needs of the students. The honest hope was that some of these students would choose The Mission Society as their sending agency, but that wasn’t the primary focus of the conversations.

Richard Coleman, The Mission Society’s senior director of mobilization and candidacy, co-led a seminar. The title was ¡Vamonos! Envisioning the Future of Black and Hispanic Mobilization. The other instructor, Mauricio Alvarez, is the Uruguayan-born executive director for COMHINA, a network of Hispanics involved in cross-cultural missions. Richard and Mauricio spoke to nearly 100 students about the history, challenges, roles, and future of Blacks and Hispanics as it relates to cross-cultural missions. The information was well-received.

Weeks later, Mission Society team members continue to make follow-up calls with the students they met in St. Louis. God-willing, some of these students will become a part of The Mission Society family as short- or long-term missionaries. Even if not, from a kingdom perspective, the time at Urbana ’12 would still be completely worth the sacrifice.