By: Madelynn Brower
From Nov. 23-30, Southern’s Soulwinning and Leadership Training program (SALT) and the Evangelistic Resource Center (ERC) will be taking over 90 students on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. According to Pastor Douglas Na’a, director of SALT, this trip will be their largest ever planned.
The trip is one of several joint ventures SALT and ERC have taken. This year, the students will be split into two groups traveling to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where they will go to separate locations. They plan to visit up to 90 different churches in 10 days to preach, hold evangelistic meetings and conduct baptisms.
To prepare for trips like this, SALT students take practicum classes every Tuesday and Thursday, where they learn how to write sermons and practice before an audience. This year, there are 70 SALT students going on the mission trip. They will conduct sermons and evangelism series starting the Saturday after they arrive in the Dominican Republic and continuing every night throughout the following week.
Na’a explained that SALT goes to the same location every year, which helps to build relationships with local conferences and communities and gives them a better understanding of how to evangelize in the local area.
“We’re very intentional about the Dominican Republic” said Na’a. “We want to go to one place because this is going to be something continuous for us, [and] we really want to make a major impact.”
According to Alex Castillejos, the ERC office manager, the mission trip starts weeks before when ERC recruits students to an evangelism boot camp, teaching them how to preach and give Bible studies before they are sent out on missions. Unlike SALT programs, ERC students don’t attend classes to learn how to write and preach sermons. Instead, they are offered several weeks of training to prepare for the trip.
Castillejos also said that ERC has a program in place to train local church members in conferences around the world on evangelism. The student missionaries hold five-day workshops to teach people in the conference how to be Bible workers and conduct Bible studies in their neighborhoods. When the students complete the workshop, the participants conduct required Bible studies of their own with people in the community for the next three months.
According to Castillejos, the organization has also worked with Southern’s nursing department to provide medical care on mission trips in the past.
“Every summer we go to one country, and we do one week evangelism and one week medical, and we partner with the nursing department,” he said. “We see 800 patients.” He added that ERC has been doing these kinds of mission trips for the last three years.
According to Na’a, the primary focus of both ERC and SALT is the same: missions.
“The long term for us is having students won over to evangelism,” said Na’a. “They get to see and experience the power of God working in and through them. Evangelism is caught, not taught.”
Both groups have stated that there are other locations they would like to reach in the future, as well as new programs they would like to offer their students.
“ERC is focusing this year on the certification for Bible worker,” said Castillejos. “Maybe next year we will work on the Public Evangelism Certification.” This certification helps to foster positive relations between student missionaries and local law enforcement but is not yet available for students.
While SALT trips focus on community outreach, they are also impactful for students who participate.
Karise Francis, a sophomore elementary education major and SALT mentor for the trip, emphasized her desire for students to see the impact they are making.
“I want to see the SALT students experience what it’s like to see people make a decision for Christ because of their faithfulness,” she said. “I’m looking forward to seeing how SALT and the whole mission trip group really bond.”
