A Letter to Parents

Parents,

Thank you for taking a solid look at Fuel International for sending your son or daughter to the nations. As parents of teens ourselves, we commend you for taking this courageous step.

What an honor and privilege it is for us to have this opportunity to take your child on a trip with us.

I know the first thing you are asking yourself, is it safe? The answer to that is yes. We travel to these nations or cities before we even consider sending in a team. We look to be sure that our teams will be safe where we minister, where we sleep, where we play, where we eat and even how we travel; monitoring travel advisories where we send teams making the necessary adjustments along the way, We take all precautions possible to ensure our teams safety in every area. Our philosophy is that if we do not have a healthy team we can’t do healthy ministry.

Sending your teen with us, we know that you also have expectations as to what they will experience and will they come back home changed or challenged, are we right? So here are some things you can expect:

Strategic Impact

Our Goal is that every mission we launch out into will have Impact in the lives of each team member. Their days are set up in such a way that will have opportunity to Impact our global partners, lead many to Jesus, experience the reality of God for themselves (not mom and dads coat tails anymore), and have a blast doing it!

Discovery

Each team member will have an opportunity to dive in deeper to their relationship with God through teaching, training and their own personal God times. But what is really cool is that they just don’t leave it at their lodging facility, they get to hit the streets and use this stuff right away!! They will be able to discover who God is in their lives, to experience the living God working through them to touch other people

Friends

Wouldn’t it be great to get your young person off the electronics and make REAL friends, not just Facebook ones? Teams training together, eating together, ministering together, and sweating together make a bond like no other! Your teen will be surrounded by a group of Misfits. What I mean by Misfits is this…. “It Finds no age restraints…those who go against the grain…don’t fit into “typical” society… are not CBNO (Christian By Name Only)…are radicals setting the pace, making a way!” these are those that are passionately pursuing after God with all their heart. Who wouldn’t want that for their child?!?!

Direction

Sometimes as parents we find ourselves looking at our kids wondering if they have direction or not. then there are those that know exactly where they want to go and know what they want to be when they grow up. On a Fuel trip it is our aim to see every member return home with some real direction and clarified vision for their lives, challenging them to have some practical steps in front of them.

Eyes Wide Open

We love taking teams to the nations. We see so many come with a very ME-centric attitude (Na, you never see that at home do you?!?!). You know, pulling teeth to take out the trash, clean their room or help out around the house (now we aren’t miracle workers, but we sure can help). After our training and accountability, their pressing in and ministry, and being in a place very different from home, they begin to live with eyes wide open; instead of navel gazing! It is so awesome to see this happen. So, be ready when they come home as they begin to tell you about all the things that have gone on while ministering to others!

Release the Leader Inside

Cultivating leaders is what we do at Fuel. We believe so strongly in this generation and that they are the leaders that will radically rock this world with God’s presence. We encourage and implement student led ministry with guardrails. This is where they get to step up to the plate and have input and interaction with the process. They get to put into action and led their generation. We do this through training, practice, implementation and accountability.

Hey Mom and Dad, Bring the family!

I want to encourage you to bring your whole family on a trip with us. Maria and I have traveled around the globe and every opportunity we got we took our kids. they have been to 17 different nations with us! My son was still cook’n inside Maria when we were on the Great Wall of China and took his first steps in Ghana! That ain’t nothing, my daughter was potty trained as we traveled through Tanzania! Amazing kids, but even a even more amazing mother!! I say all this to say we know what it is like to travel with infants to teens. We also know the impact it has made on us as a family too, and would not change it for anything and would recommend it to everyone! Doing missions as a family unit is amazing. Now if you have teens they may want to be a little more independent and experience being with other team members, we get it and we can make it so you aren’t “suffocating” them and that you can have the best time ever.

We take care of it all*!

You saw that little * didn’t you! Ok, maybe not all but we do a lot of the heavy lifting and will help guide you with your part too! We are here for you and to make sure that the process is as simple and fun as possible. We will send you a step by step guide for what you need to do and when.

If you have any other questions please don’t hesitate to contact us below and we will respond promptly.