Partner Highlight- SEND International

Grow2Serve joyfully partners with over 30 mission organizations who share missionary learning resources on our site or develop online courses on our platform.  Today we’d like to introduce you to one…Send International.

Originally founded in 1947, SEND International sends more than 500 missionaries across the world to over 20 different locations in Europe, Asia, and North America. Their goal? To reach the unreached populations, focusing on the more than 40% of the world who have not yet heard of Jesus Christ.

Our partnership with SEND began around 2009, when representatives from both organizations met at a Christian conference on the use of technology in distance education. Immediately, the two organizations began plans for working together. Among the first of our joint endeavors was a Team Leader Orientation course first run in October of 2010. Then, in 2012, MOP (member orientation program) was launched, a blended learning pre-field training program for SEND missionaries offered on Grow2Serve’s educational platform. Through collaborative efforts, SEND and Grow2Serve learned the ins- and outs- of providing effective distance learning. They’ve grown. We’ve grown. Most importantly, though, we’ve learned from each other, to the benefit of both our missionaries and the Great Commission.

For roughly a decade now, Grow2Serve and SEND have worked together and with other mission organizations to create new online courses. Using Grow2Serve’s educational platform, SEND partnered with both Reach Global and World Team to create an online course on the multiplication of churches. Most recently, they’ve begun working with Navigators, World Team and CIT to offer a series of courses on the topic of exploring cultures (ethnography). Leaders from SEND, such as Ken Guenther, their training director, have been actively engaged in the community of mission trainers through MISSIO NEXUS. As evidence of their generosity, SEND has shared over 90 resources on the Grow2Serve site, aiding us in our goal to become an information hub of relevant resources for missionaries across the world. It is very common for Grow2Serve’s founder, Mark Morgenstern, to hear people refer others to the SEND U wiki for high quality learning resources.

Today, it’s all too often that we find organizations hoarding valuable information from those who need it, using it instead as leverage for power. SEND International’s commitment to missions and willingness to collaborate for the benefit of the Body is an inspiration to all who come in contact with them. It’s been among our greatest pleasures to work with an organization that both understands the value of distance education and shares our passion to disciple and support those of us serving the Lord abroad.