GO CORPS - Mike Nelson - FEBRUARY 2022

Greetings from GoCorps! We recently had our first in-person staff gathering for a time of spiritual retreat and to begin planning for the year ahead. We were so grateful to have no issues with travel and no COVID complications as our 9 staff and a few spouses flew in to Minnesota from Alabama, Texas, Virginia, Michigan and Indiana. It was tons of fun to be together, play games, walk on a lake and experience Minnesota in the wintertime together! Needless to say, we were very grateful for a big fireplace in the cabin where we gathered!








Sanctification and Glory
The theme for our time together was ‘Prepared in Advance for Great Things.’ We were blessed to have one of our Goer alum be our special speaker and share a series of devotionals on this topic. The key lesson that he taught was that whenever God does great things in our world and through his followers, and we can always find these fruits: his people are sanctified and God is glorified. As we enter into 2022, we are expecting God to do great things in calling this generation to see a different way and to give themselves with wholehearted abandon to his purposes. And it’s a great reminder that God wants to be sanctifying us as he’s using us.

Check out this fun video. One of our staff, Melody, is also a talented dancer and dance instructor, and she had a vision to make a video of the staff team singing one of our favorite worship songs with her worshipping through dance. Of course, it was in Minnesota in January, so the setting of the dancing is pretty epic!
 
Year-End Giving Praise
We were excited to have a faithful donor to GoCorps give a special challenge grant to encourage others to give generously at year end. And we are equally excited to report that your giving helped us surpass the goal and end up with $28,000+ given for year end. That means we met the match threshold and will receive the $22,000 challenge match. This puts us in a strong position as we launch our GoCorps 100 initiative next month. Stay tuned!
 
Praise God and Pray with Us

• Pray!  The next 6 weeks are the main final push for getting in front of students as we recruiting the Goer class of 2022. We are having a hard time doing things face to face because of COVID and other situations.  Pray that God would open doors to the class of 2022!
• Pray!  For our staff team and for future staff.  Two of our staff are battling cancer.  And we’re actively recruiting for new staff positions.  Pray for healing, protection and for new staff.
• Praise!  We’ve recently received our annual Team Leader reports from the field leaders of our Goers.  God is using our Goers and their teams to build and grow the Kingdom globally.  Praise God for his provision, healthy team dynamics and open doors for the gospel.

What’s Ahead!

• We will soon launch a texting app that will help us push video content and 'GoCorps Breaking News’ to you on your phone
• We’ll soon be doing a big reveal re: the GoCorps 100 - what it is and how you can be a part of celebrating this and diving into the work of it
• Campus visits, virtual events and lots of coaching calls, emails and texts

Together for God's Global Work,

Paul Van Der Werf
President and CEO

---