Every Nation USA

Staff Profile: Kerren Barker

 

Kerren Barker once told a friend that she would never become a missionary. Now, a few years later she is eating her words after marrying into the Barker family, and working as our Operations Coordinator for Ten Days Mission Experiences. 

When Kerren isn't coordinating trips, managing projects, and keeping Ten Days moving forward administratively she enjoys trying out new recipes and tinkering with them to create a tasty dish. Kerren does have a voracious appetite for unique foods, but also hungers for hearing interesting information as well.

Here's a little bit more about Kerren:

Worst Dirty Santa gift ever?

An alligator head. Thank you, Steve Murrell.  

Motto in life:

I can learn that. 

What should everyone know about you?

I'm not a morning person. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person. 

What's your hidden talent?

I have the ultimate hitchhiker thumbs; they bend back to the extent that I've made people gag in horror.

Ten Days in 2011

Veteran missionary and Ten Days Mission Experiences director, Gregg Tipton, is excited about Ten Days in 2011. He recently gave us the following update on the Every Nation short-term missions department:

 A study conducted by the Barna Group in 2008 discovered that while 3/4 of all short-term missions trip participants state that the experience changed their life, only 9% of Americans have actually been on a trip. Those who've gone on short-term missions trips say the experience increased their faith, taught them about poverty, increased their compassion, and even motivated them to increase their giving.

The Ten Days team — Gregg, together with coordinators Kerren Barker and Matt Cost, both Ten Days alumni — have trips set up and ready to hit the field this year: twice to Kingston, Jamaica; Boston, Massachussetts; Waco, Texas; Baja, Mexico; Mumbai, India; Marseilles, France; and Lima and Tarapoto, Peru.

Because of the private Ten Days benefit dinner, "TwentyFour10," last year that helped raise $ 58,000, Ten Days will be able to launch their first seed scholarship program and produce new training material.

For more information on Ten Days Mission Experiences, visit them online or call Kerren Barker at 615-371-8479 x451.

TwentyFour10: A Benefit for Ten Days Mission Experiences

The short-term missions department of Every Nation Ministries, Ten Days Mission Experiences, recently held a private fund raising event in Franklin, Tennessee. Guests were invited to a dinner at a private home and were treated to music from Natalie Grant and Hope Darst, while past Ten Days participants were on hand to share how their lives were impacted by Ten Days Mission Experiences.

A Ten Days luggage tag doubled as napkin holders.

This past summer alone, Ten Days Missions went to six countries — Baja, Mexico; Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Macau, China; Manila, Philippines; Franklin, Tennessee, the first local Ten Days trip; and Port-au-Prince, Haiti — bringing the total number of trips since 2007 to eighteen and the total number of participants to 658.

Flags of the countries Ten Days has been to were part of the table decor.

While the number of trips that Ten Days and its creator and director Gregg Tipton have been on in this short time have been a logistic accomplishment, it's the fruit from these trips that has made all the hard work worthwhile — changed lives.

"It didn't take ten days to change my life... it happened on the third. I still don't have words to describe it. I feel like I've met my 'extended family' while in Kingston! When I close my eyes, I see their faces and I am compelled to pray. 'Jamaica land we (I) love!'" LaWanna Wilson

 

Past Ten Days Mission Experiences participants who went to Jamaica, Mexico, and South Africa. Second from the left is Michelle Quijano, who after going to Baja joined the Every Nation staff where she works as one of our executive assistants: "Ten Days made such an impact on me that I felt compelled to work full-time for the ministry."

Funds that were raised at the private event will be used to create more training and recruiting materials for Ten Days participants and potential participants; to start a seed scholarship program to provide kick start funds for individuals who want to go on a trip; to fund scouting trips for future Ten Days Missions; and to hire more Ten Days field staff to help organize and lead more trips.

Ten Days Missions trips in 2011 include Kingston, Jamaica; spring break trips to Boston, Massachussetts; Waco, Texas; and Baja, Mexico; another Baja, Mexico trip in June, and a trip to Mumbai, India, among others.

You can be part of the impact that Ten Days Mission Experiences is making by helping launch an upcoming trip.

Ten Days of Summer

Our short term missions program, Ten Days Mission Experiences, went to six countries this summer bringing its total number of trips to eighteen and the number of participants who've joined at more than 600.

This summer, Ten Days went to Baja, Mexico; Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Macau, China; Manila, Philippines; Franklin, Tennessee, the first local Ten Days trip; and Port-au-Prince, Haiti. 

A large number of middle school students joined Ten Days Baja, the largest group with eighty-six people. The group built a church, a house, a classroom, and two outside bathrooms in impoverished communities, and fed 500 men, women, and children at a fiesta.

Ten Days Mission Experiences Announces 2010 Trips

Ten Days Mission Experiences, the short-term missions department of Every Nation Ministries USA, announces a total of 14 trips for 2010. Ten Days Missions conducts community outreach projects that range in scope from medical missions, to sports clinics, to campus outreaches, house-building, church-building, and orphanage visitations, in the span of ten days.

All trips are in cooperation with a local church organization at the destination.

Spring Break Trips

College and university students will be heading to Kingston, Jamaica, Lima, Peru, and the campus of Texas State University, in March before heading to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in April.