Mission & Vision
Mission
Bringing students and the poor together cross-culturally to encounter God, share the Good News, disciple and serve others in occupational ministries.
Vision
Seeing students and the poor transformed into the likeness of Christ and discover their true calling.
What We Do
SI does long-term, on-going community development in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Nicaragua through the full-time staff missionaries serving in those countries. In addition, participants join our missionaries on short-term outreaches, semester programs, a gap year program, and internships throughout the year.
Occupational Ministry Sites
Occupational Ministry Sites are locations where we do occupationally specific ministry that correlates with career, academic, or personal interests of the participant. By working alongside our full-time missionary staff in these focused environments – such as dentistry, agriculture, and micro-finance – our short-term participants are able to come together cross-culturally to encounter God, share the Good News, disciple and serve the community.
Our Ministry Style
Our overall ministry style is relational and is therefore centered around the long-term presence of our staff missionaries within the communities where we have a presence. This may be challenging for short term participants who expect to see immediate “results” in evangelism and project completion. Over time, however, not only do we see projects completed, we also see staff, participants and the community transformed into the likeness of Christ and discover their true calling.
The most common objectives for short-term mission outreaches are to broaden our perspective of the world and our responsibility to it, deepen our relationship with the Lord, and share the Gospel with others. We also intentionally strive to accomplish other goals such as:
- Enable outreach participants and the community to discover how God can use them in their occupation or area of interest.
- Provide outreach participants and the community the opportunity to be a part of ongoing ministry and not just a short outreach where follow up is difficult. (This is one benefit of partnering long-term missionaries with short-term outreach participants.)
- Help outreach participants and the community understand the value of meeting real needs and building personal relationships through which the Gospel can be shared.
Outreaches
Depending on the length of the program, participants spend from 9 days to a year working alongside our staff professionals at a ministry site. Each ministry site is within close proximity of our facilities in the country of service. Each ministry site has a different occupational focus, such as agriculture, art & media, dentistry, education, health care, social work, etc. Participants are placed in one of these ministry sites for the entire length of their program. Placement at a ministry site is determined through the application process in which participants indicate their level of interest in each site.
The Organization
Established in 1993, Students International (SI) is a nondenominational, Christian ministry organization. SI is a qualified 501(c)(3) charity and has missionaries serving in four countries throughout the world. The International Service Center, located in Visalia, California, provides leadership, supervision and support service in the areas of funds development, human resources, information technology, finance and administration, ministry and program development, and marketing.
Our Staff & Board Members
Each of our staff has a story of how God is using them to love and serve the people they come in contact with every day. Get to know our staff & board members!
Serve with us!
Whether you want to lead or join a team, earn college credits or pursue your master’s degree, intern or join us on full-time staff, we can’t wait to show you what God is doing in the communities we serve. Come discover God’s calling for your life as both you and the people you serve are transformed into the likeness of Christ!