Dean Corbett (left) and Caleb Padgett (right)
WINTER HAVEN, Fla.—Recent high school graduates Caleb Padgett and Dean Corbett have returned from a 25-day missions trip to Niamy, Niger. The young men went on the trip as the culmination of a three-year course called Cross Training, designed by their youth pastor at Faith Baptist Church, Robert “Pastor Bobby” Thompson.
“I started the program because I felt like we needed some kind of measurable and systematic way for teens to take the next step in their walk with Christ,” says Pastor Bobby. The program’s greatest strength, he says, “is in helping the teens to see, number 1, that theology is practical.”
- Learn about Faith Baptist’s Cross Training program.
The last class Caleb and Dean took was a missions practicum in which they chose a mission field and wrote a doctrinal statement based on what they had learned over the years. The actual trip (followed by a report to the church and evaluation) wraps up the class.
Pastor Bobby says that Caleb and Dean were allowed to choose anywhere they wanted to go and that “they chose to see Dave and Anora Totman because of their previous relationship with them.” The Totmans are part of the church’s Faith’s 100 missions program and serve at Sahel Academy in Niamy.
Dean says that the Totmans were “acquaintances” before the trip but now they are “good friends.” He says that getting to know the Totmans was the highlight of the trip. “I enjoyed the opportunity to see what they do every day,” he says.
For Caleb, the highlights came when he and Dean visited a village “in the bush” with two missionaries who visit there every Tuesday. “The missionaries taught on baptism that Tuesday because the people were asking about it. It was cool to see that happening,” says Caleb. Another highlight was how the Nigerians worship. He says, “It’s a lot different from over here. Their worship is very joyful. They don’t sit still for long. Over here, we mainly sit still. So it was definitely a new experience for me.”
Caleb came away from the experience saying, “God really opened my eyes to missions—it’s definitely a possibility in my life.”
A realistic missions experience in a developing country includes getting sick there. Dean recalls, “About a week into the trip, it looked like I had the symptoms of malaria. But it turned out that I had some sort of virus instead. It went away after a couple of days, but the worst part was being unsure of the future and whether I would be healed. I have a new respect for the Totmans.”
Caleb and Dean went on their trip primarily to help the Totmans get ready for the new school year. Dean says, “I realized about two days into our trip that our main ministry was helping the Totmans, but if that was the only goal of our trip, they could have gotten local labor much cheaper. We came to Niger to be more than expensive labor. We came to Niger to get to know the Totmans and to invite God to change our hearts and minds.”
