We have a team heading to London for a few months! They're selling these shirts to help raise money! Let us know if you'd like one!

​Outreach2012 is an idea that came together starting with directors and board members of the non-profit organization (Network 21 Missions) that we work with. Ever since traveling to London a decade ago, they always wanted to have some kind of presence
m there or surrounding area of London. After we saw that the 2012 Summer Olympics were going to be in London, there was an immediate sense of urgency to start preparing and be there before, during and after the 2012 Olympics. So here is how Outreach2012 started an idea into an AMAZING team that is currently raising funds to go over there!

The Beginning...
Of course being here in the States made it (and still is) hard to get everything figured out. We met via phone, email, personal meetings with several people from the UK area, people here in the States with some kind of influence there in the UK, other organizations, etc about this idea and how in the world do we get started....and we got the same answer from about 90% of them, "That's an awesome idea and we want to be apart, let us know when you get it figured out!" Well, that didn't help since we were fishing for ideas and answers on how to get it started from them! We continued working on the idea of having a team in London during the Olympics. About a month or month and a half ago, we went from an idea to a reality with a team of 7 college-aged people! One Sunday morning during church, my sister-in-law felt like she needed to go to London. This in its self was a shock because she is a "home body", she hates being away from home for an extended period of time. So when she approached her dad (which is the director of Network 21 Missions) he was shocked. She continued to express her heart and feelings and after sharing this with us, we all knew this could be the beginning. To take one step back, when she was telling her dad about this, it came up taking a film crew and filming the trip. 
(Outline of the film crew: back in 2009, while Culture Shock Team 1 was out, we had an idea about filming the trips and edited for a possible TV show that we could be used for multiple purposes. #1 - marketed to TV channels to be used to help fund missions and ministries around the world, #2 - show all the different aspects of missions and the trips, #3 - show the different cultures around the world, and #4 -  encourage people to go on a missions trip.) 

After the filming part was brought up, she automatically knew who she was going to contact. When she got a hold of the guy, from Colorado, he told her that he and some of his college friends were talking about going backpacking in the UK this summer and was stoked about the trip!

The Present....
After it was all said and done, there is now a team of 7 college-aged people that has started raising funds for this trip. This past Sunday night, 6 of the team members got together for the first time and we had our first team meeting. Even though this is a MONSTER leap of faith for some of the team members, you could tell they were ready to embark on this crazy journey. They are all starting to post blogs on their trip blog page (well, we've asked them to anyways) to start getting the word out about what they are doing and also maybe help them raise the money they are needing for this trip. You can read their blogs by going to the Network 21 Missions website and going to the "Blogs" page and choose the team member you would like to read about. We are hoping to have the blogs up and ready on the website by the end of this month, so by December you can start following the team on their journey before they actually go out on their journey on OUTREACH2012!